Review: The Spectrum

If there’s one computer that needs no introduction it’s the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. If you owned one as an impressionable child, you likely — and rightly — remember it as the single greatest computer ever made.

If you had a Commodore 64, you probably remembered the Sinclair’s place in the pantheon of 8-bit greats differently. And you’d be wrong. Sure, the swanky American Commodore had better sound, fancier graphics, more memory and a usable keyboard. The C64 was, by any technical benchmark, better. But it lacked what the plucky, British Spectrum had in buckets: personality.

Loved for its limitations

With only 48k of memory (16k if you were unlucky and 128k if you were fortunate), the ZX Spectrum went on to sell over five million units. Along the way it introduced a generation to new-fangled personal computers and, in so doing, launched countless IT careers.

Genealogists of the technical sort even suggest that the ZX Spectrum and its army of bedroom coders became the foundation of the UK’s now mighty computer gaming industry. Rightly, wrongly — probably rightly — the ZX Spectrum deserves its place as the greatest computer ever made.

Remade in the image of the original

The Spectrum, Retro Games Ltd’s new homage to the classic, is a recently released remake of the original, classic rubber-keyed Sinclair machine. Retro Games Ltd is a company that’s made its name by producing and selling modern and often miniature versions of the Commodore Amiga, the C64, and the Atari 400; the firm even made full-sized homages to the C64 and VIC20.

Open the box, and you’ll find a new machine that is so closely identical to the original that pointing out differences would be nitpicking. The Rick Dickinson design of the original and signature, iconic, angled colour swatch on the right-hand side are all present, correct and accounted for. The only real difference are the words ‘The Spectrum’ on the case, not ZX Spectrum — and for this, we can likely thank the lawyers.

Round the back of the new computer, you’ll find the old audio and TV connectors have been replaced with a modern HDMI port and USB sockets. These are welcome additions and a nod to modern convenience. 

You’ll even find a special, small copy of Crash magazine inside the box. Magazines were, for younger readers, like the internet, a source of news and reviews. They were, however, made of paper, not a mixture of pixels and misinformation. Crash was the best magazine.

Fun and functional

With its focus on games and ease of use, The Spectrum is intended to transport fans of the original computer back to their childhood. And it does so brilliantly. With all the faff-free convenience of a games console, The Spectrum is up, running and ready to play games the moment it gets the sniff of some electricity and a HDMI signal. You won’t, however, find a USB power supply in the box. You’ll have to supply your own and the machine is sniffy about the sort it will work with. This is our only real criticism.

To further enhance the new retro machine’s plug, play and reminisce credentials, the Spectrum comes pre-installed with 48 games. Some are classics from back in the day. Flick through the machine’s cute and delightfully 8-bit carousel interface, and you’ll find the likes of Manic Miner, The Hobbit and Horace Goes Skiing. There are also new games, which testify to the modern Spectrum community’s undying and unwavering dedication to the machine.

And, of course, the games load instantly. You don’t need to wait ages for the computer to load a game from a cassette recorder. You can even add your own games by copying images onto a USB stick and plugging it into the machine.

Physically and aesthetically, you can’t fault The Spectrum because it recreates the original 48k machine’s faults — or character — so perfectly. For one, there’s the keyboard. The new machine perfectly reproduces the original computer’s limp, rubber-keyed unresponsiveness and discomfort. It’s utterly wonderful.

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Fondly referred to as the dead-flesh keyboard, the original ZX Spectrum’s keyboard had only two saving graces. Firstly, it wasn’t as bad as the awful, cost-saving touch-pad keyboards that graced the older Sinclair ZX80 and ZX81 computers. Secondly, the ZX Spectrum used single-press keyword shortcuts that generated full BASIC programming commands. For example, to generate the command LOAD, you only need to press J. This meant the need to use the dead-flesh keyboard was thankfully greatly reduced from four presses to just one.

Continuing the discussion of character (or technical limitations for Commodore fans), The Spectrum faithfully recreates the original’s single-channel buzzer sound effects. Music is just a series of squawky beeps and in-game effects are buzzes. It’s not easy on the ears, just like it was back in the day.

Play some games and you’ll also be treated to the ZX Spectrum's unmistakable signature graphics style too. They’re blocky, basic and limited to only eight, clashing colours. 

A closer look

The similarities between the original ZX Spectrum and The Spectrum end when you open the machines’ cases and look inside. Whereas the original is a now ageing collection of many chips, wires, and numerous components, the new one is a single-board computer (SBC). It uses an ARM processor and runs an embedded emulator.

At this point, purists will cry foul and denounce The Spectrum as an unworthy imposter. If you’re a serious fan, you’ll use original hardware because emulators can be inaccurate and slow. They just don’t feel the same.

Returning to the idea of opening the case, though, you'll have to do this regularly if you’re a fan of original hardware. The very oldest Spectrums are over 45 years old and well beyond their original engineered lifespans. These old machines are now frail and fragile — leaky capacitors will need replacing, display circuits will need modding to work with LCD TVs and memory chips are notoriously frangible.

In short, keeping original computer hardware running is a labour of soldering iron scented love – much like keeping a rakish and rusty Jaguar requires time, oil, spanners, bruised knuckles and a flat cap.

Emulation is then a perfectly valid way of experiencing old hardware and software, particularly if you’re not keen on electronics and maintenance. Original hardware is also very expensive to buy.

A worthy purchase?

So, should you buy your own The Spectrum? If you’re looking to teach your kids about coding, you can program the new machine in BASIC — just like you did when you were young. In truth, though, if you’re serious about education, a Raspberry Pi is probably a better, more richly resourced and easier bet.

You can also buy some very technically impressive hardware-level recreations of the original ZX Spectrum. The glamour-puss is the FPGA (field programmable gate array) based ZX Spectrum Next but these are very expensive and rare.

What about if you’re simply a ZX Spectrum fan? Should you buy one? Here, we’d say yes. The Spectrum is a great machine. Sure, it is, at its heart, an emulator, and you can emulate a Spectrum on a PC or Mac easily. But, the design and attention to detail make The Spectrum immediately more evocative than using just a piece of software alone. The Spectrum feels enough like an original ZX Spectrum to make the nostalgia flow — just like it should.