ZX Spectrum Next - Unboxing

[NickFitz]

I backed the ZX Spectrum Next project on Kickstarter back in April 2017, with an expected delivery date of January 2018. But in the finest tradition of the British home computer industry of the early 1980s, that date kept slipping, though the people running the project were very good at keeping backers informed - emails at least every month, with exhaustive details of the reasons for the latest delays. As so often back then, it was usually hardware that was the problem. The keyboard alone must have been through at least five iterations of prototyping until they were satisfied with it.

Anyway, perfectionism finally triumphed, and today it arrived!

Herewith, the unboxing; click on photos to embiggen:

Front of the box






Back of the box…






…with a list of specs






Inside: a lovely-looking machine, maybe a bit smaller than a Spectrum Plus 3 (remember that?); power supply in the black box above






Underneath: a nice thick manual






Of course, no computer manual is complete without a memory map, or in this case two






And you also need a detailed list of hardware registers






And finally, Jet Set Willy ain’t getting written without a tutorial on Z80 assembly language programming!

I haven’t actually turned it on yet, as that involves scrabbling round behind the telly swapping cables on my hands and knees - something I found considerably easier in the 1980s

So pics of the beast in action to follow once my back is up to it

[woohoo]

As a vic20 and then commodore 64 owner i cant relate to this post.

[jamesbrown]

That makes me want to break the +2 and +3 out the loft.

[NickFitz]

As a vic20 and then commodore 64 owner i cant relate to this post.

I was always an Acorn guy myself, though when I was working as a games programmer later in the 1980s I did the 16-bit stuff (MS-DOS, ST, Amiga). But I learned a fair amount about the Spectrum from my colleagues who did the 8-bit stuff, so I thought it was about time I got into Z80 ASM

[woohoo]

I was always an Acorn guy myself, though when I was working as a games programmer later in the 1980s I did the 16-bit stuff (MS-DOS, ST, Amiga). But I learned a fair amount about the Spectrum from my colleagues who did the 8-bit stuff, so I thought it was about time I got into Z80 ASM

Ahh the Acorn, how i longed for one. But i did end up with an Amiga.

[NotAllThere]

Bunch of kids. I learned machine code on a ZX81.

[TestMangler]

bought the Atari 520ST when it first came out, because of the midi interface. Loved that thing. 16 track midi studio (cubase) on one 720K floppy. Superb stuff.

[BR14]

Bunch of kids. I learned machine code on a ZX81.

i learned assembler on a s/360 jungen.

[NickFitz]

I’d start the school's PDP-8/e by inputting the machine code bootstrap for the high-speed punched paper tape reader in binary, via the toggle switches on the front

[BR14]

bought the Atari 520ST when it first came out, because of the midi interface. Loved that thing. 16 track midi studio (cubase) on one 720K floppy. Superb stuff.

cubase was the dogs cojones.
<i've had a parallel career in IT and music>.
the atari really was a fecking breakthough in bringing digital mixing to small independent studios.

sorry nick, a bit off topic.
i'll shut up now