Your chance to win the world's only handheld ZX Spectrum

Youtube Video Many of you reading this will have had a Sinclair ZX Spectrum as their first computer [or second, anyway. And it was the first one that really worked. - Ed]. With 16k or 48k RAM and a Z80 processor it was the first mass market colour home computer. Now you can win a one-off portable Spectrum built by legendary …

[Semtex451]

Arrr! Could we be having a C64 version mate?

You have a woman's hands, Arrr

[Haku]

http://www.benheck.com/commodore-64-original-hardware-laptop/

I wish I had the space & money for the cool shop tools he's got; 3d printer, huge CNC router, laser cutter etc...

[Matthew Smith]

If I win, I'm going to get a bit thick felt tip and write 'ZED EX' all across the front.

[ISYS]

Am I the only person who stopped watching the video when he called it a ZEE X Spectrum?

[Francis Boyle]

Aye

keelhauling be too good for such a scurvy poltroon. He best be hanged from the yardarm for speaking so strangely.

[Refugee from Windows]

Leeds and elsewhere

Ben Heck paid a flying visit to our office in Leeds. He was careful to call it the "Zed - X" all day. We suspect he got it in the neck from our folk here. He was on his best behaviour.

[H.Winter]

Australian

Having never heard it said aloud I would also pronounce it that way.

[Swarthy]

In order to stand a chance at winning

Do we have to get the questions right?

[MikeyD85]

Re: In order to stand a chance at winning

It's all of 5 minutes with Google...

[Uncle Slacky]

Re: In order to stand a chance at winning

Who needs Google? Some of us can remember history...

[MikeyD85]

Re: In order to stand a chance at winning

Those of us who are too young to remember such events! :)

[Wisteela]

Re: In order to stand a chance at winning

True, but if you're geeky enough...

[Paul Hovnanian]

Re: In order to stand a chance at winning

What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?

[Haku]

Re: In order to stand a chance at winning

You're asking if you have to get the questions right in a compeition to stand a chance of winning?

REALLY?!?

[ElReg!comments!Pierre]

Re: In order to stand a chance at winning

Admittedly it would be funnier if there was a bonus for the most entertaining combination in answers. With a short text explaining the choices of course, perhaps Fry-Style.

Still entered the expected answers (I think) because, well, DO WANT!

[Cliff]

Re: In order to stand a chance at winning

>> Do we have to get the questions right? <<

This is a reasonable question - making assumptions about project requirements leads to waste and fuckups. Many of us are engineers, and as such have a duty to confirm the *real* requirements, not our assumptions. So let's examine the evidence -

The article says "All you have to do is sign in with your Reg account (or sign up for one), and answer three questions." - no requirement for the answers to be correct there.

Click through "All you have to do click below to sign in or create a Reg account, then answer the three questions on the next page..." - no requirement there then. You do have to accept the terms and conditions (fair enough) link is http://whitepapers.theregister.co.uk/tac/3500

"By downloading any of the papers in this library, or by registering for any of the live or on-demand events, you agree that your supplied personal details will be passed on to the sponsor of the paper or the event, and that this organisation or one of its trusted partners may contact you in the future by phone and/or email, with further information about their products and services. In this instance the sponsor is The Register. You additionally agree that The Register may contact you regarding related products and services. You can request a stop to such communications from The Register at any time by signing into your account and altering your preferences."

T's and C's appear to be completely unrelated, don't have any competition rules requiring correct answers, and do not exclude errors or omissions (so retrospectively changing the competition rules isn't covered by an E&O clause).

As such, there is NO requirement for the competition answers to be correct and as such, l answered with the first option from each drop-down and the confirmation page says "You are now entered into the draw. The very best of luck!"

There is nothing in the rules to exclude me from the draw, my chance is the same as everyone elses, despite being pretty certain I answered incorrectly :-)

Engineers are a pain in the arse. Fuck assumptions.

[David Given]

Re: In order to stand a chance at winning

IIUIC, the reason why this kind of competition always asks really noddy questions is because then it's a quiz rather than a lottery; lotteries are regulated by law, quizes aren't.

I suspect that if they *didn't* check you'd answered them correctly then they might have trouble explaining to The Man that this is in fact a test of skill and not simply gambling. But that's assuming that the law makes sense (which is in itself a very dubious assumption).

[Paul Hovnanian]

Re: In order to stand a chance at winning

"Do we have to get the questions right?"

Who approacheth the Bridge of Death

Must answer me

These questions three!

Ere the other side he see!

[Dan 55]

I was actually keeping up with part 1 based on my very limited electronics knowledge and what I could vaguely remember about the Spectrum but then when part 2 started the breadboard suddenly had about 5 more chips and a whole load of spaghetti underneath.

I hated it when they did that on Blue Peter too.

[frank ly]

Can we be told ......

... how many accounts there are at The Register and (eventually) how many accounts were used to enter the competition. I'll eventually be wondering about levels of enthusiasm and what sort of competition I was up against.

[ElReg!comments!Pierre]

Re: Can we be told ......

I assume you want these data to calculate your chances of getting your mitts on the sweet, sweet bo[ou]nty

A good rule of thumb for this kind of questions is "not a fucking chance in hell".

Didn't prevent me from entering the draw though.

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

Re: Can we be told ......

I would have entered had sign-up process not decided to try and squeeze some more PI info from me.

[Captain DaFt]

Re: Can we be told ......

Same here. From the 'Terms and Conditions':

"By downloading any of the papers in this library, or by registering for any of the live or on-demand events, you agree that your supplied personal details will be passed on to the sponsor of the paper or the event, and that this organisation or one of its trusted partners may contact you in the future by phone and/or email, "

So one lucky entrant gets the prize, everybody gets spammed silly.

'Trusted partners' = paid for the list of suckers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Can we be told ......

"So one lucky entrant gets the prize, everybody gets spammed silly.

'Trusted partners' = paid for the list of suckers."

What is stopping you from providing false details then?

Use a throwaway email?

[croc]

Re: Can we be told ......

Snowball. It is 'snowball's chance in hell'. I'd imagine that the chance of getting a good fucking in hell would be pretty good. Possibly even into the over 100% range.

[Mage]

Meh

They want extra bits of your soul to accept an answer. I could make it up I suppose!

But I'll leave it to someone more enthusiastic.

Now to customise my PCW8256 (which already has a 1.44 3.25" 2nd floppy, extra RAM, dual Serial port and Mouse added by me) into a "netbook" using a separate WiFi to Serial port module. and nintendo / console style wobble stick. It also has franken tilt and swivel base. So seriously lacks value as vintage computing artefact.

I also had a stupidly slow 1 bit scanner attachment that used the printer with ribbon removed.

SuperCalc clone, New-word Wordstar Clone, X25 PAD modem SW, for 1987 email via Telecom Gold gateways to Telex and Bitnet. Spice & DTP, Prolog, Pascal and Modula-2 all on CP/M.

I can't remember there being any games.

I did buy a ZX Spectrum in 1982 possibly as a Test Card Generator.

[Wisteela]

Re: Meh

I have a PCW8256 dated 1985, so it's one of the first. I must use it as a terminal to a Linux box.

[Riku]

As a former VZ200 owner (yes, a refugee from the antipodes)

16 or 48kB of RAM? LUXURY!

We had to make to with a WHOPPING (no, seriously, it said that on the ad) 8kilobytes of RAM.

And you try telling the young programmers of today that.

[Daniel B.]

Re: As a former VZ200 owner (yes, a refugee from the antipodes)

Heh. The lowest RAM I've ever had to monkey around has been 64k. Though I still get to amaze the young'uns with my uber-short 14-byte "Hello World!$" program. Arrrrr!

[MisterD]

Re: As a former VZ200 owner (yes, a refugee from the antipodes)

I had an Acorn Atom with 2K RAM, I remember paying a little over £120 for an extra 6K. Memory sure has dropped in price.

[Haku]

Android ZX Spectrum emulator

So there can be only 1 winner, but for everyone else who has an Android device there's always Marvin for portable ZX Spectrum gaming.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.dejvice.rc.Marvin&hl=en_GB

Works great with a bluetooth joystick such as the Zeemote JS1 along with the Bluez IME software.

Plus you can make Marvin load the .tap save games in real time just for the nostalgic beeeeeeeeeeeeeee bip! beeeeeee bugfhwiuehfskjfsshbfjsbf shhhhhhhhh biwouhiwugiwurgu sounds :)

[Yugguy]

Re: Android ZX Spectrum emulator

Does it crash out right at the end after you've waited about 20 minutes if you so much as brush against the case of your ZX81, er I mean Smartphone.

[DropBear]

Re: Android ZX Spectrum emulator

No, but if I were the author, I surely would have included an "insane authenticity" option for the lulz, which (if activated) requires you to hand-trim the "tape head" using your volume buttons during loading, guided only by your ears as you try to find the sharpest pitch, unless you want to end up with a "TAPE LOADING ERROR"...

[Wisteela]

Re: Android ZX Spectrum emulator

I developed great skill in aligning the heads of car boot sale cassette recorders for use on a ZX Spectrum. I bet I could still do it now.

[Chris Stanton]

Re: Android ZX Spectrum emulator

This happened when Ben Heck was demonstrating it to a BBC interviewer on the Friday of EMFCamp.

[Mayhem]

Re: Android ZX Spectrum emulator

No crashes, but it does have a tendency to get on your nerves by complaining all the time.

Seems a bit on the paranoid side too by all the permissions it asks for ;)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Android ZX Spectrum emulator

Spectrum games on a touch screen? Yuck!

I've tried many emulators on Android and iThing devices. They never work. The games simply were never designed for touch screen use and the control systems these things use are never as good as a good old fashioned joystick or keyboard.

Much better to run the original hardware and use the tablet as a tape recorder to play tape images off of the web.

[ThomH]

Re: Android ZX Spectrum emulator (@Mr C Hill)

The relevant Android APIs are sufficiently low level that Marvin works excellently with a vanilla bluetooth keyboard.

[B-D]

To me it is a Zee Ex.

Take a look a look at the teardown again and see how Ben clicks on to the design philosophy.

From that moment on he hand builds a brilliant US nod to an EU classic.

Great stuff.

[Malcolm 1]

I was previously aware of Ben Heck from his various portable console conversions that appeared on gadget blogs from time to time. But I just spent more hours than I care to admit to watching his show on You Tube. Compelling stuff even though I'm my electronics skills stretch about as far as replacing obviously blown components with identical parts.

[David Glasgow]

I am so confident....

I am answering the questions without looking at them

1) Dead Flesh

2) Wafadrive

3) Bugaboo the Flea

And the answer to the tiebreaker is "yes, of course".

Now, where do I collect?

[JP19]

I wish hackers and makers would...

put as much time and effort into thinking of something useful to hack/make as they do into making these pet rocks.

I think the dumbest thing I have ever seen is a digital clock which displays the time as a QR code on an LCD screen. To tell the time you have to take out your phone (which almost certainly has the time displayed as soon as you turn it on) and run an app to take a photo of the LCD so it can decode the QR code and tell you what time it is.

[Haku]

Re: I wish hackers and makers would...

Are hackers not allowed to be creative and have fun just for the sake of having fun?

Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djc8FPHs45o

[JP19]

Re: I wish hackers and makers would...

"Are hackers not allowed to be creative and have fun just for the sake of having fun?"

I think that making something which has more use than showing it to other makers and saying "look what I made" would be rather more fun and satisfying.

Coming up with something useful that you can't already buy for less than it would cost you to make is where real creativity is required and lacking.

[Cliff]

Re: I wish hackers and makers would...

@JP I think the point is that in the making, in the experimentation, in the sheer random hybridisation, you might discover new skills, techniques, approaches, or at least have a bit of fun.

[JP19]

Re: I wish hackers and makers would...

"@JP I think the point is that in the making"

I make electronic things for a living. It started as a hobby and remains so. The hardest part is coming up with something useful to make for the hobby. It used to be much easier when there were far fewer electronic things you could buy and they were more expensive. I know people who made their own colour TV sets for less than they cost to buy (not counting their labour). I made my own audio equipment, I made digital clocks when they were a novelty, I made a Z80 based computer before the spectrum came out.

Today I could not bring myself to make something as pointless as a clock displaying time as QR codes and a hand held version of an ancient crappy computer isn't much better. I stand by my comment that I wish makers would put more effort into coming up with something useful to make.

[cheveron]

And if you don't win ...

a Nintendo 3DS XL with a homebrew card and Patrik Rak's excellent ZXDS emulator works just as well.

[Carbon life unit 5,232,556]

Probably a reason why it's the only one ...

Ooooh!

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh? a ZX Spectrum?

Wake me up when it is a handheld Amiga and handheld N64. (ok the last one is more a console but I don't care)

[raving angry loony]

ZEE Ex?

ZEE Ex? Fucking ZEE Ex? Fuck him with a rusty chainsaw! I will not compete for a "ZEE Ex".

[Deadly Headshot]

"the first mass market colour home computer"?

"the first mass market colour home computer"? The Beeb was released a year earlier!

[Wisteela]

Re: "the first mass market colour home computer"?

But you couldn't get a BBC Micro until 1982, and the ZX Spectrum was way cheaper.

[Malcolm 1]

Re: "the first mass market colour home computer"?

The Beeb was far too expensive to be mass market, only the rich kids had them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "the first mass market colour home computer"?

The Beeb may have been introduced 4 months before the Spectrum, but only managed about 20% of the Spectrum sales.

I think that makes the Spectrum the winner of the "mass market home computer" Blue Peter badge ;)

[DropBear]

Just got around to finally watch the vids - what can I say... calling that 'bodging' would be far too kind; it's the sort of thing one might cobble together on an alternate universe electronics-themed episode of "Scrapheap Challenge". FFS, 10-year-olds have already managed to figure out to how to order their ten-pack of custom PCBs for ten bucks from China whenever they make anything more complicated than a blinking LED! To each his own, but I for one prefer to take some pride in my work and quite frankly, having seen those vids, I have some urgent eye-bleaching to do. Now 'scuse me...

[Wisteela]

Can we see you do better then, oh great one?

[TwistUrCapBack]

AARRGH

It's not a "Zee x" spectrum ..

It's a "Zed x" spectrum.

Bastard

[Steve Potter]

So Ben, your not sure why elsewhere its called a Zed X spectrum?... well over here WE invented the language, and we pronounce it ZED, does that give you a clue?

[splodge]

Zee Ex Spectrum? Never heard of it. I thought I stood the chance of winning a Zed Ex Spectrum.

[Spoonsinger]

What are you waiting for?

Erm, I was waiting for Sir Sinclair to pop and say "Hey! You! No! You can't go sticking my royally appointed name on any old horribly designed product. I could do that myself. Besides everyone knows that a PSION series 5 makes a cooler looking Spectrum Emulator even if it's on a black on grey screen." (His words probably not mine).

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody shut those bloody vikings up!

Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam ...

Which is all I'll get if I enter!

[rajivdx]

Why destroy a pristine ZX Spectrum? The Z80 is still available today!

The Z80 is still available today in tiny QFP package:

http://au.element14.com/zilog/ez80l92az020sg/mcu-8bit-ez80-20mhz-lqfp-100/dp/2113949

Use that, some external RAM, some CPLD for the video controller and flash the EEPROM into the internal ROM of the Z80 and you are done!