With hindsight, the machine lacked the RAM ( a typical program would need to fit in only around 20 kB once display memory is subtracted ) and processing power to take on the prevailing Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64.

This gives the effect of a simple toggle speaker similar to that seen in the 48 kB Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

Although not as well supported by the biggest software publishers as rivals like the Commodore 64 and Sinclair ZX Spectrum, a good range of games were available for the Electron.

One nibble of such a byte then controlled the foreground color, and the other nibble controlled the background color, a system very similar to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, in fact in the 256x192 mode the display mode was virtually identical to the video of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, where it successfully established itself primarily in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and the German-speaking parts of Europe.

* ATM ( computer ), a ZX Spectrum clone, developed in Moscow in 1991

On the Sinclair ZX Spectrum it is accessed by and.

Ports of the game were released for the Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Amiga, Atari ST, MSX, Amstrad CPC, Sharp X68000, PC ( MS-DOS, 1989 and 1996 ), Apple II, FM Towns Marty, Sega Master System, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Nintendo Entertainment System, Famicom Disk System, Sega Game Gear, mobile phone ( Sprint PCS ), Texas Instruments TI-8x series of calculators and UltraCade's Taito Arcade Classics.

Category: ZX Spectrum games

* GDOS and G + DOS, for the + D and DISCiPLE disk interfaces for the ZX Spectrum.

In the private home computer market, where games were a significant driver, the Dragon suffered due to its graphical capabilities, which were inferior to contemporary machines such as the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and BBC Micro.

Garfield: Big Fat Hairy Deal is a 1987 video game for the Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and the Amiga based on the comic strip.

Both had been on the design team for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

* Leningrad ( computer ), ZX Spectrum clone

* Lojix on the ZX Spectrum is clearly derived from pentomino, though it uses a non-standard set of 20 blocks and a 10 * 10 box.

The Sinclair ZX Spectrum version of R-Type was awarded 9 / 10 in the January 1989 issue of Your Sinclair

Category: ZX Spectrum games

The Sinclair QL ( for Quantum Leap ), was a personal computer launched by Sinclair Research in 1984, as the successor to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

Microdrives had been introduced for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum in July 1983, although the QL used a different logical tape format.

Physically, the QL was the same black colour as the preceding ZX81 and Sinclair ZX Spectrum models, but introduced a new angular styling theme and keyboard design which would later be seen in the ZX Spectrum +.

The ZX Spectrum + 2 power supply was a grey version of the ZX Spectrum + and 128 power supply.

The ZX Spectrum + 2A was a variant of the Spectrum + 3 housed a black version of the Spectrum + 2 case mouldings.

In April the ZX Spectrum was launched at £ 125 for the 16 KB RAM version and £ 175 for the 48 kB version.

A computer game version of Yes, Prime Minister was released in 1987 for the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum.

image: Bloodwych in-game screenshot ( ZX Spectrum ). png | Single player mode on the 8-bit ZX Spectrum version.

A version of the game for the ZX Spectrum computer was released in 1985.

The ZX Spectrum version fared well amongst its respective magazines.

Another variant of this method — most famously used on the ZX Spectrum version of Jet Set Willy — was a card with color sequences at each grid reference that had to be entered before starting the game.

An unofficial ZX Spectrum version was made by Russian coders Piter in 1991 The Pelican VG Pocket offers a clone called " Jewel Master " that adds the ability to rotate columns horizontally like Super Columns.

SAM ports included Elite ( nothing more than the ZX Spectrum 48K version repackaged onto floppy disk ), Prince of Persia, Manic Miner, Lemmings and Splat !.

The first screen of the ZX Spectrum version

The ZX Spectrum version was voted the 16th best game of all time in a special issue of Your Sinclair magazine in 2004.

The ZX Spectrum version of The Bard's Tale, released in 1988, was favorably received.

The ZX Spectrum version of the game didn't include graphics.

The ZX Spectrum version was a bestseller in the Gallup charts ,< ref >

The ZX Spectrum version was placed at number 67 in the Your Sinclair official top 100, with reviewers praising the visceral sound effects.

Miner Willy in the Cold StoreFrom the ZX Spectrum version

The ZX Spectrum version was voted the 6th best game of all time in a special issue of Your Sinclair magazine in 2004.

Jet Set Willy: The Final Frontier, an expanded version for the Amstrad CPC, was later converted back to the ZX Spectrum and released as Jet Set Willy II.

Krzysztof Dudek ported the original ZX Spectrum code to the 8-bit Atari in 2007, creating a much more authentic version of the game than the Tynesoft version, but kept the Rob Hubbard soundtrack.

The Jupiter ACE was new to the market and the designers couldn't afford to use an uncommitted logic array ( ULA ), a design approach then gaining popularity in other computers ( such as the ZX 81 ) to reduce component count, because these weren't economical in small quantities.

Apart from its reliability issues, the target business market was becoming wedded to the IBM PC platform, whilst the majority of ZX Spectrum owners were uninterested in upgrading to a machine which had a minimal library of games.

The same slot bus was continued on the ZX81, and later the ZX Spectrum, which encouraged a small cottage industry of expansion devices, including memory ( Sinclair produced RAM expansion packs for the ZX80: the original ZX80 RAM Pack held either 1, 2 or 3 KB of static RAM ; a later model held 16 KB, using dynamic RAM chips ( DRAM )), printers, and even floppy drives.

Referred to during development as the ZX81 Colour and ZX82, the machine was launched as the ZX Spectrum by Sinclair to highlight the machine's colour display, compared with the black-and-white of its predecessor, the ZX81.

The Spectrum was ultimately released as eight different models, ranging from the entry level model with 16 kB RAM released in 1982 to the ZX Spectrum + 3 with 128 kB RAM and built in floppy disk drive in 1987 ; together they sold in excess of 5 million units worldwide ( not counting numerous clones ).

The ZX Spectrum character set was expanded from that of the ZX81, which did not feature lower-case letters.

A last minute bug in the ULA as designed meant that the keyboard did not always scan correctly, which was rectified by a " dead cockroach " ( a small circuit board mounted upside down next to the CPU ) for " Issue 1 " ZX Spectrums.

Planning of the ZX Spectrum + started in June 1984, and the machine was released in October the same year.

The appearance of the ZX Spectrum 128 was similar to the ZX Spectrum +, with the exception of a large external heatsink for the internal 7805 voltage regulator added to the right hand end of the case, replacing the internal heatsink in previous versions.

The ZX Spectrum + 2 was Amstrad's first Spectrum, coming shortly after their purchase of the Spectrum range and " Sinclair " brand in 1986.

The machine featured an all-new grey case featuring a spring-loaded keyboard, dual joystick ports, and a built-in cassette recorder dubbed the " Datacorder " ( like the Amstrad CPC 464 ), but was in most respects identical to the ZX Spectrum 128.

This was not a major issue however, as the + 2 boasted a menu system, almost identical to the ZX Spectrum 128, where one could switch between 48k BASIC programming with the keywords, and 128k BASIC programming in which all words ( keywords and otherwise ) must be typed out in full ( although the keywords are still stored internally as one character each ).

The ZX Spectrum + 3 looked similar to the + 2 but featured a built-in 3-inch floppy disk drive ( like the Amstrad CPC 6128 ) instead of the tape drive, and was in a black case.

The ZX Interface 1 was incompatible due to differences in ROM and expansion connector ; therefore it was not possible to connect and use the Microdrive units.