Sinclair ZX Spectrum

The Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2A



It took me until 1991 to finally move on from the TI-99/4A, despite it being about ten years old at that point. Although I was pushing to get a NES at the time (Yes, I know, consoles... specially designed for idiots who can't use a keyboard), my wise mother indicated that I was getting a computer, something that could do more than just play games, an educational machine as well as a games machine. The decision was taken, and the package purchased was the 6-game Light Gun package, including Operation Wolf, Bullseye and other rather surprisingly good games. In the end, it turned out to be a fantastic choice, and in my time as a Spectrum owner, I experienced MANY classic games. Although, it would seem I missed out on many earlier classics too.

Your Sinclair magazine

I became a regular reader of the superb magazine "Your Sinclair", and I would say it was one of the single biggest influences on my writing style, introducing me to wonderful words like "crap", "brillo", "yibble" and "blimey". I remained a regular reader until the magazine finally met its demise, and am a proud owner of the last ever issue.

I was also the owner of OCP Art Studio and the Kempston Mouse, which was a fairly decent art package despite the graphical limitations of the hardware (16 colours, and only 2 colours per character square), so in reality, the Spectrum truly was quite a versatile piece of kit, and it did seem as though the graphical limitations were embraced so as to produce high quality action games... well, mostly. No system would get away with having NO duffer titles!

Even more surprising perhaps, are the titles that appeared AFTER the death of the Spectrum... including Prince of Persia!