Upgrading from 48k to 128k

GeeKay

Apart from natural progression.

What game(s) sold it to you that you HAD to upgrade and nag at your parents countless times after that point to get one?

For me it was Renegade as I read in Crash that it had once extra level and all this great in game music. Out Run was another game as you didn't need to multiload. The thought of continuity in a game like that was so enticing that I harped on to my folks for months for the upgrade.

Swainy

I didn't actually own a 48k model but my friend did, plus I had a friend who had upgraded to a 128k machine and it was Renegade (the 128k version with the extra throw move) that made me go for the 128k model when it came to buying one.

fog

I'd gone off to c64 land, so I couldn't care less at the time..

but even the c128 had some exclusives. but not enough..

kikstart and last v8 being 2 I recall

zeropolis79

Took me ten years to upgrade my 64k CPC to a 128k model but there was a lot less 128k only games on the CPC (Addams Family was one. It was claimed that Terminator 2 was 128k only but it worked on my 464) although there were 128k enhanced games.

BloodBaz

I owned a 48K and then a couple of years later +2.
It was the +2 keyboard that appealed to me. I asked mum for a 128K Toastrack (didn't call it that at the time of course) for Christmas and was amazed to get the +2. In hindsight, the toastrack was very unreliable and probably didn't sell at all once +2 came out.
Ironically, nowadays, the 48K rubber keyboard is my Spectrum of choice. A lot of +2 programming, I did in 48K mode because the BASIC was faster.

Dwayne Dibley

It was the games that were substantially better (or only available) in 128k, so Taipan, Starglider etc.

With the 128k Speccy, there was DT's Supertest and Cosmic Wartoad (is that correct?) and wasn't Wartoad only a 48k games? Also, am I right in remembering that the first games that came bundled with the +2 were 48k only games? I don't think they would even load in 128k mode.

zx1

I never owned a 48k but a few of my friends did, they were jealous when i told them at school i'd got a +2.
In my opinion the games companies never really utilised the full potential of the 128k, most just put an AY tune over the 48k version, there was only a handful of games that made use of the extra memory such as Carrier Command and Where time stood still (which i still believe is the best example of what 128k can achieve) but there should have been more 128k only games.
I guess the reason for this was sales, not everyone could afford the upgrade.

zeropolis79

I would have liked to see a 128k upgrade for The Great Escape. A bigger map could have been made possible with the memory and maybe switch between a couple of prisoners.

I remember reading that the *ahem* Commodore 128 didn't have many dedicated games due to sales, although Mastertronic brought out a few.

Captain Offensive

It was all the articles in Crash about the special versions of games with extra rooms, moves etc as well as the music.

I still love my toastrack and its that, not ole rubber keys (who is currently in the loft) that is currently sat plugged in to the 32" LCD tv in the living room!

beanz

None.

I wouldn't have put any money into the speccy 128 back then...didn't offer enough over the 48k to justify it...would have got (and did) and ST/Amiga instead.

IF the ST/Amiga had not been around the game that would have sold me on a 128 would probably have been Carrier Command

fog

zeropolis79 wrote: »

I remember reading that the *ahem* Commodore 128 didn't have many dedicated games due to sales, although Mastertronic brought out a few.

most people had 128's either used em for development (cross assembly back to speccy) .. remember it has a z80 co processor. OR for CPM

thingley

I actually got a spectrum +2a just after the speccies last Christmas so start of 1992.

There was actually a few games that I had that were worth buying it for that all came out over Christmas. Hudson Hawk, Terminator 2, Rod-Land, Lemmings (...not strictly 128 but you had to reload levels in 48k if you failed them) and Turtles the coin op.

The main one that got me to buy it though was Double Dragon 3. 128k only and great looking. Over 20 years later I remain absolutely rubbish at it.

I still own the +2a though - reliable machine that I only spent about ?50 on second hand.

saberman

I had 2 48Ks, I got the second after the first had died and a 128K toast-rack version. I moved up to the 128K after the second 48K machine died. So it was necessity rather than games that made me upgrade.

The 128K games I remember being better were, Elite, Starglider and Amaroute (the 128 music was great as were the cut scenes).

As for which is best I love both my rubber keyed Speccy and my 128K toast-rack, both of which I've had repaired. I have a +2 now as well but it isn't the same as the 2 earlier machines for me. I guess it is what you grow up with.

DavidB

I think Elite was the same on the 128K.

Glider Rider had to be one of my favourite pieces of music ever on the 128K - especially as it never seemed to sound exactly the same! :)

stupidget

I started with a 48k in about '83. I seem to remember the TV-Out getting knackered so we took it back to Boots (yes kids, they used to sell computers and not just Johnny's in the 80's) and they promised to replace it. After what seemed like weeks and weeks they eventually shipped out a Spectrum Plus to us.

It wasn't until about '88 that I upgraded to a +2 after working over the Easter holidays for my dad's water treatment company.

I seem to remember Road Blasters running much faster on the 128. I also loved the 128 versions of Glider Rider and Marauder.

I was some what gutted thought that my version of GAC never worked on my 128. I spent ours and ours writing adventures and non of them were ever to be finished :-(

Retrobrothers

I never had any other Speccy than the rubber keyed 48K model.

My first one was replaced due to the keys wearing out (thanks to DtD!) - then in around '88 my second Speccy keys started to go.

I didn't play games as much until '91 when I got made redundant and used some of the money to buy an Amiga 500+

That was it for me - the Amiga was so far superior that the Speccy did not get a look in until years later.

It does seem though that the full potential of the 128K, +2 and +3 was never fully utilised.

joefish

I don't know where my parents got the money from for the original Speccy in 1983/4, but with younger brothers going through school by 1989/90 an upgrade wasn't forthcoming, however much nagging went on. But by then my older brother was off to Uni with a grant and I was able to get a part-time job. Whilst saving for something better a second-hand ST came up in the paper for ?175 and that was that.

I remember being interested in the original 128K Speccy, but it took a while to come to the UK. And before Amstrad stepped in with its versions, I was looking elsewhere.

For some reason I was quite taken by the idea of an MSX for a while - more memory and a better screen mode, sprites, but still Z80 based. None of the advertising seemed to mention how slow screen updates were or how quickly it would die in the market.

Swainy

I think that the main advantage of the 128k machines was a lot of games featured a lot of lovely in game music and a lot of games (especially Ocean releases) loaded up in one go instead of multi load.

Now that doesn't sound like a big deal but playing games such as Robocop on a 48k machine reminds me how much I appreciated the AY chip and extra memory. Same goes for a simple game such as Kwick Snax, the music adds so much more to it.

If you or your parents could afford an Amiga or ST around 87/88 and you thought that there were good games on those systems at that time then good for you. However I enjoyed some superb games on my Speccy up until 1992. At that point, it was worth moving on... Although one of the first things I done with my Amiga was run a Speccy emulator on it :)

Grunaki

My only upgrade was from 16k to 48k shortly after I got my original Speccy. We put it in a chunky 'Fuller' keyboard when the keyboard printed circuit broke, but that was about it. Had that for about 5 years until Xmas of 1988 when I asked for a 128 (most of my mates had them by that point) but was offered an ST instead, so of course I went for the ST.

I actually ended up with 4 128s from about 1991-94, all previously belonging to mates of mine.. First one was a +2 that had a corrupt ROM chip.. The guy who owned it was going to chuck it out, and said I could have it if I wanted.. My Dad took it to this computer repair guy in the paper who fixed it for about a tenner, but the datacorder was shagged (the guy pointed it out and said he couldn't get hold of them) and hardly ever loaded anything.

The second was a +2a that another mate threw against the wall when he lost at Target Renegade.. It booted up to the function select screen but just made a clicking noise. I gave him ?5 for it (that he spent on 50 packs of 10p Pickled Onion Space Raiders which he ate all at once and made himself sick) and figured out that he had dented the metal tray that held the printed circuit for the keyboard, so it was constantly pressing down a key. My Dad & I dismantled the keyboard and knocked the dent out and it worked fine after that.

The last two were from a couple of friends who upgraded to SNESes and Megadrives and the like.. We all hung around together, and one lad was saying that his speccy sucked now and he would probably chuck it out. (I think he had built up some animosity towards it.. His family weren't that well off and he had used it right up until the death in 1993 - when it was really wearing thin - and then he got a SNES for his birthday, whereas most of our mates had had them for a couple of years by that point.)

I said that he'd probably feel nostalgic about it in a bit, and he said no - he never would - and I could have it if I wanted.. And this other lad chimed in and said I could have his too, b/c he never used it now anyway, so I ended up with another grey +2 and a +3 with a knackered disk drive and all the screws missing out of the case - which I made a half-arsed attempt to fix and then gave up on.. I wanted to have a play with a +3, but came to the conclusion that the drive really was just a storage device and didn't add anything except faster loading times. (And all the disk games he had were crap - Gift From The Gods, Mailstrom and N.O.M.A.D. were about it..)

I don't think I actually ever used the +2 my friend there gave me either - The +2a I had worked fine so I had no cause to.. I was really just hanging on to it for him in case he ever changed his mind and wanted a go on it again, but he never did..

And then we cleared out my parents' attic in 2010 and everything went in a skip at the local household recycling centre as it's much easier to play speccy games on an emulator nowadays, and as I live in Canada now I would probably be arrested for square-wave pollution. (Plus I didn't want to pay the air freight on two huge binbags of Speccy games :roll:.)

chyron

Never upgraded.

Got my 48k "Zonov/Leningrad" clone late in '89 -for good grades in 3rd grade - but our tape recorder was faulty (ok for music but not for tape loading) so i've got past "type-in" stage only in '90 when parents presented me tape player -and so no saves thus no Elite etc (but lot of Star Raiders2,Boulder Dash, Renegade, Barbarian - one with pictograms,Cybernoid, Yer-ar Kung-Fu, Rebel Star, Zulu Wars and Dictator).

Around that time home computers here in soon-to-be-exUSSR were almost exclusively 48k clones like "Delta" my friend had - or inadequate for '80s "Intel 8080" based RadioRK-86 versions (!!!text mode only!!!) and BK-0010/11 whose software was almost non-existent then and thus couldn't compete with tons of Speccy warez (as i remember it cost about the same as "garage-built" ZX Spectrum 48, but was rare, only 160.000 were produced, much of whose came to "school computer classes" - for comparision, friend's "Delta" hit 100.000 units mark in first year of production - and it was only one of Speccy factory-built clones)...
Two years later my friend upgraded to (also clone) 128k, but i was not impressed - as main improvement i saw was AY which i gave no importance at the time 'cos it played through same mono TV speaker - and almost all tape games still were "cracked by Bill Gilbert" for 48k (And friend's "full-scale" keyboard was jamming sometimes which was unknown with handmade one on "Leningrad" :D)..
So i saw no real need to upgrade ZX...and then my friend (very smart guy btw - he was 1st in European and iirc 5th in World Renju championships few years ago) got another present for good grades - TR-DOS based Spectrum "Profi" with 5.25 fdds. This was real improvement, and brought not a little piece of envy...which reversed same year when i've got my hands on PC XT clone (ES1841 -"8086", CGA, 2x720kb 5.25" FDDs,512k RAM,1mb RAMdisk - from dad's work as no way we could afford such kind of computer then). Maybe ESka was mute compared to 128k, maybe display was worse (12" monochrome, while friend's was colour one), but suddenly disk-saving (and solid-filled) Elite was there for me to really play, Empire ("Wargame of the Century"),Pirates, StarCon and Ancient Art of War blew anything i saw on ZX while Prince of Persia ,Sopwith, Xenon2, Archon, Golden Axe,Prophecy(Fall of Trinadon) and Airborne Ranger nailed the coffin's lid of my ZX gaming (didn't knew btw that AR, Archon and StarCon had '80s ZX versions 'till WOS emerged.

PS Decided to give myself birthday present - tomorrow i'll know will it be nostalgic 48 i bid for on ebay or i'll need to wait to get +3 when another one surfaces...or -blasphemy! - plunge in unknown and buy C64 i never touched...

Dwayne Dibley

I ceratinly didn't upgrade to 128k for the music. Even AY soundchip pales into insignificance against the far older (but way better) SID.

chyron

Dwayne Dibley wrote: »

Even AY soundchip pales into insignificance against the far older (but way better) SID.

Well, C64 never was on a menu in my area , at least for realistic price ( not even considering cost and availability of software) ^_^

Didn't AY way OLDER than SID?

As far as one can believe WikiPedia it was used in Intellivision (1978), while there was no SID until 1981.

Speccy's strong point was bang for the buck and nice software, not groundbreaking hardware components (which btw destinied it's succes in exUSSR - 'cept Z80 there were no things that can't be done on our existing chips, and Z80 was cloned too)

Dwayne Dibley

Oh , sorry thought the AY chip was newer than what was available before. It was definately an improvement, but I don't buy for one minute those that argue that any piece of music on the 128k is better than Ocean Loader 5 or Wizball.

XTM of TMG

For me it wasn't primarily games that made me want a 128k model, but the rubber-keyed 48s unreliability. I had a 16k Speccy in early 1985, got my first 48k in mid-1986; it broke once so I got a replacement, apart from that I had to get a new keyboard membrane at least two times in the course of maybe 1.5 years - playing lots of games including titles like Hyper Sports certainly didn't help ;)

By the end of 1987 I got my first issue of Crash in which the +2 and +3 were advertised - I liked their look a lot so bugged my mom for one. Not exactly sure when I got it, sometime in 1988 and I'd say that was around the time when multiload games became much more common than before, say, 1987 or so. I doubt I'd have enjoyed games like RoboCop or Bionic Commando as much if I'd had to constantly fiddle around with tape rewinding.