Why are we here? (At WoS)
No, not a deep philosophical question about the nature of life, the universe and human existence.
The thread “what does your partner think of your Spectrum hobby” has prompted me to ask something that I’m curious about but I was too shy to ask. :smile:
Why are we all here?
After all the Spectrum is over 20 years old, so why do you devote the time to such an old technology? It has no relevance to modern living, its time is past.
When did you have your Spectrum reawakening? What prompted it?
The thread “what does your partner think of your Spectrum hobby” has prompted me to ask something that I’m curious about but I was too shy to ask. :smile:
Why are we all here?
After all the Spectrum is over 20 years old, so why do you devote the time to such an old technology? It has no relevance to modern living, its time is past.
When did you have your Spectrum reawakening? What prompted it?
Post edited by Lord Muck on
Comments
I've never had a reawakening, because the Speccy never went away for me. I bought my first emulator (Gerton Lunter's Z80, complete with a bunch of Julian Gollop's games on 3.5" floppy) in 1993. My Speccies have made the journey over to Canada with me, and even though they now live in boxes in my basement I still take time to play a few games via emulation now and again.
As for why I post at WoS? Hell, I just like annoying people...
Its for pleasure, its for something to do. Better to keep a mind occupied with something you enjoy rather than sit idle in front of the TV. A hobby doesn't really have to have an 'end product'. If the time you spend pursuing it was enjoyable and made you happy then its purpose is served.
Answering the question the speccy reminds me of simpler stress free times, when my greatest worry was if the zit on my face would be gone before school on monday.
1993, my Atari was boring me, Speccy un-boxed.
1994, my PC was boring me, Speccy un-boxed.
1996, '98 wanted to map some games, Lunter's emu used on PC.
2002 -> Caught the Speccy-mapping bug again.
As for WOS, well there was nothing like this when I had a Spectrum but if there was I don't think we would have been buying all the magazines and writing letters to them and hoping 1 day you would get one printed.
I like WOS a lot even though I am sure some people see my posts and think "Oh god he's asking something again" lol
May WOS live forever and if not for a very long time.
Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
P.S.: That damned computer is still faulty.
An' you know what they said?
Well, some of it was true!
Dont have tons of time to play some huge great epic on my PC which i do like but just dont have the time. A quick blast on Match Point or Manic Miner when i have 5 minutes spare is fine by me
So I signed up (after many years of lurking in the shadows :D).
Because it's fun and very satisfying to take part in this scene.
The original materials (games, mags, memories) can be firmly classified as "nostalgia", but the new stuff (websites, games, magazines, etc) keeps me coming back for more.
It never left me - I always had my YS collection with me, and I think I was only without a Speccy or Spectrum emulator for a handful of months before I discovered the Z80 emulator.
As for the speccy :
1. it's a computer that boots as soon as you turn it on.
2. You can program on it as soon as u turn it on.
3. It's still got software I haven't played / used yet
4. You can still learn how to do new things on it
5. People are still releasing software for it.
6. People are still releasing hardware for it
and it's a speccy.
:)
And as for others who have posted in this thread, the Spectrum never went away for me either. There were a few years when I had a C64 in the mid-1990s, but I always had my Speccy hooked up to my portable telly ready for a quick blast on 3D-Deathchase.
Then I discovered emulation back in 1996 and never looked back. I found WOS long before I registered in the forums.
Why am I here? Because it makes me feel happy.
https://twitter.com/bobsstuffgames
https://www.facebook.com/bobs.stuff
http://www.bobs-stuff.co.uk
Cos I'm stuck in the 80's and retro is the only thing that does it for me...
I then whent away for 6 months. Before comming back and being a prolific poster.
I cant remember what brought me back now, however, I soon realised what a nice and fun community there was here. My warmth for WOS and the Sinclair sceene as a whole has been growing ever since.
Because it's fun. That's all. Nothing deeper.
Mainstream computing, in general, is no longer fun. Thick layers of XML, forty five layers of abstraction (did you know it takes Windows 7 million machine instructions just to start a process?), and screenfuls of code just to get things set up so you can plot an arbitrary pixel on the screen, restrictive licensing agreements and even the most trivial software being 'super seekrit',. (This is why I won't run Microsoft software at home, because Windows isn't fun because of this, and it's utterly closed. The Speccy, by contrast, had the Complete Spectrum ROM disassembly very early on).
The Spectrum by contrast is simple. You go straight to the raw iron. In fact it's elegant in its simplicity. Some people got frustrated with its shortcomings, because the hardware is so simple, but I see beauty in this simplicity - which gave quite a capable computer we could actually afford.
I have a little radio controlled electric helicopter, too - the tiny little thing is a real helicopter, with a swashplate, collective pitch, tail rotor, and just like a full scale helicopter is an utter bastard to fly and needs constant maintenance - I probably work on it almost as much time as I get to fly it. It has no relevance to modern living, either. It's just fun.
I also built a Z80 based single board computer last year. That was just for fun, too. It even has a nixie tube display I can attach to it, and nixie tubes were obsolete in 1970, but they look really nice.
And as Scottie said, the scene.
And what people are doing with the humble Speccy, too. Many of the demos are awesome.
To be honest I don't know.
In 1992 when I got PC, I gave my Spectrum away and forgot about it , just like about another several million Spectrum users who used to play with Speccy but moved to more modern computers.
In 2002 I discovered WOS and got involved with Spectrum again. I don't know why it happened.
I hope you're not dissing model trains! :p
I never had a speccy reawakening, cause I wasn't even born when the speccy was popular. I just happened to stumble across a +3 at a car boot sale for 50p, and loving 80s stuff bought it. I found WoS when I looked on google to find out WTF I'd just bought! :D
errrrrrrrrm
wrong forum
Um, yes, that too......
(At least VISTA does regularly, thinking of replacing it by Linux).
I also like the MINIGAMECOMPO and I wonder what a minigame would be on a PC-scale?
I am still finding new things within the ZX Spectrum as in the ONELINER-threads like the READ A : DATA RND*3 solution.
At last: It looks like the meetings in Holland are comming to an end.
So this forum must become the digital replacement of it. :(