Thursday, December 15, 2011

Boxed ZX Spectrum 128

If you live in the UK and want a boxed and well-preserved Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128 with a lovely heat-sink to keep your coffee warm, you should definitely have a look at this Speccy 128 auction. It's such a lovely machine...

8 comments:

  1. On one hand, I'm glad I live in the US, because we use the same power and video systems as Japan, which means that it's super easy for me to use machines like the MSX and PCE. But, there's a whole world of systems I'd like to check out, CPC, Acorn and the Spectrum, that are much more difficult get and use. Maybe some day...

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  2. That's sadly true Raphael; but there are a tonne of excellent and very accurate emulators available for the CPC, Acorn and Spectrum computers out there. They're available for various flavours of Windows, Mac OS, Linux, BSD, etc and most of the software for those machines have been abandonware for many years and is readily available. There are some true classics that came out of the British 8-bit era, often as good as the stuff Nintendo was doing on the Nes.

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  3. @ Raphael: I do see your point, but have you tried them voltage converters. They should at least fix the powering issue. As for displays, well, I think there are some -admittedly fiddly- ways of getting thins to work.

    @ Bob: Another spot on suggestion my friend! Emulators can indeed be most enlightening when technical/cost problems arise.

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  4. I don't really understand why, but I'm much more likely to sit down with an actual machine in front of an actual TV, than to use an emulator. Maybe because my computer does so many other things that draw my attention away.

    I did have a Timex Sinclair for a bit, but it broke before I could do much with it. Not that you could do much with it. ;-D

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  5. Aye, the Timex was an interesting curio and not much more. And you do have a point when it comes to using the actual machines... Why don't you search for ways to use the hardware in the US?

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  6. It looks like a little cyberdeck. Yeah. You can tell when I grew up.

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