The history of Sinclair is one of pioneering pursuit with huge and possibly unexpected success, followed up by overreach and eventual collapse.  In many respects it's a story of our time in tech, there have been plenty of start ups and dot com booms and busts, some make it and others don't - but they can leave a mark on the landscape and change it for the better.  For me the Spectrum represent home computing for the masses, £129 was not a cheap purchase in 1984, it took some thinking about for an average family - the sort of purchase that had to sit on a credit card for a few months or diverted funds from elsewhere.  I truly appreciate the effort my parents went to in order to buy this for me, I didn't end up working in tech but it gave me a head start as technology played a greater part in most professions over the past 30 or years.

 

More importantly it gave me a passion for gaming that I haven't lost, as I said in my video it's great to look back at this old machines from time to time and remember games like Manic Miner - but truthfully a few hours every couple of months is probably enough.  If I have a spare couple of hours nowadays I'd probably prefer a game of Rocket League, Forza 4 or Red Dead 2.

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The emulator itself is part of the experience, putting a tape in and loading the game is so full of nostalgia - but you can't help but warp through loading times after a couple of goes, who wants to wait 5 minutes to play Alien Syndrome?  Here is the link to the Retro Virtual Machine website, all credit Juan and other for making this such a great product - they do have a Patreon page or Pay Pal if you enjoy the work they've done:

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https://www.retrovirtualmachine.org/en/

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Set up is relatively easy and I hope my tutorial video is easy to follow - but let me know if I missed anything, I'm always looking to improve.

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Until the next one, Go Well!

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