OT: 25th Anniversary of the Spectrum

It's no exaggeration to say that the Speccy, the Volkswagen Beetle of
computing, is responsibility for many of us from the UK and Ireland getting
into gaming and computing; I definitely wouldn't have the career I have
today without it.

* BBC news report (video): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3681938.stm

* Amusing Flash tribute: http://www2.b3ta.com/heyhey16k/

* Site with emulators and games: http://www.worldofspectrum.org/

* Slashdot article:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/23/1214256

Interesting comment from the Slashdot discussion:

"Living in Eastern Europe, we didn't have access to most western
hardware/software.
When I was 7, my father built a 48K Spectrum from scratch using smuggled
components (the Z80 processor, the EEPROMs), parts from other computers (the
case and keyboard); he made the PCB by himself as well as copying and
programming the ROMs. I still remember the hardware debugging sessions.

Later we managed to make the Interface II (I think that was its name) addon
board and get a floppy drive to work. It was an East-German Robotron 5.25"
drive; we were using 360Kb Bulgarian floppies (sorry, can't remember the
brand).

It was a wonderful machine and it's the way I got into computers and learn
assembler (Zeus ruled). At 12 I was busy cracking the games' copy protection
to be able to copy them from tape to disks. Oh, btw, games had to be
smuggled in too - one network used airline pilots, some of the few kind of
people who could travel outside the country with ease. Don't get me started
with books, it was hard even to photocopy one, as access to photocopiers was
restricted."


--
-pm

http://oceanclub.blogspot.com

"Oh, Miss Pacman, I would sex that bow right off your head. Eat
those dots you naughty, naughty girl."



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