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THE GAMES OF MY YEARS: THE ZX SPECTRUM PART ONE by Mr Biffo

25/11/2015

20 Comments

 
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I was among the last of my friends to get a proper next-gen games machine. 

Or, rather, an 8-bit "home computer" as they were known back then, in a bid to fool parents into buying one for their kids (let's face it, that hollow promise that we'd all be doing our homework on our computers wouldn't come to pass for another 30 years).

My best friend Stuart had a ZX-81; I remember him thumbing through the instruction manual trying to find out how to get "Space Invaders" to appear on it (he never managed to, no matter how often he typed the words "SPACE INVADERS" into the keyboard, or how hard he kicked it against the wall). 

​My other best mate Jon had an Oric-1. He owned two games: Ocean's Hunchback, and a flight simulator, that - if you flew sufficiently high - stranded you in outer space. It took around four or five hours of gaining altitude just to see the screen turn black, and be treated to a few blocky stars and planets. Well worth it. We took whatever entertainment we could get in those days.


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I had to make do with Nintendo's Donkey Kong handheld - which I eventually broke in a fit of pique, throwing it across the living room (the official story was it had "fallen down the stairs") - and a number of knock-off LCD handhelds that my sister's husband, an airline steward, brought back from various iffy Asian markets.

I remember the pride at returning to school after the Christmas holidays and being able to tell Jon that I'd finally joined the club; I was now a bona fide Computer Boy.

DEPARTURES

I can say with some confidence that 1983 was the beginning of our family's very own annus horribilis - 12 months in which one wretched tragedy stalked another.

My cousin was killed in a car accident, my uncle died from complications relating to diabetes, and then my nine month-old niece died from cot death, followed by my granddad just five days afterwards. ​We were close - my sister and her family living across the road from us, my grandparents just five minutes away - so it hit hard.

I'd been playing peek-a-boo with my niece Kimberly just the night before. The following morning my mum received a phone call from my sister and screamed at me to wake my dad: "Kimberley's dead".


The universe wasn't yet done with us however, and I was there once again when my mum took a call less than a week later with yet more bad news. Even though it was discovered that my granddad had stopped taking pills for his heart condition the day my niece had died - he simply gave up on life - it barely seemed a shock. We were used to it by then, numbed by the relentless misery.

ARRIVAL
The ZX Spectrum arrived in the middle of it all, and became a refuge. My days at school were a gauntlet of name-calling and bullying, and the nights and weekends were spent with a family struggling to hold it together.

Because there wasn't enough going on already, my eldest sister and her husband - the closest I ever had to a big brother - had moved to America, and my mum decided to foster a teenage girl. Nothing felt safe or certain anymore. I was 13 years old, and my life had become unfamiliar and frightening.

The only thing I could rely on was the Spectrum. It was the rock I clung to in the stormiest of seas.

But I had company. 


My dad and I never had much in common - he was into football and the army and order, whereas I liked drawing and writing and annoying him. But the Spectrum was needed as much by him as it was by me. It gave us something that we could share, a common interest finally, and the distraction we desperately needed from all that was going on.

MICRO LIVE
I don't remember how I became aware of the ZX Spectrum - I might've watched a demo of it on Tomorrow's World or Micro Live - but I do recall a nagging sense that I was getting too old to play with Star Wars toys. I needed something to replace them.

And so it was that Christmas morning 1983 I came downstairs to find a ZX Spectrum already set-up. My dad - determined to test its credentials as a computer that could do more than just play games - had taken it upon himself to rob me of the excitement of an unboxing, and programmed it to say "Merry Christmas, Paul" against a violently strobing backdrop.


Once I'd regained consciousness, picked myself up off the floor and wiped the foam from my lips, I tore open the two games my parents had bought begrudgingly to accompany the Spectrum: Horace and the Spiders, and Haunted Hedges - a Pac-Man clone which claimed to be in 3D. Yes: actual, poke-you-in-the-eye, 3D!

Except: not in actual 3D. It just had a rubbish isometric effect.

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HINDSIGHT
With hindsight, having played them since, it's astonishing that I got any play whatsoever out of those two games. Haunted Hedges has been justifiably consigned to The Forgotten Bin, and though Horace might've been an early gaming icon, his games were ugly, hobbled, messes.

The dodgy controls, the flickering visuals, all added to the challenge, I assured myself: it's designed to be that way. The game isn't bad - you are.

Nevertheless, play them I did, relentlessly, until something better came along. That better thing was Ah Diddums, winner of the 1983 Golden Joystick Award for Best Original Game. After that, my dad - still taking an interest - bought me the 48k upgrade pack, and Kong.


And it was then that my world opened up. Classmates who had a Spectrum had all gotten the 48k model. My parents, not being rich, had gone for the 16k, but finally having access to all that extra memory meant that I had access to more games - specifically, the games my friends owned.

It was time to stock up on a whole bunch of C90 cassette tapes...

PART TWO...

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
THE GAMES OF MY YEARS: ATARI - PART ONE by Mr Biffo
​
THE GAMES OF MY YEARS: ATARI - PART TWO by Mr Biffo

20 Comments
Antony
25/11/2015 05:34:41 pm

That was both sad and funny. Enjoyable as ever !

Reply
Mr Jonny T
25/11/2015 06:25:38 pm

That was a very evocative article and very enjoyable (if thats the right word) read. This is the reason i love digi and puts you head and shoulders above other sites.

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Toaster
25/11/2015 06:29:32 pm

Beautiful stuff Biffo, well done.

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My Underhill
25/11/2015 07:11:12 pm

Was not expecting that. You get a feel for Mr Biffo's relationship with games a lot more in this article.
Kudos for sharing.

Reply
Penyrolewen
25/11/2015 08:32:08 pm

Ah Diddums. I had that on one of the aforementioned C90 cassettes. No instructions. Never figured out what the hell you were supposed to do. I tried, many times. Any enlightenment Biffster?

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Mr Biffo
25/11/2015 09:58:59 pm

You had to drag the bricks to the top of the toy box in the correct order, while avoiding the killer toys. Not easily done.

Cheers for the lovely comments, everyone else.

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Hamptonoid
25/11/2015 09:25:28 pm

Echo the other comments. Great article, thanks for sharing.

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Kelvin Green link
25/11/2015 09:30:23 pm

Crikey, that was a rough year for you. Sorry Biffo.

My brother had the Spectrum. He would sometimes allow me into his attic room and let me watch him play Daley Thompson's Decathlon.

My first computer wouldn't arrive for another couple of years, and then it was an Acorn Electron. Boo.

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Mamemeister
25/11/2015 11:16:22 pm

Thanks for sharing what was a tough period, it was magical, sad but always honest.

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Hoboerotica
26/11/2015 07:47:03 am

Horace is a bit of a disturbing character, looking back.

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Bishop Brennan
26/11/2015 09:40:16 am

Ah man, what a touching article, thanks Mr. Biffo. I vaguely remember having a spectrum, but I was too young to appreciate it. I do, however, remember having a C64 that could take cartridges too, although we only had one cartridge. No load times!

I could well be making this up though, memory is a funny old thing

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I have something in my eye.

Reply
Kelvin Green link
26/11/2015 05:23:23 pm

You may be making it up, but the C64 did indeed have a cartridge port. It didn't get a lot of use; I think most people stuck an Action Replay in there for cheating, but there was a 3.5" disk drive that used the slot.

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Gary link
26/11/2015 12:22:13 pm

Hi All

My Spectrum Games Code Club book is out now on all Amazon stores!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ZX-Spectrum-Games-Code-Club/dp/0993474403

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Voodoo76
26/11/2015 12:43:45 pm

Unbelievably sad Biffo but as ever really well written. I hope the subsequent years have been kinder to you. I'm sure all of us readers appreciate it when you're so open and honest as you are. Thanks for sharing.

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clive peppard
26/11/2015 02:10:03 pm

Damn, that got me right in the feels. Great Article Biff. The spectrum had such an effect on folk in those years, I remember getting it clearly (i was 5 or 6, so 84/85) but this piece of human reality is heartbreakingly superb. *applause*

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Mr Biffo
26/11/2015 03:07:05 pm

Thanks, all, for your lovely, kind comments. It was only when I started piecing together the timeline that I realised how important the Spectrum was to me. Much more than just something to play games on.

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Stay
26/11/2015 08:35:04 pm

I came into this article expecting a lovely retrospective of your time with the little rubber keyed box of joy. I cannot begin to imagine how that that time for you must have felt, especially at 13, but I can fully understand how the Spectrum became a kind of lifeboat helping you to make you way through it all and giving you a shared interest with your dad.

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Penyrolewen
26/11/2015 11:28:19 pm

Biffo, sorry. My last comment cut straight to the nostalgia nerve that you had hit by mentioning Ah Diddums. I didn't even mention my appreciation of an article about a time that must have been hard to recall, let alone write about. Very insensitive, very "me me me". I can only blame wine, crap virtual keyboards making typing difficult and sheer amazement that anyone actually liked Ah Diddums. Sorry again for my bulldozering thoughtlessness.
Seems we are of an age. I had my speccy in 1982, Christmas too, 16k too. I was 12. Mine broke, my mum took it back and they only had 48ks left so gave us one of those. Back of the net!
I reckon the speccy gave my most formative game experiences. Obviously I've played a lot better since but everything was so new back then, the advances and experiences blew my mind and stay with me. Walking for ages in the snow to borrow Match Day from Stuart Poulser. The amazing animation of Tir Na Nog - which I always associate with warm, windy Autumn weather. Playing Match Point during Wimbledon. I had nothing like your tragedies to cope with, none at in fact, but the speccy forms a huge part of my teens. Glad it helped you through your tough times. I could talk for hours about the fun I had but you do it better. Zoids though. 98 % in Crash. Total shit though. What was all that about? I trusted Crash. How did you guys and gals get on with it?

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Kelvin Green link
27/11/2015 07:58:49 am

The music in Zoids was ace -- it was, ah, borrowed from Audion's "Ancestors" -- but everything else about the game was a mess.

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Mr Biffo
29/11/2015 11:01:29 am

Ah, worry not Peny. Not thoughtfulness at all - I'd rather people took a sense of nostalgia, and the potential of games, away from this series than any of my sadder recollections. I was in two minds when it came to writing about that time, but it was the only truly honest way of talking about what games mean to me, and why they're so important. Thanks to everyone else for your comments too.

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