Retro Gaming & Computers.

I've got an Xbox Series X for the latest & "greatest" games, but over the last few months I've unintentionally started a small collection of "retro" computers.

First up, I bought "The Spectrum". This is a recreation of the good old Sinclair ZX Spectrum which I had when I was 13 or 14. Unfortunately my original Speccy died after 8 or 9 years service and at the time it didn't seem worth the bother to repair it...hindsight is wonderful thing etc. It's beautifully made little machine and is virtually identical to the Classic Spectrum, at least on the outside. I've been indulging in the occasional blast of Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, JetPac etc in moments of boredom

Then I started thinking that I never had a Commodore 64 as when the Speccy died I replaced it with an Amiga 1200 (more of that later) so I did some digging and discovered that Retro Games Ltd who made "The Spectrum" also did a "The C64"...you guessed it, a Commodore 64 recreation. These are 5 or 6 years old now but I found some new stock on Amazon and snapped one up. It's a fairly recent arrival and I've been busy with other things so I've only briefly dabbled in this new/old world of Commodore 64 fun & games

Now, back to the Amiga 1200......

Retro Games Ltd are recreating this beast too ("The A1200"), so I've got a pre-order in on Amazon but the release date is June 2026! However a couple of weekends ago I had the family round for lunch and my Brother In Law spotted The C64 & Spectrum in the unit under the TV.

"Oh, your old Amiga 1200 is in our loft, do you want it back for the new collection" he said. I'd totally forgot that I gave it to my nephew when I bought my first PC years ago. I assumed it had gone faulty and I'd binned it!

So I'm picking it up tonight and I'll strip it down and see what state it's in before I send it off to have the Capacitors replaced (they leak like a bastard) and a few other upgrades done.

Anyone else into this nonsense? Feel free to shout up if you are

Still have my old C64 and a Goldeneye N64 boxed up in a cupboard and my sisters old Atari somewhere. I did have my original PS1, but it was in the garage and the box got damp and covered the thing in mould, I was a little bit heartbroken as it wasn't worth saving. My PS2 is still in good working order though.

I always regretted not getting a Mega Drive or SNES, I've seen the mini ones on Amazon and I am tempted. Might look again in the new year.

Anyone tried the new version of the Spectrum? I remember the ones we had all eventually blew up!! (well shorted out, is probably a better description!!)? I always think there were far more C64/Amiga games available and never really worked out why, but can only assume both the C64 & Amiga were far better graphic - wise or it took far longer to get games on those systems ported over to Spectrum and was probably a lot of work programming wise.
I still have my Xbox 360 and find it harder now to find games for it.

Quite a coincidence this thread should crop up now as I unearthed some old gaming stuff last month whilst looking for something in the loft. I knew it was up there, but couldn't remember exactly what I had. Found a Sony Mega Drive in it's original box & another box which contained a Sinclair ZX Spectrum & ZX Spectrum +. Fingers crossed they are all in working order.
The plan is to start up some gaming nights, I'm particularly interested in how some of the younger generation in my family take to the retro games. I'm not even sure their attention span will hold long enough to get to actually playing the games. The sight & sound of loading a game seemed to play a part in building the excitement, especially when it was a new game.

The Beast is back.



It's a good bit more "yellow" than it looks in the photo, this is down to the plastic discolouring, not because anyone has been smoking near it

The place I plan to use to replace the capacitors & do a few other mods is closed for Christmas now so I'll take the chance to open it up, see what condition the board is in and give it a good clean.

(Yesterday 19:10 )Boomerangutangangbang Wrote:  The plan is to start up some gaming nights, I'm particularly interested in how some of the younger generation in my family take to the retro games. I'm not even sure their attention span will hold long enough to get to actually playing the games. The sight & sound of loading a game seemed to play a part in building the excitement, especially when it was a new game.

The beauty (or not, depending on your POV) of the recreated version is that you can choose instant loading from a USB Stick or set it to mimic the old loading process complete with coloured lines & sound effects

I hope yours are all in working order. Just beware that like the Amiga 1200 the internals can simply fail with time even if it hasn't been used, There are plenty of places that can recondition them and it's well worth doing if they're in generally good condition.

(Yesterday 19:10 )Boomerangutangangbang Wrote:  Quite a coincidence this thread should crop up now as I unearthed some old gaming stuff last month whilst looking for something in the loft. I knew it was up there, but couldn't remember exactly what I had. Found a Sony Mega Drive in it's original box & another box which contained a Sinclair ZX Spectrum & ZX Spectrum +. Fingers crossed they are all in working order.
The plan is to start up some gaming nights, I'm particularly interested in how some of the younger generation in my family take to the retro games. I'm not even sure their attention span will hold long enough to get to actually playing the games. The sight & sound of loading a game seemed to play a part in building the excitement, especially when it was a new game.

Tread carefully when attempting to use as TD said after so many years in the loft the internals may not be the best condition and I would get them both looked at internally before plugging them in.

(Yesterday 19:40 )Tumble_Drier Wrote:  {snip}

I know I wouldn't even attempt to do anything internally and would leave that to someone else who knew what was needed. Just hope your isn't too badly damaged in any way TD. I have played and enjoyed the old spectrum games posted on the Internet Archive site. and have been reading about people with the new one experiences on FB and one area that was discussed was movement and controllers. I think someone they had managed to get movement on their one working using a PS5 control pad. I know the original the joystick we had back then used a Kempston
Interface was it the same for the Amiga?

^I can do it myself (I'm an Electrician) but my time is worth a hell of a lot more than it would cost to pay someone who does it regularly. A full replacement of the Capacitors with quality parts that won't leak is £60....also it's been a while since I actually did any soldering so I'd need something to practice on first.

Also also, I hate soldering

The Amiga uses the good old 9 Pin D-Sub connector for Joysticks which is the same as the Atari 2600 console. I believe USB adapters are available but I'll take look at what kind of mods are available these days once it's in a usable condition.

Well here's the other 2/3 of the collection so far...

"The C64"


"The Spectrum"


I can't comment on how The C64 feels v the original as I never owned one, but The Spectrum is absolutely spot on. The wonderful dead feeling of the rubber keys took me back 40 years