Category: Old Computers
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Jumping Jack for the ZX Spectrum
Jumping Jack was released for the Spectrum early in it’s lifetime in 1983, and was one of my earliest experiences of Sinclair gaming in colour. Looking at it now, it would barely pass muster as a free flash based app, given it’s basic graphics and incredibly simple gameplay. But if you consider that the ZX…
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Fruit Machine Simulator for the ZX Spectrum
I’ve always been partial to a bit of a flutter, and I was particularly drawn to the fruit machine and casino game simulations on the early home computers. Due to the relatively simple graphical requirements of these early games, they would often appear as listings in magazines – I can remember spending hours typing in…
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Chuckie Egg: ZX Spectrum vs the BBC Micro
What was the best version of the Chuckie Egg Computer Game? The Chuckie Egg computer game caused a lot of arguments. Back in the 80’s my friend Jason and I would share time playing between my humble ZX Spectrum computer and his much more powerful (and expensive) BBC Micro. Many of the games that we…
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Yie Ar Kung Fu for the ZX Spectrum
Konami’s Arcade fighter conversion for the Spectrum Yie Ar Kung Fu started life as an arcade game released by Konami in 1985, having features that were seen for the first time in a fighting game, including multiple opponents, a health bar and multiple special moves. This really was the birth of a genre which has…
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Bugaboo! retro review for the ZX Spectrum
Bugaboo! Back in 1983 the choice of games was pretty limited, but one that stood out for me was this game – Bugaboo! Written by two (probably) Spanish zoologists (Paco & Paco) and it shows, with the game premise seeming somehow European… The objective of the game was incredibly simple. Your frog (it was actually…
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10 reasons why the BBC Micro was an underated classic
The BBC micro has some passionate fans, but it never really managed to generate the sort of passion reserved for some of the more popular home computers of the early 80’s such as the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Maybe it was the association with the BBC, maybe the fact that it was used in schools, perhaps…
