My New Spectrum a TV star??

Yesterday I stumbled across a wonderful shop in Cardiff called the 80's toy shop. Guess what they sell??..... hee hee. Anyway I got talking to the owner about the Boxed ZX Spectrum 48k he had. He said oh that has an interesting story. It was brought from me by BBC Wales, who last year used in a TV show. He mentioned a Ruth somebody or other, I wish I'd have written it down. Anyway, they thought the box was too tatty for broadcast so made their own replica box, out of better materials. Anyway he said once they had finished with it they sold it him back, with the extra box but minus the polys, PSU and other bits he originally gave them. Now, I'm not sure whether to believe him or not, but what ads weight to this story is that the HQ of BBC Wales is only 2-3 miles away from the shop.

He was asking ?30 and I talked him down to 25 and now they are mine. Mwaahaaa haaa. I brought it mainly because all my rubber keys are beaten up looking and this was near mint.

Both Boxes and the ZX Spectrum.
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The Fake Box.
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See its in good nick.
im]60919_1554354731364_1010041921_1595772_5691533_n.jpg.

Oh and the shop.
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Post edited by Scottie_uk on
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Comments

  • edited September 2010
    That would be Ruth Jones, and the show in question was A Child's Christmasses in Wales
  • fogfog
    edited September 2010
    thats what I would have said, it was shown on that tv show.. there was a scene of it being opened under an xmas tree.. so yer it would have been a bit "iffy" if it was a cack box.

    errm I was thinking about getting replacement boxes made up.. maybe a smaller version without the polys (environmentally it's a headache these days) just hard card a lighter one for the outer box... YEP it's not the same, but well I thought it might be nice way of storing them.

    no doubt they have been on ebay like the rest of us.. (I'm curious if they bid on that saturn I was bidding on.hehe)

    scottie, the bad news for you is well locals will think "oh that stuff in the attic, I better see how much it's actually worth" instead of car booting it ;) hehe
  • edited September 2010
    That would be Ruth Jones, and the show in question was A Child's Christmasses in Wales

    Wow cheers, now you mention it thats what he said. I must look this up, it would be great to have the actual video. So his story is credible then.
    Calling all ASCII Art Architects Visit the WOS Wall of Text and contribute: https://www.yourworldoftext.com/wos
  • edited September 2010
    You know I was having a drink in Chapter a few days ago, and my mate said I should call in to the shop 'cos they had a good condition Speccy for sale... I had a few more drinks, and promptly forgot about it!

    At least it went to a WOSer ;-)
  • edited September 2010
    csmith wrote: »
    You know I was having a drink in Chapter a few days ago, and my mate said I should call in to the shop 'cos they had a good condition Speccy for sale... I had a few more drinks, and promptly forgot about it!

    At least it went to a WOSer ;-)

    You know what seen as you live so close some time we should meet up. Maybe you could sign my ULA book tool. :)

    He still has 4 boxed 48K+ ones for sale.
    Calling all ASCII Art Architects Visit the WOS Wall of Text and contribute: https://www.yourworldoftext.com/wos
  • edited September 2010
    Imagine if the Preservation Shop had a shop like that! :grin: How cool would it be to enter a shop and have the same feeling you had when you stared at game selections 28 years ago?
  • edited September 2010
    Well the video is on youtube. Its at 5 mins +.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZS-A08krPg&feature=related
    Calling all ASCII Art Architects Visit the WOS Wall of Text and contribute: https://www.yourworldoftext.com/wos
  • fogfog
    edited September 2010
    6 minutes in.. you notice the lack of the yellow sticker type thing on the front.. :) see if you can get the beeb to give you a letter of authenticity or the production company / shop.

    MIA .. planning permission!! :lol: and more space invaders.. must find..

    greatest computer of ALL time? hhmm ;)

    I'd check the membrane after that bloke knocking the crap out of it also.hehe
  • edited September 2010
    fog wrote: »
    6 minutes in.. you notice the lack of the yellow sticker type thing on the front.. :) see if you can get the beeb to give you a letter of authenticity or the production company / shop.

    MIA .. planning permission!! :lol: and more space invaders.. must find..

    greatest computer of ALL time? hhmm ;)

    I'd check the membrane after that bloke knocking the crap out of it also.hehe

    On the moc box the yellow circular sticker is on the back. I would not know how to go about getting a letter of authenticity.
    Calling all ASCII Art Architects Visit the WOS Wall of Text and contribute: https://www.yourworldoftext.com/wos
  • edited September 2010
    No patriotism is Wales then? Shouldn't they have bought a Dragon 32 for the kids? :lol:
  • fogfog
    edited September 2010
    graz , maybe dragon had gone belly up by then, 1984 .. I have 3 here.. only 1 works... 1 I bought from france of all places

    scottie.. ok , get the shop to write you one on headed paper.

    as for the bbc, find out if it's a 3rd party company who made it.. ruth jones was also one of the writers? so perhaps write to her c/o bbc wales..
  • edited September 2010
    Tell him I'll have the TCR Racing set for ?20!
  • edited September 2010
    fog wrote: »
    graz , maybe dragon had gone belly up by then, 1984 .. I have 3 here.. only 1 works... 1 I bought from france of all places

    scottie.. ok , get the shop to write you one on headed paper.

    as for the bbc, find out if it's a 3rd party company who made it.. ruth jones was also one of the writers? so perhaps write to her c/o bbc wales..

    Yeah right like Ruth is going to know about the props. Maybe I will speak to the shop to find out more info and then contact the production company or props department of them.

    I should imagine it will be almost impossible to get to the one who know much about it. I imagine the job of creating a fake box was farmed out to some lacky, or maybe even printing company that specialises in making prototype packaging.
    Calling all ASCII Art Architects Visit the WOS Wall of Text and contribute: https://www.yourworldoftext.com/wos
  • fogfog
    edited September 2010
    Tell him I'll have the TCR Racing set for ?20!

    i'll up to ?25 :p

    scottie.. jeez.. if ya don't ask ya don't know, don't be so defeatist.. remember she was a WRITER of it.. so the mention of the speccy was scotch mist (or the welsh version)
  • edited September 2010
    I think if James May does another series of Toy Stories he should seriously consider including the Speccy (even though it's not really a toy at all), I don't know exactly what the challenge would be for it? But I'm sure there could be a few WOSsers sneak their way onto TV with it.

    Just imagine Winston could get on there with Spectranet, and RWAP could get on there with the DivIDE, and Mile could get on there and turn up really drunk, or moon the cameraman or something :p

    Although I have suspicions James May probably had a BBC micro, the posh cunt :D
    Every night is curry night!
  • edited September 2010
    I was just wondering who mocked up the loading screens for the TV Programme.
    All double sized text so requries some knowledge to put togeher... beyond Robin's m/c skills I suspect :grin:
  • edited September 2010
    BloodBaz wrote: »
    I was just wondering who mocked up the loading screens for the TV Programme.
    All double sized text so requries some knowledge to put togeher... beyond Robin's m/c skills I suspect :grin:

    I'm guessing the graphics were not Spectrum based, but built using something else and made to look like a Spectrum.
    Calling all ASCII Art Architects Visit the WOS Wall of Text and contribute: https://www.yourworldoftext.com/wos
  • fogfog
    edited September 2010
    prolly just mocked up in flash , I mean you can get the speccy font as a TTF
  • edited September 2010
    I just watched the whole episode/film and thoroughly enjoyed it.

    I'd be surprised if that X key still works, although I suppose my keyboard still worked after daley thompson's decathlon.
  • edited September 2010
    BloodBaz wrote: »
    I was just wondering who mocked up the loading screens for the TV Programme.
    All double sized text so requries some knowledge to put togeher... beyond Robin's m/c skills I suspect :grin:

    And I was wondering why there was the characteristic sound of a screen being loaded (with the even more characteristic attributes sound at the end), yet the on-screen image did not actually change. They probably thought no one would catch that :p

    "Planning permission" has some pretty cool amiga copper bar-like gradation in the background, too. Shame it is MIA.
  • edited September 2010
    Hairy wrote: »
    I just watched the whole episode/film and thoroughly enjoyed it.

    I'd be surprised if that X key still works, although I suppose my keyboard still worked after daley thompson's decathlon.

    Yeah it was very good, I enjoyed it too.
    Calling all ASCII Art Architects Visit the WOS Wall of Text and contribute: https://www.yourworldoftext.com/wos
  • edited September 2010
    Scottie_uk wrote: »
    You know what seen as you live so close some time we should meet up. Maybe you could sign my ULA book tool. :)

    He still has 4 boxed 48K+ ones for sale.

    Aye. We probably should. Hell, I could have handed you the book instead of posting!
  • edited September 2010
    You know, if I had a shop like that, I'd have a BBC Micro (with a Microvitec Cub monitor) as my cash register. I've been doing a bit of preservation work with a Beeb these last few days (the head of IT from our school when I was there sent me all the 5.25in MDFS discs from the fileserver, with stuff I wrote in 1989!) and to transfer data I've been tinkering with the user port. It wouldn't be hard to do things like run POS printers (which are still predominantly parallel) and fire cash register drawers from a Beeb.
  • edited September 2010
    Check out number 8 in this series of pictures ... is that yours, Scottie?? (then I also notice yet another familiar name there in number 9, and others)

    :razz:

    Ahhhh, to be back in the day ... all the way back to 2007.
  • edited September 2010
    ZnorXman wrote: »
    Check out number 8 in this series of pictures ... is that yours, Scottie?? (then I also notice yet another familiar name there in number 9, and others)

    :razz:

    Ahhhh, to be back in the day ... all the way back to 2007.

    Yes indeed. This was at my last house. The setup now uses a flatscreen TV as a monitor, the nice monitor shown in the picture is now used as a second screen on my PC.
    Calling all ASCII Art Architects Visit the WOS Wall of Text and contribute: https://www.yourworldoftext.com/wos
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