The 32X was a very capable piece of hardware; however, so was the Sega CD. As you mentioned, it's too bad that both platforms, for the first part, were not properly utilized.

I remember buying 32x at launch with much excitement. After Burner & Space Harrier were so much better than the Genesis/MD versions. Doom & Star Wars Arcade were pretty good too so I was thrilled but wow, within that first year everything 32x came to a halt and I was pretty bummed so I moved onto Saturn & PS1.

It may not have been the greatest port, but Doom on 32x was my first real exposure to FPS games and I was obsessive about it. Coming from the Sega Megadrive era, it was absolutely stunning.

You just reminded me, I still need to get after burner and space harrier for the 32x, they just keep going up in price😂. Nice video👍😎🍺.

Shadow Squadron...

If only sega had made a cartridge adapter for 32x carts for the Saturn, they might have saved both platforms

totally agree with u i lived though this era and the amigas n atari st came later i didnt get an amiga till 92 same year i got a master system 2 in 80s i had commodore plus 4 n that was my 1st computer

The 8-bit market in the UK was thriving into the late 1980's and early 90's. I had a ZX81, replaced that with a Spectrum which I had for a few years (felt like a massive step up from the blocky black and white graphics of the ZX81 - although 3D Monster Maze was amazing.) We got the CPC464 shortly after it came out, and that felt like an evolutionary step up too... the improvements in colour graphics and different resolutions etc, and the fact that it was still a Z80 processor, meant I could continue to learn Z80 assembly. I then got an Amiga 500 early in 1988 (they were like rocking horse proverbial when they first came out) though I was acutely aware of the 8 bit ports of the 16 bit games that came out from then until the 90's. In 1984, the UK market for 8 bit computers and software was only just getting into it's stride.

Maybe 84 in the US but not the UK. I was using my C64 into the early 90's then Mega Drive then Amiga. I actually upgraded to a C64 from a spectrum! Got that Xmas 1983.

Ran my C64 well into 89.

Must have been the build up to Christmas 1981, just hit my teens. Bentall's Centre, Top floor, a computer department, Saw Star Raiders running on an Atari 400 and Cloudy Mountain on the Intellevision and was blown away. 1982, decided I wanted a computer, started working a paper round, started working in a shop after school to save money. There was a couple of dedicated computer shops in town, I saw Orics (a contender) Dragons, Texas Instruments Ti 99/4a, Spectrums (a contender) the C=64 had yet to arrive. I wanted an Atari really, but with the release of the school backed BBC Micro at the same price, they were struggling to stay in shops. The Older Generation of ZX81 and Vic-20 were still in shops as well. I did see a Camputers Lynx for sale in a camera shop of all things! By mid 83 I had enough money and school demands meant I had to end my jobs I plumped for a Spectrum. In 86 I left school to get a job, Atari was dumping their XL line on Dixons and I eventually got my Atari! By then the MSX and Acorn Electron had arrived on the scene but were effectively also rans on launch. Amstrad which should have also kind of failed/become an also ran was doing well with the CPC family. Attending day release college up in London I saw an Enterprise in a shop window off Tottenham court road! The ONLY time I saw one in the wild. Must have been about 1988 a stall in the Epsom indoor market a bus ride away had a good selection of Atari software, stuff that was NOT budget label releases. Other computer specialists had shut down by then (one moved into an out of the way industrial estate and specialized further, the only place I saw an Archimedes for sale!). Travelled all the way over to SIlica shop of a 1050 disk drive and Mercenary on disk. Strangely some of the tourist trap stores near my Grandparents in Great Yarmouth had lots of old Atari 400/800 cartridge games cheap. I was enjoying the hunt. With the specialist stores closing you were likely buying hardware from Dixons, Boots or W.H. Smiths, software from the last two only. I saw the Sega Master system in a the Epsom indoor market and carts being sold but more people buying 8 bit software About the only place I saw it on shelves. I did see in boots a display of NES (including the Robot) the Christmas of 87 but that along with stock seemed to have disappeared in 88. Consoles really didn't really take off until around 1990. I can confidently say the article is talking absolute tosh. In fact I think its click bait.

spot on the move to 16 bit was starting not to games systems , people were moving to adventure games and needed storage and speed as well as a more reliable way of loading such as the disk systems that came with the newer micros i got a Archimedes before anyone had a NES also those who were growing up from 1982 were moving into the jobs market and required a business type computer which many such as amstrad did and of course they wanted game son them as well so bit wrong really to say it jumped from 8 bit to consoles when there was a lot going on after 1985 including risc gem on Atari's acorns and of course the amiga all machines today thought of as gamers but really were business educational and games

The in-game audio is way too loud

When i was a kid in the 80s, everyone had home micros. A few people maybe had a master system, but they were very rare. Everyone had computers. 8bit ones until the ST and Amiga took over in the late 80s. Consoles only took off among my peers with the Megadrive and SNES.

I can't remember what social media platform I was on recently but somebody in a thread was arguing that the 8-bit scene was dead by 1985 because of the release of 16 bit computers such as the Amiga and Atari ST and of course the PC was gaining steam. No. The 8-bit scene was really hitting its stride right around 1984/85 and 8-bit computer sales were INCREASING during that time. Those 16 bit systems were WAY more expensive than 8-bit machines and 8 bitters were mature by this time with HUGE amounts of software available. At least that was my experience in the US.

Great video ! I completely agree, I grew up in the UK in the 1980s (in fact I received my first micro, a Commodore 16 for Christmas 1984) The 8 bit micros were everywhere in the UK and I can confirm that nobody had a console ( not in my circle of friends anyhow). It was mainly C64s, Spectrums and Amstrads ( I had one friend with an Acorn Electron) It really annoys me how the narrative purported by articles like this, alongside the mythical "Great Video Games Crash" of 1983, is deemed to be fact now. I lived through the 1980's in the UK , the crash did not happen!!! I have looked into this myself and for me the peak year of the 8 bit micros( for gaming) was 1987 such an amazing array of titles released that year!

Commodore Plus 4 and 116 models were introduced late into the market in 1984. They were no older systems as stated in the video. By that time the market shares were taken and both systems failed to compete with the ZX Spectrum. I always wonder if production volumes of 8-bits are valid. The C64, only produced by Commodore, has a wide range here. The ZX Spectrum, well, do those 5 million units cover Amstrad's versions, too? The Spanish company investronica which produced and introduced the ZX Spectrum 128 in that market before it reached the UK is not covered, I assume. And there were clones of the ZX Spectrum, more than 100 of them around the globe, especially in Eastern Europe and South America. I once came across a source which stated that Timex sold a considerable number of Spectrum-compatibles in Poland (maybe not those ill-fated US versions). It is impossible to determine just how many ZX Spectrum models and compatibles were built on a global scale.

I would have been 4 at Christmas 1984 but my Dad naively went out and bought an Oric-1 (not sure exactly when) which was quirky but painfully frustrating to use - I stumbled by until Christmas 1993 when I pleaded for an Amiga 600 as the old Oric just wasn’t much use 😢

The UK home computer market did crash Christmas 1984. Warehouses full of unsold Acorn Electrons and Spectrum+ computers. Getting rid of all the 48k Spectrums was one of the reasons for the late release of the 128. These had to be sold at knockdown prices to Dixons and were a big factor in the financial difficulties of both companies. It was the death knell for other British computer makers like Dragon Data et Al. Amstrad moved stock to other less developed European markets. Atari also dumped unsold old computers at knock down prices. Christmas 1984 was also the attempt by big Japanese companies to introduce MSX in the UK. They had to get an export subsidy to allow them to clear all the unsold computers at about one third of the original asking price by Christmas 1985

My first memory of playing a game in a home was a Grandstand machine (pong clone). My first gaming at my home was on a ZX Spectrum and I loved it. Everyone on my estate had a Spectrum of some kind all through the 80's. On estates with more money you found C64 and a few CPC. CPC had the issue with expensive monitors (colour). C64 was a beautiful machine BBC was only found in schools. My primary school had 1 that would be wheeled in when it was your class turn. You had 1 life then it was someone else's go (as in the whole school). I played Grannies Garden and died on the first question (chance). I never seen it again. 1989 Christmas I managed to get my parents to get me a Master System Plus package with Golvelllius and Spellcaster. Safari Hunt and Gang On built in! It was the games and price. I could go the library, rent a Spectrum game for 25p, tape it on my sister's double tape. Master System games was £30 back then. Just too much money and I never got any more games bought for my Master System. We just swapped what we had with mates. But in school, i was one of the first to get a Master System so my Spectrum had more life for a while. Spectrum was very popular even into the early 90s. It was just a perfect storm of price and access to 100s of games you could buy with just pocket money rather than Christmas if you was lucky. Loved all my computers and consoles. But it was all about who else had the same as you to make your ecosystem work.

I have commented on a few bluesky posts about this. It wasnt until consoles had games that the home computers couldnt run that they started to dominate. Personally for me it was around the time of Street Fighter II, the 16 bit computers just couldnt pull it off. I got a snes to play it before shortly after ditching the ST for the PC.

Love British retro gaming beef

I got my C64 on xmas 1985 and the 8-bit scene was really just getting into its stride. Speccie, C64 and the Amstrad ruled the roost. But the best games were just ahead at that point. None of my friends owned an 8 bit console and had no wish to either. We all went straight from the 8 bits to the Atari ST and then to Amigas. Computer games were 'cheap' with huge libraries (being mostly cassette based in the UK) and had a thriving pirate scene that kids enjoyed. The cheap cassette media and self publishing meant that the rise of the teenage bedroom programmer boomed and we ended up with tons of one-man produced games at budget £1.99 levels. All that that never happened with expensive console cartridges. I think this article was written by someone that never owned an 8-bit computer. He has a complete misunderstanding and downright in-accurate recall of gaming history.

Never had one as a child but obviously as a collector I have one now 😊

A fair old effort by the humble speccy for sure but that really is a colour disaster - made my eyes hurt.

It was my first computer (and still have it) :)

It is awesome. That soundtrack too

My very first computer for Christmas when I was 13 in 1984. I was bitterly disappointed with it. A desperate lack of supporting software, poor memory capacity (even for the time), no sprites, below average sound capability, some daft marketing strategies by Commodore - no compatibility with other Commodore machines, a non standard controller port requiring the purchase of an over priced poor quality joystick that fell apart within a month of using it. It came complete with a software bundle of 'Punchy' (Hunchback clone), 'X-Zap' (a kind of shoot 'em up/action strategy game), 'Chess' and.... to complete the torment - 'Rolf Harris Picture Builder' which was a kind of 8-bit MS Paint. Mastertronic and Anco pulled out the stops trying to make affordable software for it but it was an out of date machine before it was even released. I did learn a bit of programming on it though, it had a large colour palette for an 8 bit machine and a built in Machine Code Assembly monitor and Vector Graphics platform. However, my memories of the C16 are largely negative due to my peers having a whale of a time with their C64, Amstrad CPC 464 and ZX Spectrums... and then me with this awful dud. Horrible experience that I look back on with an odd sense of anti-nostalgia.

I was a big fan of the first game on the Spectrum which ai think was done really well. The main sprite didn’t look like the other versions but I think that it played really well. However I was pretty disappointed with its Spectrum sequel. The finished version ooked a bit different compared to the preview screen shots in the magazines and to be it just didn’t feel right to me. It did have a great AY rendition of the music on the title screen though.

Played my atari through until I got a nintendo in 86 or so. We still traded 2600 games around in school but arcades were better and more social. I think the real reason for the "crash" was no great, must-have inexpensive system with killer games. NES fit that perfectly.

As always, the key for success is the software. Very few programmers were interested in developing game for the ST using time to polish the code because of Tramiel reputation and suddenly less market share. They instead focused on the Amiga, which was harder to program with its the custom chips, but they made more money. One example is the fact that the Amiga version of a typical '90s game had intro with "ultra" graphics and sound if you had 1Mb RAM (expansion needed, more money to pay), while the ST version of the game had nothing to make it compatible with the 520ST even if you ran it on a 1040ST. The PSG of the ST was capable of playing MOD music like the Amiga (with Quartet software), so if you really wanted you could theoretically make an intro with digitized music or a MOD music which sounded like an Amiga also for the ST, but it happened only with few software houses. We can say the same with the untrue statement of "jerky scrolling". Everyone has seen how Shadow of the beast runs perfectly on the Amiga and horribly on the ST making it unplayable and the fact is always the same: lazy programmers. If you look at Wrath of the demon which have a similar gameplay, you'll see a (playable) perfect multi parallax scrolling on the ST and a smoother one on the Amiga. Fun fact is that many games graphics/sprites/backgrounds were designed on the ST and then ported to the Amiga because it was easier to use. Bitmap Brothers games were designed on the ST. There's so much to say about the ST that most people don't know even after more than 30 years have passed. The truth for me is that I had both systems and still have and love both of them, they shared the same fate. They deserved more love from their companies, they were clearly much better than the x86s computers. Cheers

Had to give up watching because of the constant background music

How can i change disc of multi disc games ? Like Deep Fear

Maste Piece!!!

Nice but, it looks like Tpunix hasn't moved from version 0.6 in months. I wonder if we will ever see another update.

I was a Spectrum person, but my younger brother had one of these and I remember that when it shipped, they included a new firmware chip that you had to install yourself because they had updated it but not in time for the production run. MGT did a lot of peripherals for the Spectrum, I had one of their disk drive/printer interfaces. The Sam Coupe was an excellent little machine but came too late.

This is a reuploaded version. The audio should be louder (-13db vs -22db). I tried to make it even louder, but the audio was beginning to get distorted on the master, so it's as loud as I can push it. The loudness problem seems to be mostly affecting the KZbin TV app from what i can gather.

ב''ה, worth noting that media specifically called the ST the "Jackintosh" at the time. There was some skepticism if you didn't know all the details then, yet as far as raw capabilities they really were quite comparable. The IIgs really is an odd beast in comparison, but the similarity there is how schools ended up with both for niche or fandom reasons; Apple II users wanted the best II ever and STs ended up following musicians into music classrooms as noted, especially with the cost reasonable enough that most treated it simply like buying the synthesizer they would have been paired with.

I so much wanted one of these but I got an Atari ST instead.

Marketing it as the next "super Spectrum" was the biggest failure in the first place. And compared to the Enterprise which came in 1985 already the specs are meh at best. Never the less a mildly interesting system.

A correction: the SAM Coupe was commercially available from.1989 to 1999, not 1992 as stated in the video. My bad.

I had one of these, nice little machine. Good built-in BASIC. But it was underpowered, the Z80 wasn't fast enough to move that 24K display, especially when all RAM was shared with the graphics chip so you were effectively running at almost the same clock speed as a Spectrum. Sold it and got an Amiga 500, which was much much better.

780kb drives see snaper disks velesoft website run speccy software at full 6mhz thats 2.4 times faster than a speccy .4 faster than a next at 7mhz! theres loads of 128k software too Check out pang bubble ghost rick dangerous sprint n battle zone 3 tetrisi

I wanted one but too expensive for me.

iirc according to the magazines at the time. games like DOF were running the speccy version with minor adjustments and the graphics updated (like with the amstrad ports). in some cases upcoming titles stated they were re-using ST graphics. they also mentioned about how games were easy to port. but how many of the games actually got made/released though was very limited unfortunately :/ I wanted one at the time and as I would have loved to have seen an updated or hacked versions of speccy classics up to the later arcade ports. R-Type, Rampage, Renegade, Gryzor, Gauntlet, Outrun, Chase HQ etc.. for example (the faster z80 would help tons) would have looked and played great on this system.

My friend had Amigas and Spectrums back in the day and really wanted a SAM Coupe.

Did the SAM Coupe ever hit retail? I only ever remember seeing it mail order.

Interesting system.. I thought I knew that era of computing quite well, but I never had heard of this one before.

Thanks for the information

I made a few games on the Coupé. Exodus was the main one though. From there I had a 17 year stint making games