That TAB key isn't what you think. It doesn't produce a tab character; it produces the TAB _keyword_ which is used in Basic for producing tabulated output.
I had forgotten all about that. fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu it's been a LOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time since I had to remember anything about programming in basic, or turtle.
To make matter worse, all of special commands printed on the keyboard are ESSENTIAL, that means you CAN'T TYPE THEM MANUALLY (keypress by keypress) but to use special/modifier keys to put whole command onto prompt console. All of special commands need to be combined with modifier keys on the bottom. That means you'll need to remember the whole layout of each command keys. The worst of it is backspace key, which needs to be combined with modifier key. I guess the design went this way is to overcome the disability of the keyboard and make typing on it quite easier ... well, at least for long-term speccy users.
It was down to a habit they'd picked up with their earlier machines. To save on the 1K of memory, commands were tokenised, so you weren't typing "Print" you were pushing the button to put in the special character that meant Print. Those things were needed on the ZX80 & 81, but were a bit silly when you had a minimum of 16x as much memory to hand.
@@truckerallikatuk It actually went pretty well with the touch-sensitive keyboard on the ZX81. Typing was very slow due to the awful keyboard, but as each keypress was very high value (i.e. producing a complete keyword) the overall speed wasn't too bad. Of course, anything that had to be entered letter by letter was gruesome but you didn't do much of that anyway. The Spectrum had too many keywords and too many shift states to be usable but by then it was part of their branding. Later models dispensed with it and you could type normally.
Was actually a brilliant system once you learned where everything was. Sinclair User magazine used to print out games that you could key in yourself, you didn't need to do too many of these to figure out where everything was. In fact, I remember at the time thinking 'imagine having to type all of these commands in by hand!' Sounds bonkers thinking about it now though, oh the folly of youth.
You don't have to remember the layout as the basic commands and symbols are listed in the keys. You only need to remember how to access the red symbols on the keys (symbol shift) and the red and green symbols above and below the keys (symbol shift + caps shift to enter extend mode then press key with or without shift). The user manual and bundled software taught all this very well
Wow kids these days making these comments racking up all the likes, didn't even have one, speak like they're the experts. The keyboard was bad but the hotkey style input for the keywords was the one thing that made it palatable. And it was all right on there very well labelled. It all wasn't really a problem, after all, your average 10 year old with his very first computer - which cost less than a pocket calculator - probably isn't an experienced typist who can bang out 20 words per second, and hunting for one key combination by staring at the keyboard for a bit is much faster than hunting for EACH key in such a keyword as "RANDOMIZE" and "CONTINUE". And also getting the spelling of those keywords right is a challenge at such age as well. The input method made it somewhat more difficult to produce syntax errors, because it knew during input what the valid inputs were and wouldn't let you make invalid ones. For sure helped me when i was 9, and i didn't even speak much English yet, only having studied it as a foreign language for 2 years at that point.
This machine launched a whole generation of UK programmers into the industry who are still creating things around the world that make our lives better today. Building to a low price point turned out to be the right decision.
In a way it was the Raspberry Pi of it's time, in the same way Pis/arduinos introduce people to electronics and programming, so did the ZX and C64/Vic of their day. Not everyone can afford a Macbook or its then equivalent. Cheap home computers kickstarted an entire IT industry.
That and the BBC Micro in schools. I still credit the Spectrum for how my career eventually turned out... not a programmer, but I did make a passable living admining Solaris boxen for a while.
Clive Sinclair was a really smart, interesting and, by all accounts, incredibly challenging man. It’s all about price. These machines were dirt cheap and it made computing possible to people who couldn’t dream of buying an IBM. The Commodore 64 was considerably more expensive in the UK. Very much the divide between people who could afford a C64 and those who only had a speccy. Then there were the really wealthy (relatively) who had an Acorn machine, the BBC B or the cheaper Acorn Atom. The literally insane way the “function” keys worked on the speccy made attempting to programme this thing an utter nightmare.
The last sentence is simply not true. I could write my speccy basic programs so much faster than my c64, Atari, Sharp MZ etc. buddies. It's all about muscle memory.
I've had DIY speccy clone made by my father in my childhood. He used keyboard from old soviet computer with extremely tactile and clicky КМ-2 magnetic reed switches.
Why? Price point, pure and simple. A better keyboard would have priced it out of the cost sweet spot Sir Clive was going for. Paradoxically, Sir Clive was definitely a function-over-form kind of guy in his hardware designs, yet he had really creative and artistic folks do the case designs. At 8:20 -- likely another cost-cutting concession, or possibility with an aim to make it more user friendly (no more misspelling BASIC keywords and functions!), in the shipping ROMs you couldn't/didn't type, for example, the BASIC keyword GOTO as 4 individual characters, but by hitting the G key to insert the whole keyword. Similarly, it was deleted in its entirety by one backspace. Every other basic function and keyword was the same. You are correct in that you used modifier keys to access the green and red functions of each key, they were also contextual in that a keyword was substituted when one was expected. The only time you got to print individual characters was when typing punctuation characters, numbers, variable names, and anything inside of quotation marks. I say "In the shipping ROMs" because one can hack and put in a different more modern ROM which gives you the ability to actually type GOTO as 4 characters, for example, and expand its BASIC capabilities; although that may be only possible in the models that came after this Spectrum 48K (?).
The single-press BASIC instructions have memory economy advantages - they only take one byte to store the word in the program code, and probably also allow for a simpler and more compact BASIC interpreter - since it doesn't have to parse typed words into meaningful tokens
No, the modern multi-key ROM hacks are a mod of the original Sinclair 16k ROM. The 128k machines shipped with their own basic editor ROM with that functionality (which they kind of needed, since Amstrad took most of the legends off the keys and while the original 16k ROM is present for comparability it's a bugger to use with the 128k keyboard if you've not used it in a few decades)
The C64 was also more expensive at that time. However, I managed to use that keyboard to convince dad that I "need a proper keyboard, for homework" and that got me a Vic 20, the C64's little brother.
The good old days.... I got a vic 20 with some prize money my university gave me. I programmed the holy hell out of that little machine. It was small enough to get a good understanding of the system but big enough to do some interesting things on.
Didn't really need to type much on them because all the BASIC keywords and functions were on the keys so you didn't (couldn't) type them out. They were built to a price and a lot of kids would never have seen a computer without the cost cutting.
Those "dead flesh" keys are indeed crap for typing on, but work quite nicely for gaming. That said, the Spectrum keyboard was still a giant step up from its predecessor, the ZX81.
The Sinclair was also sold in the US as the Timex Sinclair. It was the most pathetic computer you could buy. The graphics was surprisingly good, considering it was far superior to the much better selling game console at the time. The horrible British marketers focused exclusively on price, leaving consumers to think of it as a mere calculator hooked up to a TV rather than a capable game console.
Yep, and it sold so badly here in the US that some stores just to get rid of stock did a thing where you buy a Timex Sinclair 1000 for $99 USD then turn around to trade it back in as a return so they could send them back to the company, and they would give you $100 off on a Commodore 64 for the effort. Also I should point out that the color clash of the graphics did not help it any when compared to the Commodore 64, along with the lack of a floppy disk drive, and the majority of software came on floppies here not tapes.
One big difference was that British (and European) buyers were primarily focused on a cheap computer they could program, while American ones wanted a computer to pay games on. So with the gamers it failed to make any inroads against the cheaper and more powerful consoles, and with the programmers who were willing to spend more money it failed to make any inroads against the C64 or Apple. It was a really interesting demographic difference that's worth reading up on (I think Ahoy did a video on this).
Pathetic - yes (mostly even by yesteryear standards, lol) but it was my first computer, at the ripe old age of 13. The Timex Sinclair 1000 computer had an incredibly high defect rate in the US, to the point that retailers typically ordered 30% or more extra stock so they would have replacements on hand for when consumers came back in and said theirs didn't work. It cost $99 new, and I was thrilled to get it one Christmas. Not soon thereafter, they plummeted to $49 new (or less even!). Mine worked a charm, as limited as it was with only 2K, a membrane keyboard, a black and white screen, cassette interface, 16K RAM expansion which often wiggled loose and crashed the machine, and no sound... I spent hours on that thing learning BASIC until I finally upgraded to a Commodore VIC-20 (then a C64 later).
@@hjalfi I also think the Spectrum was released at exactly the right time in the UK. It hit a year before the C64 in the UK (and for half the price) and a year after in the US. The fact that Sinclair were finished as a business by 1985 kind of showed their business model really hit a narrow window of opportunity in the UK - the market for a super cheap computer aimed mostly at kids. When people started seeing home computers more as a 'family' purchase, as well as generally beginning to understand what a computer actually was for, I think budgets and expectations were raised quite quickly. But you're right in terms of the market also wanting different things at the time. Comparing a Spectrum to a PC is a bit like comparing a Raspberry Pi to a Macbook.
Well, yes - it was incredibly simply, but that also made it possible for them to sell the computer as a build-it-yourself kit. As in, you got a box with all the parts and had to solder everything onto the mainboard. The main purpose of the machine was to give buyers a cheap way to get "a computer" on which they could learn how to program. As that, it worked well (and most people then moved on to a more capable machine if they liked programming). It was never intended as a games console.
The little speaker underneath produced a tiny keystroke click which made it more satisfying. Although it was very quiet, the click created a (possibly imaginary) haptic effect too
For the full pain and suffering, you should actually try using it and seeing it fail to respond on the screen. Then learn the arcane keystrokes to access all the extended symbols...
This illustrates beautifully what Sir Clive Sinclair was best at - figuring out the cheapest possible way to do something. I think his thought process was "okay i want this thing and i want it to cost this insanely low amount, how do i do that"
I never had a Sinclair computer, but my very first computer like device was a Cambridge Sinclair programmable calculator. As I recall it was fun programming it. Man, that's a while ago. Thanks Tom, great review and always good to see you.
There are DEFINITE upsides to using a Spectrum keyboard over "clicky" keys... Firstly, the Spectrum keyboard reduces noise intrusion in environments where quiet is appreciated. "Normal" keyboards create subtle stresses - particularly in office environments where they are in use constantly, so this quietness really helps with one's ability to cope. Very good too in domestic environments, where keyboard noises can transmit through to other rooms in some cases - all effectively eliminated with the Spectrum keyboard. Secondly, it's more sympathetic on your joints to press down soft keys, rather than hard ones - even if they are "sprung" (only on their return). "Pokes" (using the letter "O" in Keyword mode) can be used to both silence the feedback of the electronic clicking produced by key presses (especially when writing commands or programming), as well as being able to type letters far quicker when going from one key to the next. Adapting a clicky keyboard to accommodate this, is MUCH more difficult. The Spectrum is too easy to overlook when taken only at face value. It, is an - ASTONISHING - piece of kit.
Me too!!! I just got mine out to type on, completely forgot how bad it was. You especially keep wanting to thump the bottom keys as that's where the space bar should be! Lovely as an ornament though.
It turns out that not all rubber key chiclet keyboards were this bad. I picked up a National JR-200 (a Japanese 8-bit computer released in late 1982) a couple of years ago and, after taking it apart and cleaning it, it works surprisingly well. I can not only touch type on it, but it's more comfortable than some of the worst plastic-key keyboards I've used. There was a European version of this computer, the Panasonic JR-200U; it might be worth picking one up if you can find one to see what a really good (as much as it can be) rubber key chiclet keyboard is like.
The input was partially context sensitive, partly with modifiers. There were four different modes, iirc: K for keywords, L for text, E for extended and G for graphics. These could then all be shifted in two different ways. Delete was on Shift+0 and the cursor keys were on other shifted number keys. It was very, very special.
Specifically L for lower case, as there's also a C for capitals. The keywords are the only truly context-sensitive, as in L mode you get to all other modes with button combinations - L and C toggle with Caps Shift+2, G with Caps Shift+9, and E with Caps Shift + Symbol Shift. In E and G modes both shifts do the same thing, but this still means each key can have as many as seven different functions. It's also worth noting that it's done this way because Sinclair BASIC stores keywords as individual tokens, so CLS and PRINT and FLASH are all just a single symbol that's printed as a word on-screen. It means the program can be stored in less memory and interpreted faster, and doesn't take much getting used to at all.
Loved the Spectrum, spent so much of my youth squishing the rubber keyboard in the hope of creating a top selling game (and failing). Actually laughed out loud though at the reviewer's piss ripping narrative...fucking awesome. 😁😁😁😁
"Dick nugget numbers"....:) & "Typing on decomposing dead bodies" There is no one like you Thomas, that can teach us to use imperial units the right way and give us the most accurate descriptions of switch feel and sound. :)
Well, not to mention of the keypress sounds Basic made! I remember someone hooking up the Speccy to a stereo, so EVERYONE in the neighborhood can hear his MAD typing skillz!
The function keys were apparently for memory. To cut down on program size, functions like trigonometry, peek, and poke, etc. were stored as individual characters. RAM was expensive, and the Spectrum had to be dirt cheap
Actually, virtually all microcomputer BASICs "tokenize" their keywords, reducing them to one or two bytes. (Even the very early versions of MS BASIC from the mid-1970s did this.) The only difference here is that rather than the interpreter reading `PRINT` and turning into a token, the tokens were directly entered with the special keystrokes.
Hey, I just thought. Given the Sinclair ZX Spectrum does have a RS-232 port on it, you could program it to act like a PC keyboard and do your normal one week test of it. :p
6:39 The scoreboard controller at the now defunct bowling alley in my hometown was controlled using this type of keyboard and I can attest that is simply the worst. You see, you can't actually tell when you have or have not pressed a key, and at the same time about 50% of the strokes on the keys are just naturally missed. All of this makes it physically painful to type on because you never know if the keystroke was just missed or if you need to push on it harder!
Sinclair Spectrum ZX48k was almost half the price of model F and a bit under model M price at the time but it's price fell down fast while keyboard held their. And ZX81 was 49 pounds on release day! That keyboard was chosen simply because you couldn't find cheaper one.
As soon as I saw the trailer, I thought you would bash this keyboard to shame but it's actually a quite interesting piece of computing history, thanks.
Hate me if you want, but... after hearing the line about how you'd "throw half the dictionary at it" -- I kind of want to see a dedicated ZX-81 video. Oh BTW... there was a ZX-80 *before* the ZX-81... you could do both in one video (and thus save face on a technical level) because the keyboard was identical. They were sold by Timex here in the USA but my father managed to get an actual Sinclair unit, not rebranded.
@@Chyrosran22 but, but, but it had functional actually working disk drive AND more colors AND it was better than Speccy in all aspects :( AND WE WON, WE BOUGHT SPECCY OUT AND KILLED IT. SO WITNESS US!
As a connoisseur of heavy swearing, I feel, in consideration of the subject in hand, you made a pretty valiant effort. Some hesitation can be felt. Obviously there is so much talent that I can't wait for the next one. :)
I have the Timex-Sinclair 1500 version of this rubbery dude. My dad had the Timex 2068 version which has the hard plastic chiclet keys. I'm currently waiting for my KAM Wraith sinclair-like keycap set to arrive.
Wasn't good for touch typing for sure, but actually playing the games on the keyboard wasn't bad at all. Even to this day, I'll prefer playing spectrum games on a real spectrum keyboard rather than joystick.
Truth be told, I like this keyboard. The touch of the keys takes a bit of getting used to but once you got used to it typing on this keyboard was okay. Not great but okay. You just have to accept that you can easily perform a correct keystroke even when you do not hit the center of the key. You will hear a click sound which signals that a key was pressed. The big spaces between the keys could be very useful for keyboard overlays that some utilities and some games like "Lords of Midnight" or "Elite" had. All those complicated keyboard controls were laid out in front of you on those overlays. And this applies to the ZX Spectrum's BASIC, too. All commands are there in front of your very eyes. Again, this takes a bit of getting used to. Very often common commands are on the key the command starts with. PRINT e.g. is on the P key and GOTO on the G key, RUN and all commands starting with R are located on or next to the R key. P for PRINT has the most frequent special characters " and ; and the AT keyword right on the P key or next to it. Granted, the layout of the BASIC commands is not always logical, there are simply too many keywords to avoid the occasinal odd placement of them on the keyboard. But you got used to it pretty quickly and were typing in BASIC listings really fast. Additional remark: A female ZX Spectrum owner won a typing competition against a colleague of hers who owned a Triumph-Adler micro computer with as excellent a keyboard as you might expect from a German manufacturer of typewriters. 😁 So keep on typing on that rubber-keyed wonder, I am sure you can vastly improve your typing skills on that wonderful machine!
For me the best looking and portable Speccy, although I did have a 48k + with hard keyboard and fold down legs. Managed to put a first gen pi zero into an old broken Speccy and run Retropie, albeit it was underpowered. The open slot at the rear has enough room for usb ports. I hot glued mine in. You can get replacement cases, rubber mats and key plates. I love the Speccy colour rainbow on the black, it just looks fantastic. I'd like to put an Amiga mini circuit board in there- there's just 2 parts to that thing with power button on the circuit board. If I can figure out the measurements I might strip an Amiga mini case take out the SBC board and put it in the Speccy. The Amiga mini case just looks nasty and cheap.
I've always been of the opinion that a pigeon could shit on a rubber dome and it would feel better than most chicklet keyboards, especially the ZX Spectrum & PC Jr.
OK, a few things here. It was built to keep costs down. Keyboards back then added a significant cost to the machines. I've always found the keys to respond well, and have never heard of key repeat problems. Maybe sometimes they got stuck under the metal plate? As standard they connected via RF to the TV aerial socket. The ZX Spectrum+ came out first, then there was a keyboard/casing upgrade option.
What a piece of nostalgy. My father bought us both the ZX81 (which I almost never used) and the ZX Spectrum which I used to learn the basics of computer hardware and programming (it came with great tutorials) and of course game. So many good games on this platform. Some really unique. The keyboard back then was no issue as you worked with what you had (even though my friend had a Commodore 64 it never occurred to me that my keyboard might be bad). Today, typing this on a cherished mechanical keyboard, I would probably consider the Spectrum's keyboard a digital suicide (pun totally intended).
My first experience of computer games this was. Ah the days of spending ages waiting for the tape to load 😎 I upgraded to an Atari ST later on which was practically space age with it's diskette drive and proper keyboard!
Reminded me that I'm still missing one of these bad boys from my collection. Last time I ordered one the royal mail managed to lose the package twice, no idea if the seller got it back the second time but they did refund it I do have the +2 model but it lacks the miserable rubber keyboard, although the +2 keyboard still feels horrible unless mine is just broken somehow
41 years old here and my first machine was a Speccy although I had the ZX 128k +2. I'm now a programmer and gamer and I owe it all to a tape deck and spec ie magazines with free tapes.
I knew he'd love the keyboad of the good ol speccy, I'v actually read that the rubber membrane being described as "dead flesh" keys! not sure if anyone described it that way in the 80's though. Funny thing is the ZX Spectrum reminds me of the Oculus Quest of all things......... hear me out, the Speccy was technically a Micro computer but what it did best was be a game console, it could do other stuff but mostly it was surprisingly good for gaming and made its success by having an accessible price. The Quest/Quest 2 is a VR headset (obviously) can be used for practical purpose's like work meetings, presentations even being a home office but is at its best when gaming, it maybe a mobile phone built into VR goggles but what it actually is is a game console, it has also become very accessible by having a low price (although for much more dubious reasons). The Quest platform has even sparked a similar indie scene where its still kind of the wild west, you might just be "bedroom programmer" now but with the right idea and skills you can end up up with one of the most popular games on the platform since you're not competing an endless list of annual release triple A games with an infinite marketing budget like on the big three gaming platforms.
The person that made that first keyboard/case so obviously wanted an American "speccy" instead. Not that anyone these days remember those... e: talking about Spectravideo, not the Timex Sinclair or anything
My uncle bought a Sinclair, might have been the ZX81 as I don't recall colour graphics. First keyboard I had to deal with was the chiclet keyboard on the Commodore PET. Then a Texas Instruments TI99-4A... which I don't recall the keyboard of so looking up now.
@@SheeplessNW6 Well, at least is yummy depleted uranium... On Soviet Russia you only have oil drowned potassium cake for xmas. @ChemicalForce guy got one of these.
@@saccharinesilk The tradtional, armour-piercing UK/Irish Christmas cake has marzipan and fruitcake behind a rigid casing of royal icing. This is a _relatively_ dry, crumby fruitcake though it shouldn't be completely dried out. I'd provide a link, but it seems this channel is now auto-deleting comments with URLs. Oh Well. If you think _that's_ extreme, wait until you hear about the Wensleydale Heresy. I'd provide a link, but ... Oh Well.
Probably the 50th person to put this, but hey ho. As I remember, the white commands like PRINT, POKE etc were entered if they were the first thing on the line that you typed, or after a colon, I believe the cursor would be a flashing 'K' to indicate this, then it would turn to an 'L' . The red commands you got by pressing them with the symbol shift. The green commands you had to press symbol shift and caps shift together which would turn your cursor into an 'E' and then yourr next press would type the green command. For the red commands under each key, I believe it was the same as for the green command above the key, but after your cursor turned to the 'E' I think you had to hold down either the caps shift or the symbol shift at the same time as pressing the key. Something like that anyway.
And the worst part about it is that really required you to mash the buttons to get them to register, especially on an older, well-used example... about half the characters you typed in the demonstration would not have registered.
I remember my father bought one of this computer back in 1986/87 where I did game a lot on those unit. My father had this one and another version with proper key caps than this unit. Loading one game took sometimes with data tapes which sounds like dialing 64k modem. I do remember also there's an add-on to support cartridge like memory cards to load programs/games from it if I'm not mistaken.
However, after typing on the ergonomic nightmare that was a C64 for any extended period of time, a visit to the local chiropractor was almost a given. I'm still on first-name terms with the majority of 'em.
The fact the ZX Spectrum has as good of a library as it does courtesy of bedroom programmers in the UK is nothing short of a miracle, and the fact it has such an awful built-in keyboard speaks volumes to how committed they were.
The demonstration sentence looks to me like it's: "Hello my name is Thomas and I m typing on the ZX Spectrum right now This is fucking intolerable I can t find any of the symbols on it and the key feel is HHHHHHHHHHIDEOUS"
I don't even think I will see this thing on the channel. Hope you will get Mini-PET keyboard to review as soon as possible :) edit: Just saw he already got ZX81
My ZX Spectrum has been missing for a long time, I think my brother took it to Boston with him but I don't think it works any more, although I think that was the power brick which should be easy enough to replace. The keyboard was always horrible but it wasn't used the way we use keyboards now, all of the silk screened words on the keys and the metal cover typed the whole word out, usually with a modifier key. To me It always felt like a bigger version of a calculator keyboard and it was clearly made to hit a price point rather than a quality point. That metal plate was only held down by double sided tape, which would soften with heat, which meant that in Australia it was always lose. Back then air-con wasn't very common in houses unless the owner was loaded with cash, in which case they wouldn't have had a Speccy! I'd never seen any of those alternative keyboards before this video, I guess the market in Oz was too small to bother with. The "official" one was really just a revised version of the Spectrum, hence the "+" in its name, it had significantly more memory and cost more. I never had that version, from looks alone it seemed pretty similar to Sinclair's next home computer, the QL. That had a full sized keyboard (I think) and shouldn't be too hard to get in the UK, I only ever saw one in the only local shop which had any Spectrum stuff in it. By the time it came out, here at least, there were more alternatives, we ended up with an Amstrad 128 (from memory). You didn't really make it clear that you plugged it into a TV, which nearly every house had, harder to do these days as TV's have all gone digital. That kept the cost down as a computer with a monitor was a big step up in cost. I'd use it after school until dad came home and watched the news, we ended up with a second TV eventually and I spent many, many hours playing games on it. I also learnt some basic programming and typed numerous things out of magazines, I can't remember what sort of programs they were but I do remember that they didn't all work, I suspect printing errors but it could have just been typos by a very young me. PS. I really enjoyed the preview video, that gave me a good laugh as I remember the keys not registering!
Believe it or not you actually need a lot of those commands for programming games. To make the sprites, create the physics, the collition detection, etc. It was quite basic (no pun intended) but it managed to do a lot with too little (the Spectrum had weaker specs than the C64 and the Amstrad CPC, both contemporaries of this one, intended for the home market)
I hear the debate in manufacturing went something like "Ok, so it's capable, it's affordable, it's pretty much gonna bring computing to the masses. But we need something for people to complain about. Let's try give it the worst keys possible"
I wrote a lot of code on the spectrum back in the 1980s, and it was a very capable computer, even though it's keyboard was certainly odd. I don't see how you can review the keyboard properly without powering it up, however.
I happen to have the CS:GO skin that's based on this decice, which is the only reason I'm here. I own the Comodore C116 which is a very similar idea with a similary tiny rubber keyboard and judging from your review it must feel quite like this device. I'd eat my CRT tubes if someone managed to touch type on that rubber carpet.
I will actually defend the ZX81. If you hook it up to a TV and try it out you'll notice It doesn't require a lot of force to trigger the membrane, and given all the commands just require pressing one letter (instead of typing out the whole word) and the computer only outputs uppercase letters, you don't need to do anywhere near as many key presses as on a regular computer. I haven't tried the Spectrum rubber keyboard, but there are mechanical switch upgrades available. I have, however, tried a 128k Sinclair Toastrack and I absolutely hate the keyboard. It is the worst one I have ever used even after the mechanical switch upgrade. Extremely high effort, poor layout, and the only oversized key to have a metal bar to transmit the force more evenly is the space bar. If you don't press the other oversized keys exactly where the designers intended, the effort required goes through the roof to the point where the key might not even go down. This is even after a full cleanup and letting the rubber dome membrane soak overnight.
Not that I feel I need to defend the glory of the Speccie... The keyboard was crap but the dead and/or repeating keystroke issue was caused by a worn membrane. Replacing that every couple of years was a cheap and fast maintenance task. Aahhh, the pleasure of a fresh keyboard, slick typing guaranteed for maybe as long as a year before you started saving up and dreaming of the heady days when you'd be forced to go without a fresh box of blank cassettes or a trip to the local flea pit so you could bestow love and appreciation on your humble and maligned Spectrum. Stroke it's gentle curves while you smashed your way through Battle Cars, never once becoming frustrated with load times, load errors, random crashes, crappy sound.............
That TAB key isn't what you think. It doesn't produce a tab character; it produces the TAB _keyword_ which is used in Basic for producing tabulated output.
... using the PRINT statement which happened to be on the very same key. Now isn't that smart?
@@MarcKloos It would have been smarter to have an actual tab key...
I had forgotten all about that. fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu it's been a LOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time since I had to remember anything about programming in basic, or turtle.
To make matter worse, all of special commands printed on the keyboard are ESSENTIAL, that means you CAN'T TYPE THEM MANUALLY (keypress by keypress) but to use special/modifier keys to put whole command onto prompt console. All of special commands need to be combined with modifier keys on the bottom. That means you'll need to remember the whole layout of each command keys. The worst of it is backspace key, which needs to be combined with modifier key. I guess the design went this way is to overcome the disability of the keyboard and make typing on it quite easier ... well, at least for long-term speccy users.
It was down to a habit they'd picked up with their earlier machines. To save on the 1K of memory, commands were tokenised, so you weren't typing "Print" you were pushing the button to put in the special character that meant Print. Those things were needed on the ZX80 & 81, but were a bit silly when you had a minimum of 16x as much memory to hand.
@@truckerallikatuk It actually went pretty well with the touch-sensitive keyboard on the ZX81. Typing was very slow due to the awful keyboard, but as each keypress was very high value (i.e. producing a complete keyword) the overall speed wasn't too bad. Of course, anything that had to be entered letter by letter was gruesome but you didn't do much of that anyway. The Spectrum had too many keywords and too many shift states to be usable but by then it was part of their branding. Later models dispensed with it and you could type normally.
Was actually a brilliant system once you learned where everything was. Sinclair User magazine used to print out games that you could key in yourself, you didn't need to do too many of these to figure out where everything was. In fact, I remember at the time thinking 'imagine having to type all of these commands in by hand!' Sounds bonkers thinking about it now though, oh the folly of youth.
You don't have to remember the layout as the basic commands and symbols are listed in the keys. You only need to remember how to access the red symbols on the keys (symbol shift) and the red and green symbols above and below the keys (symbol shift + caps shift to enter extend mode then press key with or without shift). The user manual and bundled software taught all this very well
Wow kids these days making these comments racking up all the likes, didn't even have one, speak like they're the experts. The keyboard was bad but the hotkey style input for the keywords was the one thing that made it palatable. And it was all right on there very well labelled.
It all wasn't really a problem, after all, your average 10 year old with his very first computer - which cost less than a pocket calculator - probably isn't an experienced typist who can bang out 20 words per second, and hunting for one key combination by staring at the keyboard for a bit is much faster than hunting for EACH key in such a keyword as "RANDOMIZE" and "CONTINUE". And also getting the spelling of those keywords right is a challenge at such age as well. The input method made it somewhat more difficult to produce syntax errors, because it knew during input what the valid inputs were and wouldn't let you make invalid ones. For sure helped me when i was 9, and i didn't even speak much English yet, only having studied it as a foreign language for 2 years at that point.
This machine launched a whole generation of UK programmers into the industry who are still creating things around the world that make our lives better today. Building to a low price point turned out to be the right decision.
In a way it was the Raspberry Pi of it's time, in the same way Pis/arduinos introduce people to electronics and programming, so did the ZX and C64/Vic of their day.
Not everyone can afford a Macbook or its then equivalent. Cheap home computers kickstarted an entire IT industry.
That and the BBC Micro in schools.
I still credit the Spectrum for how my career eventually turned out... not a programmer, but I did make a passable living admining Solaris boxen for a while.
Clive Sinclair was a really smart, interesting and, by all accounts, incredibly challenging man. It’s all about price. These machines were dirt cheap and it made computing possible to people who couldn’t dream of buying an IBM. The Commodore 64 was considerably more expensive in the UK. Very much the divide between people who could afford a C64 and those who only had a speccy. Then there were the really wealthy (relatively) who had an Acorn machine, the BBC B or the cheaper Acorn Atom. The literally insane way the “function” keys worked on the speccy made attempting to programme this thing an utter nightmare.
The last sentence is simply not true. I could write my speccy basic programs so much faster than my c64, Atari, Sharp MZ etc. buddies. It's all about muscle memory.
Just don't let him design a car.
7:22 Thanks for following up on my comment regarding a comparison to the PC Jr. chiclet keyboard. It really does put things in perspective!
I really didn't expect it to be so much worse than the PCJr tbh xD .
@@Chyrosran22 Who knew we’d compliment the PC Jr. for putting the space bar in a reasonable location? :-)
@@Chyrosran22 An this is not even the worst home computer keyboard.
I've had DIY speccy clone made by my father in my childhood. He used keyboard from old soviet computer with extremely tactile and clicky КМ-2 magnetic reed switches.
Out of curiousity, which soviet computer? I had the one called "Magic" in the early 1990s, but I can't remember what the switches were like.
@@87engr there are a lot of Soviet computers, all of them have interesting switches. I often see reed switches.
W A N I N G never gets old
Why? Price point, pure and simple. A better keyboard would have priced it out of the cost sweet spot Sir Clive was going for. Paradoxically, Sir Clive was definitely a function-over-form kind of guy in his hardware designs, yet he had really creative and artistic folks do the case designs.
At 8:20 -- likely another cost-cutting concession, or possibility with an aim to make it more user friendly (no more misspelling BASIC keywords and functions!), in the shipping ROMs you couldn't/didn't type, for example, the BASIC keyword GOTO as 4 individual characters, but by hitting the G key to insert the whole keyword. Similarly, it was deleted in its entirety by one backspace. Every other basic function and keyword was the same. You are correct in that you used modifier keys to access the green and red functions of each key, they were also contextual in that a keyword was substituted when one was expected. The only time you got to print individual characters was when typing punctuation characters, numbers, variable names, and anything inside of quotation marks. I say "In the shipping ROMs" because one can hack and put in a different more modern ROM which gives you the ability to actually type GOTO as 4 characters, for example, and expand its BASIC capabilities; although that may be only possible in the models that came after this Spectrum 48K (?).
The single-press BASIC instructions have memory economy advantages - they only take one byte to store the word in the program code, and probably also allow for a simpler and more compact BASIC interpreter - since it doesn't have to parse typed words into meaningful tokens
No, the modern multi-key ROM hacks are a mod of the original Sinclair 16k ROM. The 128k machines shipped with their own basic editor ROM with that functionality (which they kind of needed, since Amstrad took most of the legends off the keys and while the original 16k ROM is present for comparability it's a bugger to use with the 128k keyboard if you've not used it in a few decades)
saw rubber chiclet things in the title and i know this video bout to be interesting
The C64 was also more expensive at that time. However, I managed to use that keyboard to convince dad that I "need a proper keyboard, for homework" and that got me a Vic 20, the C64's little brother.
did you do any homework on it?
The good old days.... I got a vic 20 with some prize money my university gave me. I programmed the holy hell out of that little machine. It was small enough to get a good understanding of the system but big enough to do some interesting things on.
The VIC-20 with 3.5K RAM and a 20 column display? You ain't getting much homework done on one of those. 🤔
I'd take the Spectrum over a Vic 20 any day!
Really surprised you used the term “eraser” which is imperial units for “rubber”
I originally had it in as "rubber" with an Imperial gag, but I cut it from the final version with a pickup ;) .
The Spectrum was really more like a game console that also could introduce you to programming and computer science. I got mine in 1984, aged 12.
Well, actually intended to learn programming, and gaming kind of just happened.
Didn't really need to type much on them because all the BASIC keywords and functions were on the keys so you didn't (couldn't) type them out. They were built to a price and a lot of kids would never have seen a computer without the cost cutting.
Those "dead flesh" keys are indeed crap for typing on, but work quite nicely for gaming. That said, the Spectrum keyboard was still a giant step up from its predecessor, the ZX81.
The Sinclair was also sold in the US as the Timex Sinclair. It was the most pathetic computer you could buy. The graphics was surprisingly good, considering it was far superior to the much better selling game console at the time. The horrible British marketers focused exclusively on price, leaving consumers to think of it as a mere calculator hooked up to a TV rather than a capable game console.
Yep, and it sold so badly here in the US that some stores just to get rid of stock did a thing where you buy a Timex Sinclair 1000 for $99 USD then turn around to trade it back in as a return so they could send them back to the company, and they would give you $100 off on a Commodore 64 for the effort. Also I should point out that the color clash of the graphics did not help it any when compared to the Commodore 64, along with the lack of a floppy disk drive, and the majority of software came on floppies here not tapes.
One big difference was that British (and European) buyers were primarily focused on a cheap computer they could program, while American ones wanted a computer to pay games on. So with the gamers it failed to make any inroads against the cheaper and more powerful consoles, and with the programmers who were willing to spend more money it failed to make any inroads against the C64 or Apple. It was a really interesting demographic difference that's worth reading up on (I think Ahoy did a video on this).
Pathetic - yes (mostly even by yesteryear standards, lol) but it was my first computer, at the ripe old age of 13. The Timex Sinclair 1000 computer had an incredibly high defect rate in the US, to the point that retailers typically ordered 30% or more extra stock so they would have replacements on hand for when consumers came back in and said theirs didn't work. It cost $99 new, and I was thrilled to get it one Christmas. Not soon thereafter, they plummeted to $49 new (or less even!). Mine worked a charm, as limited as it was with only 2K, a membrane keyboard, a black and white screen, cassette interface, 16K RAM expansion which often wiggled loose and crashed the machine, and no sound... I spent hours on that thing learning BASIC until I finally upgraded to a Commodore VIC-20 (then a C64 later).
@@hjalfi I also think the Spectrum was released at exactly the right time in the UK. It hit a year before the C64 in the UK (and for half the price) and a year after in the US. The fact that Sinclair were finished as a business by 1985 kind of showed their business model really hit a narrow window of opportunity in the UK - the market for a super cheap computer aimed mostly at kids. When people started seeing home computers more as a 'family' purchase, as well as generally beginning to understand what a computer actually was for, I think budgets and expectations were raised quite quickly.
But you're right in terms of the market also wanting different things at the time. Comparing a Spectrum to a PC is a bit like comparing a Raspberry Pi to a Macbook.
Well, yes - it was incredibly simply, but that also made it possible for them to sell the computer as a build-it-yourself kit. As in, you got a box with all the parts and had to solder everything onto the mainboard. The main purpose of the machine was to give buyers a cheap way to get "a computer" on which they could learn how to program. As that, it worked well (and most people then moved on to a more capable machine if they liked programming). It was never intended as a games console.
The little speaker underneath produced a tiny keystroke click which made it more satisfying. Although it was very quiet, the click created a (possibly imaginary) haptic effect too
For the full pain and suffering, you should actually try using it and seeing it fail to respond on the screen. Then learn the arcane keystrokes to access all the extended symbols...
This illustrates beautifully what Sir Clive Sinclair was best at - figuring out the cheapest possible way to do something. I think his thought process was "okay i want this thing and i want it to cost this insanely low amount, how do i do that"
I never had a Sinclair computer, but my very first computer like device was a Cambridge Sinclair programmable calculator. As I recall it was fun programming it. Man, that's a while ago. Thanks Tom, great review and always good to see you.
Cheers mate :) .
I am not sure if this was common, but on a friend's ZX81 if you pressed the keys too hard, the computer would perform a hard reset.
The dreaded RAMpack wobble!
Rest easy, Clive Sinclair. Rest in peace.
There are DEFINITE upsides to using a Spectrum keyboard over "clicky" keys...
Firstly, the Spectrum keyboard reduces noise intrusion in environments where quiet is appreciated. "Normal" keyboards create subtle stresses - particularly in office environments where they are in use constantly, so this quietness really helps with one's ability to cope. Very good too in domestic environments, where keyboard noises can transmit through to other rooms in some cases - all effectively eliminated with the Spectrum keyboard.
Secondly, it's more sympathetic on your joints to press down soft keys, rather than hard ones - even if they are "sprung" (only on their return).
"Pokes" (using the letter "O" in Keyword mode) can be used to both silence the feedback of the electronic clicking produced by key presses (especially when writing commands or programming), as well as being able to type letters far quicker when going from one key to the next.
Adapting a clicky keyboard to accommodate this, is MUCH more difficult.
The Spectrum is too easy to overlook when taken only at face value.
It, is an - ASTONISHING - piece of kit.
The Spectrum had UHF output, meaning it will connect to ANY TV with an analogue tuner.
Never thought i'd be excited for a review of a keyboard, or, any keyboard.
Me too!!! I just got mine out to type on, completely forgot how bad it was. You especially keep wanting to thump the bottom keys as that's where the space bar should be! Lovely as an ornament though.
It turns out that not all rubber key chiclet keyboards were this bad. I picked up a National JR-200 (a Japanese 8-bit computer released in late 1982) a couple of years ago and, after taking it apart and cleaning it, it works surprisingly well. I can not only touch type on it, but it's more comfortable than some of the worst plastic-key keyboards I've used.
There was a European version of this computer, the Panasonic JR-200U; it might be worth picking one up if you can find one to see what a really good (as much as it can be) rubber key chiclet keyboard is like.
"Krasnogorsk" sounds like the kind of computer system that blasts you with a lethal dose of gamma radiation if you type your password wrong.
Haha the auctioneer cutaway cracked me up!
I’ve been looking forward to this…
I wad disappointed not to hear "HHHHHHHIDEOUS!", but seeing you type it instead in the typing demo blasted my sides. 😆😆😆😆
Haha I was wondering if someone would notice xD .
@@Chyrosran22 That's OK. With the advancing years, I too have trouble hitting those high notes. ;-)
The input was partially context sensitive, partly with modifiers. There were four different modes, iirc: K for keywords, L for text, E for extended and G for graphics. These could then all be shifted in two different ways. Delete was on Shift+0 and the cursor keys were on other shifted number keys. It was very, very special.
Specifically L for lower case, as there's also a C for capitals. The keywords are the only truly context-sensitive, as in L mode you get to all other modes with button combinations - L and C toggle with Caps Shift+2, G with Caps Shift+9, and E with Caps Shift + Symbol Shift. In E and G modes both shifts do the same thing, but this still means each key can have as many as seven different functions.
It's also worth noting that it's done this way because Sinclair BASIC stores keywords as individual tokens, so CLS and PRINT and FLASH are all just a single symbol that's printed as a word on-screen. It means the program can be stored in less memory and interpreted faster, and doesn't take much getting used to at all.
Loved the Spectrum, spent so much of my youth squishing the rubber keyboard in the hope of creating a top selling game (and failing). Actually laughed out loud though at the reviewer's piss ripping narrative...fucking awesome. 😁😁😁😁
"Dick nugget numbers"....:) &
"Typing on decomposing dead bodies"
There is no one like you Thomas, that can teach us to use imperial units the right way and give us the most accurate descriptions of switch feel and sound. :)
Well, not to mention of the keypress sounds Basic made! I remember someone hooking up the Speccy to a stereo, so EVERYONE in the neighborhood can hear his MAD typing skillz!
He must have some special kind of experience with those comparisons. Setting cats on fire as well. Why does he know what it's like?!!
The function keys were apparently for memory. To cut down on program size, functions like trigonometry, peek, and poke, etc. were stored as individual characters. RAM was expensive, and the Spectrum had to be dirt cheap
Actually, virtually all microcomputer BASICs "tokenize" their keywords, reducing them to one or two bytes. (Even the very early versions of MS BASIC from the mid-1970s did this.) The only difference here is that rather than the interpreter reading `PRINT` and turning into a token, the tokens were directly entered with the special keystrokes.
Hey, I just thought. Given the Sinclair ZX Spectrum does have a RS-232 port on it, you could program it to act like a PC keyboard and do your normal one week test of it. :p
It didn't! You needed an extra interface for that. The only I/O port it had was the modem for the cassette.
This is an early ZX Spectrum, before all the fancy pants interfaces and things, like an RS232 interface, were added to it's successors.
@@outtheredude Ok, well that's unfortunate.
The Interface 1 added that, and no you couldn't.
@@wisteela Couldn't what?
6:39 The scoreboard controller at the now defunct bowling alley in my hometown was controlled using this type of keyboard and I can attest that is simply the worst. You see, you can't actually tell when you have or have not pressed a key, and at the same time about 50% of the strokes on the keys are just naturally missed. All of this makes it physically painful to type on because you never know if the keystroke was just missed or if you need to push on it harder!
Sinclair Spectrum ZX48k was almost half the price of model F and a bit under model M price at the time but it's price fell down fast while keyboard held their. And ZX81 was 49 pounds on release day! That keyboard was chosen simply because you couldn't find cheaper one.
As soon as I saw the trailer, I thought you would bash this keyboard to shame but it's actually a quite interesting piece of computing history, thanks.
6:19 I thought that "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph" was a bit too normal for you, then I heard the second half.
Hate me if you want, but... after hearing the line about how you'd "throw half the dictionary at it" -- I kind of want to see a dedicated ZX-81 video.
Oh BTW... there was a ZX-80 *before* the ZX-81... you could do both in one video (and thus save face on a technical level) because the keyboard was identical. They were sold by Timex here in the USA but my father managed to get an actual Sinclair unit, not rebranded.
No mention of once-upon-a-time knight in shining armor, Alan Mike Sugar and AMSTRAD as major competition of Spectrum? CPC gang, represent!
I'd rather forget about that thing as much as possible :p .
Original Amstrad CPC 464 from '84 with tall key double shots over here in the UK! Represent!
@@Chyrosran22 but, but, but it had functional actually working disk drive AND more colors AND it was better than Speccy in all aspects :(
AND WE WON, WE BOUGHT SPECCY OUT AND KILLED IT. SO WITNESS US!
As a connoisseur of heavy swearing, I feel, in consideration of the subject in hand, you made a pretty valiant effort. Some hesitation can be felt. Obviously there is so much talent that I can't wait for the next one. :)
I have the Timex-Sinclair 1500 version of this rubbery dude. My dad had the Timex 2068 version which has the hard plastic chiclet keys. I'm currently waiting for my KAM Wraith sinclair-like keycap set to arrive.
I’ve got the base kit of the KAM wraith. Unfortunately I couldn’t get other kits, now I regret it, a 40% with those would be cool…
Wasn't good for touch typing for sure, but actually playing the games on the keyboard wasn't bad at all. Even to this day, I'll prefer playing spectrum games on a real spectrum keyboard rather than joystick.
Truth be told, I like this keyboard. The touch of the keys takes a bit of getting used to but once you got used to it typing on this keyboard was okay. Not great but okay. You just have to accept that you can easily perform a correct keystroke even when you do not hit the center of the key. You will hear a click sound which signals that a key was pressed.
The big spaces between the keys could be very useful for keyboard overlays that some utilities and some games like "Lords of Midnight" or "Elite" had.
All those complicated keyboard controls were laid out in front of you on those overlays.
And this applies to the ZX Spectrum's BASIC, too. All commands are there in front of your very eyes. Again, this takes a bit of getting used to. Very often common commands are on the key the command starts with. PRINT e.g. is on the P key and GOTO on the G key, RUN and all commands starting with R are located on or next to the R key. P for PRINT has the most frequent special characters " and ; and the AT keyword right on the P key or next to it.
Granted, the layout of the BASIC commands is not always logical, there are simply too many keywords to avoid the occasinal odd placement of them on the keyboard.
But you got used to it pretty quickly and were typing in BASIC listings really fast.
Additional remark:
A female ZX Spectrum owner won a typing competition against a colleague of hers who owned a Triumph-Adler micro computer with as excellent a keyboard as you might expect from a German manufacturer of typewriters. 😁
So keep on typing on that rubber-keyed wonder, I am sure you can vastly improve your typing skills on that wonderful machine!
Main advantage of the spectrum is: you will prefer to write using a pencil and paper and alway have 40 rubber eraser on hand.
the typing demonstration is just painful XD great review
Didn’t know about the replacement keyboard, but it makes sense. A developer typing all day would throw their hands up at the stock keyboard
For me the best looking and portable Speccy, although I did have a 48k + with hard keyboard and fold down legs. Managed to put a first gen pi zero into an old broken Speccy and run Retropie, albeit it was underpowered. The open slot at the rear has enough room for usb ports. I hot glued mine in. You can get replacement cases, rubber mats and key plates. I love the Speccy colour rainbow on the black, it just looks fantastic. I'd like to put an Amiga mini circuit board in there- there's just 2 parts to that thing with power button on the circuit board. If I can figure out the measurements I might strip an Amiga mini case take out the SBC board and put it in the Speccy. The Amiga mini case just looks nasty and cheap.
I've always been of the opinion that a pigeon could shit on a rubber dome and it would feel better than most chicklet keyboards, especially the ZX Spectrum & PC Jr.
you're like the forgotten weapons of keyboards
OK, a few things here. It was built to keep costs down. Keyboards back then added a significant cost to the machines. I've always found the keys to respond well, and have never heard of key repeat problems. Maybe sometimes they got stuck under the metal plate? As standard they connected via RF to the TV aerial socket. The ZX Spectrum+ came out first, then there was a keyboard/casing upgrade option.
WANING
its definitely been a while. im going to enjoy this
What a piece of nostalgy. My father bought us both the ZX81 (which I almost never used) and the ZX Spectrum which I used to learn the basics of computer hardware and programming (it came with great tutorials) and of course game. So many good games on this platform. Some really unique. The keyboard back then was no issue as you worked with what you had (even though my friend had a Commodore 64 it never occurred to me that my keyboard might be bad). Today, typing this on a cherished mechanical keyboard, I would probably consider the Spectrum's keyboard a digital suicide (pun totally intended).
in imperial units:
9.25x1.37 inches
19.82 oz
6:41 Fun fact: The Model F (keyboard alone) cost 2-3 times more than the XZ Spectrum depending on the model.
It was called "the dead flesh keyboard"...
My first experience of computer games this was. Ah the days of spending ages waiting for the tape to load 😎
I upgraded to an Atari ST later on which was practically space age with it's diskette drive and proper keyboard!
Much as I like the Atari ST, calling its keyboard "proper" is quite an exaggeration. It is legendarily spongy.
@@0LoneTech Compared with this though? 😂
3:50 The micro-controller inside of many modern mechanical keyboards is vastly more powerful than the CPU inside the ZX Spectrum.
Reminded me that I'm still missing one of these bad boys from my collection. Last time I ordered one the royal mail managed to lose the package twice, no idea if the seller got it back the second time but they did refund it
I do have the +2 model but it lacks the miserable rubber keyboard, although the +2 keyboard still feels horrible unless mine is just broken somehow
The Intro WANING (sic!) must have been typed on the Speccy with a very relaxed R key...
I was a bit “meh” about this video until the imperial units mentioned. That was perfection.
*obesity units
Fix'd.
The current gaming landscape would look very different if it weren't for Sinclair's computers.
IIRC, speccy keyboard is also 1 key rollower, if you are not counting modifiers.
Wouldn't it be two? Like you can move and jump in Manic Miner using the keyboard.
@@iantellam9970 maybe it's specific to BASIC environment and games roll their own keyboard handling routines.
I HIGHLY APPROVE the new switch of mocking American english.
41 years old here and my first machine was a Speccy although I had the ZX 128k +2. I'm now a programmer and gamer and I owe it all to a tape deck and spec ie magazines with free tapes.
I knew he'd love the keyboad of the good ol speccy, I'v actually read that the rubber membrane being described as "dead flesh" keys! not sure if anyone described it that way in the 80's though.
Funny thing is the ZX Spectrum reminds me of the Oculus Quest of all things......... hear me out, the Speccy was technically a Micro computer but what it did best was be a game console, it could do other stuff but mostly it was surprisingly good for gaming and made its success by having an accessible price.
The Quest/Quest 2 is a VR headset (obviously) can be used for practical purpose's like work meetings, presentations even being a home office but is at its best when gaming, it maybe a mobile phone built into VR goggles but what it actually is is a game console, it has also become very accessible by having a low price (although for much more dubious reasons).
The Quest platform has even sparked a similar indie scene where its still kind of the wild west, you might just be "bedroom programmer" now but with the right idea and skills you can end up up with one of the most popular games on the platform since you're not competing an endless list of annual release triple A games with an infinite marketing budget like on the big three gaming platforms.
You know it will be good when there's a waning.
That ZX81 looks like it has the same kind of 'keyboard' an old V-Tech toy game that looked like a computer had.
The person that made that first keyboard/case so obviously wanted an American "speccy" instead. Not that anyone these days remember those...
e: talking about Spectravideo, not the Timex Sinclair or anything
My uncle bought a Sinclair, might have been the ZX81 as I don't recall colour graphics. First keyboard I had to deal with was the chiclet keyboard on the Commodore PET. Then a Texas Instruments TI99-4A... which I don't recall the keyboard of so looking up now.
"the solidity of a fruit cake" is fruit cake different in the uk? in america they're basically bricks
In the UK, fruit cake is generally moist and mid-weight, except at Christmas, when we revert to the traditional iced cake made with depleted uranium.
Metric fruit cake, not to be confused with an imperial fruit cake.
@@SheeplessNW6 Well, at least is yummy depleted uranium... On Soviet Russia you only have oil drowned potassium cake for xmas. @ChemicalForce guy got one of these.
@@SheeplessNW6 Y'ALL ARE GETTING THOSE ICED?????
@@saccharinesilk The tradtional, armour-piercing UK/Irish Christmas cake has marzipan and fruitcake behind a rigid casing of royal icing. This is a _relatively_ dry, crumby fruitcake though it shouldn't be completely dried out. I'd provide a link, but it seems this channel is now auto-deleting comments with URLs. Oh Well. If you think _that's_ extreme, wait until you hear about the Wensleydale Heresy. I'd provide a link, but ... Oh Well.
We have to get this guy an Oric 1…now that will be fun to watch!
Probably the 50th person to put this, but hey ho. As I remember, the white commands like PRINT, POKE etc were entered if they were the first thing on the line that you typed, or after a colon, I believe the cursor would be a flashing 'K' to indicate this, then it would turn to an 'L' . The red commands you got by pressing them with the symbol shift. The green commands you had to press symbol shift and caps shift together which would turn your cursor into an 'E' and then yourr next press would type the green command. For the red commands under each key, I believe it was the same as for the green command above the key, but after your cursor turned to the 'E' I think you had to hold down either the caps shift or the symbol shift at the same time as pressing the key. Something like that anyway.
And the worst part about it is that really required you to mash the buttons to get them to register, especially on an older, well-used example... about half the characters you typed in the demonstration would not have registered.
I remember my father bought one of this computer back in 1986/87 where I did game a lot on those unit. My father had this one and another version with proper key caps than this unit.
Loading one game took sometimes with data tapes which sounds like dialing 64k modem. I do remember also there's an add-on to support cartridge like memory cards to load programs/games from it if I'm not mistaken.
Oh I've been waiting for this one
WANING
Was very surprised not to hear HHHHHHHHHIDEOUS even once. Then came the typing demo.
Whenever I complain about my Commodore 64's keyboard, I need to remind myself that I at least don't have a spectrum
However, after typing on the ergonomic nightmare that was a C64 for any extended period of time, a visit to the local chiropractor was almost a given. I'm still on first-name terms with the majority of 'em.
@@bomcabedal it is pretty bad ergonomically yeah, haven't thought about that, the switches are pretty shit too though
I saw this in my recommended and i was like oh sweet God
The fact the ZX Spectrum has as good of a library as it does courtesy of bedroom programmers in the UK is nothing short of a miracle, and the fact it has such an awful built-in keyboard speaks volumes to how committed they were.
The demonstration sentence looks to me like it's: "Hello my name is Thomas and I m typing on the ZX Spectrum right now This is fucking intolerable I can t find any of the symbols on it and the key feel is HHHHHHHHHHIDEOUS"
Yeah, that sounds about right :) .
I like that he keeps the Fold2000 around just to make fun of it.
"...like typing on decomposing flesh!" Ur not far off. As LGR put it "it's like fondling a zombie."
Haha is that really what he called it? xD
@@Chyrosran22 ua-cam.com/video/tqnIa4rXK_c/v-deo.html
3:19
Ur welcome ;-)
I don't even think I will see this thing on the channel. Hope you will get Mini-PET keyboard to review as soon as possible :)
edit: Just saw he already got ZX81
Someone get nostalgia nerd over here, I'm sure he'd love this video
My ZX Spectrum has been missing for a long time, I think my brother took it to Boston with him but I don't think it works any more, although I think that was the power brick which should be easy enough to replace.
The keyboard was always horrible but it wasn't used the way we use keyboards now, all of the silk screened words on the keys and the metal cover typed the whole word out, usually with a modifier key. To me It always felt like a bigger version of a calculator keyboard and it was clearly made to hit a price point rather than a quality point.
That metal plate was only held down by double sided tape, which would soften with heat, which meant that in Australia it was always lose. Back then air-con wasn't very common in houses unless the owner was loaded with cash, in which case they wouldn't have had a Speccy!
I'd never seen any of those alternative keyboards before this video, I guess the market in Oz was too small to bother with. The "official" one was really just a revised version of the Spectrum, hence the "+" in its name, it had significantly more memory and cost more. I never had that version, from looks alone it seemed pretty similar to Sinclair's next home computer, the QL. That had a full sized keyboard (I think) and shouldn't be too hard to get in the UK, I only ever saw one in the only local shop which had any Spectrum stuff in it. By the time it came out, here at least, there were more alternatives, we ended up with an Amstrad 128 (from memory).
You didn't really make it clear that you plugged it into a TV, which nearly every house had, harder to do these days as TV's have all gone digital. That kept the cost down as a computer with a monitor was a big step up in cost. I'd use it after school until dad came home and watched the news, we ended up with a second TV eventually and I spent many, many hours playing games on it.
I also learnt some basic programming and typed numerous things out of magazines, I can't remember what sort of programs they were but I do remember that they didn't all work, I suspect printing errors but it could have just been typos by a very young me.
PS. I really enjoyed the preview video, that gave me a good laugh as I remember the keys not registering!
Who was the genius who decided that there should be microwave buttons on a computer?
That's easy. Clive Sinclair. Lowering the price point was central to every single decision made by the company.
"...zips off like a cat you've just set fire to". Um, Thomas? We need to talk about your other...hobbies.
Believe it or not you actually need a lot of those commands for programming games. To make the sprites, create the physics, the collition detection, etc. It was quite basic (no pun intended) but it managed to do a lot with too little (the Spectrum had weaker specs than the C64 and the Amstrad CPC, both contemporaries of this one, intended for the home market)
The obligatory "You misspelled Warning" comment
I hear the debate in manufacturing went something like "Ok, so it's capable, it's affordable, it's pretty much gonna bring computing to the masses. But we need something for people to complain about. Let's try give it the worst keys possible"
I wrote a lot of code on the spectrum back in the 1980s, and it was a very capable computer, even though it's keyboard was certainly odd. I don't see how you can review the keyboard properly without powering it up, however.
Learned to programme on it and gamed like crazy. Was a fine little box! Terrible keyboard though.
This is gonna be good whenever i see waning.
The best part of it was that simply typing could cause peripherals to just ... fall out. And freeze/turn off the system. Or even brick it.
I happen to have the CS:GO skin that's based on this decice, which is the only reason I'm here.
I own the Comodore C116 which is a very similar idea with a similary tiny rubber keyboard and judging from your review it must feel quite like this device. I'd eat my CRT tubes if someone managed to touch type on that rubber carpet.
It's lovingly called "human flesh keyboard" for a reason.
As soon as I saw the thumbnail I braced for the WANING
I will actually defend the ZX81. If you hook it up to a TV and try it out you'll notice It doesn't require a lot of force to trigger the membrane, and given all the commands just require pressing one letter (instead of typing out the whole word) and the computer only outputs uppercase letters, you don't need to do anywhere near as many key presses as on a regular computer.
I haven't tried the Spectrum rubber keyboard, but there are mechanical switch upgrades available.
I have, however, tried a 128k Sinclair Toastrack and I absolutely hate the keyboard. It is the worst one I have ever used even after the mechanical switch upgrade. Extremely high effort, poor layout, and the only oversized key to have a metal bar to transmit the force more evenly is the space bar. If you don't press the other oversized keys exactly where the designers intended, the effort required goes through the roof to the point where the key might not even go down. This is even after a full cleanup and letting the rubber dome membrane soak overnight.
Not that I feel I need to defend the glory of the Speccie... The keyboard was crap but the dead and/or repeating keystroke issue was caused by a worn membrane. Replacing that every couple of years was a cheap and fast maintenance task. Aahhh, the pleasure of a fresh keyboard, slick typing guaranteed for maybe as long as a year before you started saving up and dreaming of the heady days when you'd be forced to go without a fresh box of blank cassettes or a trip to the local flea pit so you could bestow love and appreciation on your humble and maligned Spectrum. Stroke it's gentle curves while you smashed your way through Battle Cars, never once becoming frustrated with load times, load errors, random crashes, crappy sound.............