The Sinclair ZX Spectrum: A Mini-Documentary

[@krige]

I have started programming with a ZX Spectrum 48K in 1984, I received it as Christmas gift when I was 9 years old. I then later got a PhD in computer engineering and now I am a software developer for a company operating worldwide.

[@MarcKloos]

5 million units sold, _excluding_ the many clones in Brazil, Argentina and especially East Europe/Soviet Union!

[@johnd6487]

I was thinking the other day, it’s a shame we’ll never know how many clone machines were made, and how Spectrum sales really stacked up against the others

[@johnd6487]

Wow.. watching you type in that line of code took me straight back to afternoons in my bedrooms, taking it in turns with my mother, one of us laid out on the bed reading the listings out of Sinclair Programs magazine while the other sat hunched over the rubber keyed monster on the little computer table my dad built, laboriously typing them in

[@zBijs]

Clive Sinclair died today at the age of 81. Thank you Sir!

[@TechGuruDirect]

So sad! But, then again, he lived doing what he loved. He will be remembered.

[@alien8r33d]

19:58 The Spectrum+ was simply a 48k Spectrum with the new keyboard. You could buy the keyboard and make your existing Spectrum into a '+', which is what I did. At the same time, the rubber key Spectrum was replaced in stores with the Spectrum+ with is a new case with the same guts. There was one extra, a reset button in the side.

[@wsiquara]

Tenho um dois Clones Brasileiros o TK90X e um TK85 (Zx81) nos anos 80 essas máquinas fizeram muito sucesso por aqui !

[@olegdepapa]

very good job w this

[@gregskuza7166]

Cmon man, average game loading time is less than 5 minutes for 40kb data and 6kb loading screen not 15 minutes!

[@johnd6487]

I dunno.. he might be including all the times the load fell over and you had to start again 😂

[@nickolasgaspar9660]

in your comparison table you forgot to list the oldest and best 8bit machine created by Jay Miner.

[@peter486]

Loved the video

[@antonyshipley7552]

I think you actually got the mic and ear the wrong way round, these were labelled on where you needed to connect them i.e. the spectrum actually listened on the ear and output to the mic, because this is where you would connect them on the cassette player.

[@macrui]

No need to type space before commands. The command tokens had their own spaces included.

[@jesusgonzales3691]

where can I sell my sinclair computer

[@johnwilliams7999]

The good old days of the speccy

[@dennislindqvist5461]

Good summary. But you really needs to invest in a descent microphone. Crappy sound often destroys an otherwise really good video. Adrian Black for example has a really good setup. Ken Heron also has very good sound.

[@ZaPpaul]

Oddly the sound ports on the Spectrum were marked EAR for input and MIC for output. This was because cassette tape players could then be used EAR to EAR. Not ideal to anyone that was used to these markings on devices that usually meant Ear for Output.

[@muratkoray4302]

Tape loading error :))))

[@Mr.1.i]

massive 16kb

[@johnny5805]

"Underpowered" ?? It's CPU ran 3.5x faster than the genuinely underpowered C64 !

[@zxspectrum16KB]

Underpowered 6kb video ram with 768 colour bytes and 3.5mhz80 look at all the 3d vector graphics programs they're all way better on the speccy