h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Jetman was fantastic! One of the best comic strips to appear in a computer magazine. There's a website somewhere that has *all* the episodes of Jeman, but can't remember where. Try doing a search

Heh, Lycos has led me to an archive of every edition of CRASH! Which issue did Jetman start in? Or maybe I'll find out who the Terminal Man is (five quid says he's a robot).

Oh, he's not. B*gg*r.

Ernie the Psychotic Madman was better

Who?

He was in Your Sinclair, which was much better than Crash.

(note - no 'in my opinion' - it was simply better)

CRASH! was clearly superior.

*a crowd is heard chanting "Fight, fight, fight"*

Check out 'Your Sinclair Rock n' Roll Years' on the web. I can't give you the details, but YSRNRY shouldn't be too difficult to find.

I'm checking out the site now (well, not right now, I'm typing right now, but it's in the other window.

I thought of another possibility for inclusion: Skooldaze and Bak2skool. I could even write them if you like.

Have you guys seen this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A637319?

Have you guys seen this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A637319 ?

Does anyone remember The Wild Bunch>

This was an excellent strategy game - but most of the time was spent playing poker to build up money.





Myriad.

The classic early game "Splat" did, I recall, a quite passable "Yippee!" when you completed each stage. The first synthesised speech I ever heard.

The Spectrum also had the Currah µSpeech add-on, which a limited number of games used. I never had one myself, but the (probably apocryphal) story is that Ultimate's Lunar Jetman used to say "Oh sh**!" when he died, if you had a µSpeech plugged in.

The definitive site to check out for the Speccy has got to be "World of Spectrum" (www-dot-worldofspectrum-dot-org). A massive collection of emulators, old games, manuals, cassette inlays, the lot. The latest emulators, like SPIN, RealSpectrum and Spectaculator, emulate the Spectrum right down to the last details. That's right - should you wish, your brand new 2MHz monster PC can emulate a Spectrum attached to a dogdy old B&W telly, and take 5 minutes to load each 48K game!

Also at the site, there's details of how you can get hold of a 5-CD set of all the issues of CRASH magazine. That's right - someone out there has scanned EVERY SINGLE PAGE of every issue of CRASH! He's moving on to Your Sinclair and Your Spectrum now, and they should be ready by the spring. All the scans are also avaiable on the site, but watch out - you'll get blocked if you try to leech them all off in one go.

There's also a new Spectrum magazine, published in PDF format, called ZX Format. It's currently into its 3rd issue, and all 3 are avaiable for download. This will bring you right up-to-date no what's happening in the Spectrum world right now. A Surprising lot, as it happens. Google for 'zxf' and it should be the first site on the list.

Ah the Spectrum - an object of desire - the dreams about having sound, colour and a moving keyboard and the "quantum leap" (pardon the pun)of upgrading from the zx81. Tape loading was never more than 5 minutes - 2:30 for Jetset Willy I seem to remember (and the little recognised skill of being able to identify the last 15 seconds of the loading by ear - in order to time the arrival back into the room with the steaming cup of tea and jam sandwich).

'Crash' was an exceptional magazine and truly advanced for a learned community of users. This was more than a hobby; it was a fascination. Loony Jetman was, and is, one of the best and most outrageous cartoon strips ever produced - there are archives and it's well worth seeking them out. The playground currency of having a 'Crash Smash' in the week of publication had no rival and the reviews were generally more objective and reliable than the rivals. 'Your Spectrum' was a healthy and excellent rival to 'Crash' with a more technical and hobbyist bent - they even produced a super-fast multi-tasking operating system and language. Sadly, they began a slide with the change to 'Your Sinclair' but then the hobbyist side of things had begun to be overtaken by the mass gaming side. Never mind, the games pushed the machine way beyond the 'pregnant calculator' description made later by Alan Sugar of Amstrad.

As for favourite games - well Sabre Wulf has to stand high, high and high. Knightlore was exceptional and the knowledge that Ultimate delayed it's release by a year because the market wasn't ready for it stills amazes to this day - Ultimate were exactly as their name suggested and so in control of their market. Jetpac was remarkable at the time and then the sequel, Lunar Jetman, was both brilliant frustrating in it's difficulty and true arcade style gameplay. Matchpoint led to many punch-ups and was one of the first simultaneous two player games (and published by the clever software house of the time, Psion). Matchday kept me up late many nights as I strove to win the FA cup. Nightflite (Hewson), Fighter Pilot and Tomahawk (Digital Integration) helped continue the interest that led to my becoming a professional pilot (rather than the millionaire games designer that I was too lazy to become when I'd arrive home laden with new playground gained games to look at rather than learn machine code).

The spectrum greatly contributed to the massive industry that is here today and it holds many fond memories.