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Spectrum Vega coming out

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barythrin

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Anyone else see this? I can't remember if it was just popular on youtube or perhaps it guided me to it. Spectrum Vega. Sort of a joystick version of the ZX.

Not that many are going to be made so it will be curious how sales end up. I believe the 1000 they're making are selling for £100.

Ah .. lol ok so if I actually read the article I'm posting .. the first 1000 are already claimed. BUT they'll start making them in batches of 10,000 after this and perhaps lower the price. The first 1000 were a limited edition release.

So.. still, anyone here getting one?
 
No.

Reasons?

(1) Price. If you don't have one, you can still buy a real Spectrum in working order for a hell of a lot less than 100 pounds. The Vega comes with hundreds (more than a thousand?) games which undoubtedly contribute to the price but how many of them do you really want? There are perhaps 30 really outstanding Spectrum games.

(2) No physical keyboard. Apparently it will have an on-screen keyboard. Since it doesn't have a screen itself, therefore no touch-screen, presumably that means you have to pick the letters you type by stepping the cursor around the on-screen keyboard with the joypad until you get the letter you want. Try playing ANY game which uses lots of keys or has intensive keyboard input, such as Flight Simulator (Digital Integration) , Lords Of Midnight (Beyond) or ANY text adventures (eg, any by Level 9) using this system. Impossible? I think so.
 
I am hoping this thing has some mod-a-bility, like the C64 DTV. At least then we can add a proper keyboard, joysticks etc.

The idea of having a speccy that can play any game, with modern TV connectors / good vid quality, reliability and extremely low power is quite appealing. But as Siriushardware says, the price is silly at the current level.
 
This a missed opportunity I think , if a full keyboard had been added then yes , maybe

Is it 128k version too?
 
Well, it came out. Did anyone actually buy one?

I've read a few reviews of both the Vega and the tortuously named 'Recreated ZX Spectrum' and have come to the conclusion that your best buy would be a real Spectrum, plus some modern fast-loading mass storage solution which would enable you to have all the games on World Of Spectrum (and a few that aren't there but can doubtlessly be found elsewhere) on it.

The Vega's unforgivable downfall is that it does not have a full original Spectrum keyboard, so games which need near-instant access to any one of nearly all of the keys (Fighter Pilot) or the ability to type a word in the same time as it takes to say it (Any text adventure) are effectively unplayable on it. Nor does it have a port for a proper switch-joystick which means that diagonal moves could be very hard to nail with those buttons.

This is a shame because it comes -so- close otherwise, particularly with its very large included library of games and the ability to use standard (presumably .sna or .tzx) files on a memory card. The Vega with a full original Spectrum case and keyboard would be a formidable temptation indeed for, say, £60-£70 pounds. But definitely not in its current form or at its current price.

Unfortunately, since neither the Vega nor the Spectrum-lookalike bluetooth keyboard that is the 'Recreated Spectrum' will do well, it is unlikely that either of the companies involved will want to take any more risks, which is a pity because a unit combining the best parts of both designs, realistically priced, could be a genuine winner.
 
Those who are in it for the nostalgia will demand a full keyboard, and those who are in it for the retro gaming experience would rather have controls that are actually tactile and responsive, instead of mashing their fingers on the same rubber "dead flesh" keys that they hated as a kid. :p
 
Another fine example of someone getting it just wrong.

How do the people that design these things not get it?
 
Right, but someone must have designed it first, or at least something similar.

It just seems there's a big disconnect these days between people who design things and people who use them.

I've got a new car stereo. I have to hold down the power button for 5 seconds to turn it off. Are you kidding me?
 
vwestlife said:
Those who are in it for the nostalgia will demand a full keyboard, and those who are in it for the retro gaming experience would rather have controls that are actually tactile and responsive, instead of mashing their fingers on the same rubber "dead flesh" keys that they hated as a kid. :p
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Actually, the nostalgics AND the retro gamers would both like a Kempston or Sinclair Joystick port, thank you.

The full keyboard is absolutely necessary for the all the good games which use more than just up, down, left, right, fire. I wouldn't care if the keyswitches on a reproduction were real switches which clicked like an old-school cherry keyboard, as long as they looked exactly like the originals.
 
SiriusHardware said:
Actually, the nostalgics AND the retro gamers would both like a Kempston or Sinclair Joystick port, thank you.

The full keyboard is absolutely necessary for the all the good games which use more than just up, down, left, right, fire. I wouldn't care if the keyswitches on a reproduction were real switches which clicked like an old-school cherry keyboard, as long as they looked exactly like the originals.
Click to expand...

I think most of the prospective users don't want it to look exactly like the original. Older hands are bigger hands which benefit from bigger keys.
 
KC9UDX said:
It just seems there's a big disconnect these days between people who design things and people who use them.
Click to expand...

Like the latest inexplicably bad replacement graphical user interfaces for previously well-liked, well established PC operating systems for example?

It's not just Windows 8 that I'm thinking of, although the Windows Modern UI certainly kicks all other bad interfaces into the long grass - Gnome 3 and Unity (Linux desktops) spring to mind as well. In every case, I was thinking... 'Why didn't they show this to somebody first?' It seems to happen more and more with products these days... designers / developers are so sure they are right that they just don't ask what people want or do any research.
 
SiriusHardware said:
Like the latest inexplicably bad replacement graphical user interfaces for previously well-liked, well established PC operating systems for example?

It's not just Windows 8 that I'm thinking of, although the Windows Modern UI certainly kicks all other bad interfaces into the long grass - Gnome 3 and Unity (Linux desktops) spring to mind as well. In every case, I was thinking... 'Why didn't they show this to somebody first?' It seems to happen more and more with products these days... designers / developers are so sure they are right that they just don't ask what people want or do any research.
Click to expand...

Obviously you don't get it. All modern operating systems, web sites, and applications must be "touch optimized" and dumbed down to the point where they can be used on an iPhone... while wearing mittens.

Case in point: what they've done to www.archive.org. :mad:
 
I see what you mean.

Even the long established and previously well respected BBC website has, to my horror, just had a similar facelift. Now even there, the headlines are in 'Reduced English'.

-'Man sees car hit speed limit: Residents worried'.

-'Woman shocked by gum on shoe incident: Sues Council'

...in other words, it's now impossible to tell the difference between legitimate BBC news website thumbnails and those insanely drivelly web adverts which make you want to tear your eyeballs out every time you see them.

(Another case, to stay vaguely on topic, of designers just going ahead and doing what they think is right. Not what -is- right).

I don't own a smartphone or tablet and virtually all of my internet access is through a desktop PC with a landscape format, high resolution screen. Is it too much to ask for, to have mobile and PC modes for websites? Too often now, PC users get what mobile users want.
 
The Spectrum Vega is some kind of ARM processor and android-ish like emulation device. I took one look and did not need to take a second. Since I did not grow up in Europe, I had no particular ability to appreciate it.
 
Eudimorphodon said:
I'm glad I'm not the only one that hates that. Granted their old interface wasn't the best thing ever (Indexing and search have always been a weak point) but the new look is just so... Pinterest-meets-DeviantArt. Feh.
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It looks like a scam. I kept looking for that stupid deceptive "Download Now" button, or one of those left- or right-pointing arrows.
 
Great Hierophant said:
The Spectrum Vega is some kind of ARM processor and android-ish like emulation device. I took one look and did not need to take a second. Since I did not grow up in Europe, I had no particular ability to appreciate it.
Click to expand...
Target sold them here, IIRC. Maybe it was Kohl's.

I didn't think too much of them at the time.
 
Maybe I'd be slightly more impressed with this "Spectrum Vega" if it were an actual FPGA/ASIC re-creation of the original (Ala those C64s-in-a-joystick things). Honestly I'm not sure the world needs another "ARM CPU running an emulator stuffed in a pretty box" widget like this. If you want a cheap and cheerful dingus to specifically dedicate to hanging off your TV and running one-or-more 8/16 bit computer emulators a Raspberry Pi with a USB keyboard and cheap game pad gives you a lot more bang for the buck.

(And is almost certainly sporting a more powerful ARM core; granted the Spectrum shouldn't be a particularly challenging emulation target but it seems to be a recurring problem that those emulate-a-box toys don't have quite enough horsepower to pull off a convincing fake.)

The one reason I could see to buy this would be if some of the purchase price were actually going to the original software authors in the form of royalties. In any case I'm sure for the most parts Americans need not apply. ;) (So far as I'm aware the only form in which the original ZX made it to the US was as the Timex Sinclair 2068, and they sold, like, dozens of them before shutting down.)
 
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