I originally had the 16k version, my parents could not afford the 48k. All my mates did have the 48k, though. I later got the chip and upgraded it to 48k. I loved the Speccy.
Another extremely entertaining video from you. Thanks! 👏🏻👏🏻 I know it would not be your usual stomping grounds, but have you considered doing an episode on games for the TI Calculators?
I'm late to the party, but want to say well done on a really fun video. I got into developing Speccy games at the back end of 2012 and targeted the 16k model because the memory limitation prevented me getting too ambitious with my first projects. I got 3 games out before real life stuff pulled me away, it was all great fun.
The VIC would be interesting, but if you include games that REQUIRE a memory expansion cartridge, it would be kind of cheating. So where do you draw the line. If you were to do a VIC 20 limit pushing video, you should only include games that push the limits of the BASE memory
@@lordevyl8317 While I do agree with that to a certain point, look at his Atari 2600 limit pushing videos. A lot of the limit pushers on the 2600 (particularly the ones from Activision) had extra memory inside the cartridge that "piggybanked" off the base memory, so I don't really see much difference TBH.
Loving how many of the games I'm this video I played on my dad's 128k speccy! Makes me thirsty for a video about 128k speccy exclusives if that is a thing!
It is, the 128k had many advantages to the 16/48k ones so there were many exclusives to the 128k models: the AY audio chip, a double frame buffer for video and of course lots and lots of ram (if you consider 128k lots and lots of ram xD). For example there are "La abadía del crimen" (The Abbey of Crime), "Where Time Stood Still" and "Carrier command" just to name some :)
I'm going to try some of these on the play zx app. PS, you missed out TransAm, not only my favourite 16k speccy game, yet one of the 1st games I ever played on a spectrum back in the 80s.
What, the bold statement of 'High Resolution Graphics' (meaning user definable 8x8 grid characters, and not just the 16 4x4 blocks that came with the '81) ...or the 'POO BUM WILLY'?
Many classic coin-op arcade games from the early 80s only had around 8-16k of RAM and ROM, things like Galaxian, Galaga, Donkey Kong, Pacman, Missile Command, etc.
Great video. We never got these in Canada and I had no idea there were different versions. Always assumed there was just one. 🤓 Thanks for making this.
Excellent video! Very interesting that bit about the scramble game and how they alternated the scrolling, clever, and a nice port. Deathchase was really impressive, it felt quite spectacular at the time. Jet Pac is just pure class, I might have a game later if my hangover clears up a little... One thought on these great vids, might it be possible to add the game sound, even if low in the audio mix?
I never realised that Deathchase was a 16k game, pretty amazing really. Would have been interesting to see what they could have done if they did a 48k version.
Actually I just discovered there is a 48K hack that someone has done. It speeds things up a bit by using the uncontended memory I talked about in the vid. I wish I found out sooner, it would have been good to put it in this video.
@@jezz2k www.the-tipshop.co.uk/cgi-bin/info.pl?name=Deathchase&publisher=Micromega&alias_string= It's here on this tipshop page. There's no complete ready to load version, you need to load a file first then load the original game. There's a different version for the two different releases. www.the-tipshop.co.uk/hacks/ArchieRobins/TAP/0/3D%20Death%20Chase%20(16K)(1983)(Micromega)[p].tap www.the-tipshop.co.uk/hacks/ArchieRobins/TAP/0/3D%20Death%20Chase%20(16K)(1983)(Zeppelin%20Games)[p].tap
...There was also Mastertronic and Firebird Software who were bargain bin games distributors of not always so commercial quality games, but most were at least very playable. I think Mastertronic did a version of Space Invaders and Galaxians, and Firebird did Phoenix, which was a kind of hybrid of the two. I'm not entirely sure, but its very probable they were 16k games. Some other less popular games from the likes of Ultimate and USGold came in 16K on a double sided cassette where the game was in two seperate halves. Of course there was also a plethora of text adventure games which tried to capitalise on the popularity of fantasy adventure books of the time (anyone remember The Wizard of Firetop Mountain?), But they weren't so popular. Somehow, rolling actual dice and flicking through pages of a book was more fun that staring at a black screen or splash screen picture and typing in to the input buffer at the bottom of the screen (after you got it to actually load after the third attempt, having already drank two cans of pop and eaten three packets of crisps while waiting!)
Indeed. Arcadia was really impressive when it appeared. The first title which looked like something I'd have been willing to pay 10p a time to play at the arcade
Back in the day, Xmas day, i received a 16k ZX Spectrum. I played the hell the game Jetpac. Eventually i would save my pocket money and purchase a 32k plug-in memory upgrade, thus allowing me access to a greater choice of games. Arcadia was a rather decent 16k game ^_^
I had another 16K computer at the time... might be worth a look as well: the Commodore C16. The unloved child. But it was my first computer and it seemed to me like it had endless possibilities... for a short time at least.
Actually, I always found Jumping Jack to be pretty slick on the 16K. Its minimalist approach to graphics meant it ran surprisingly quickly for the Spectrum, and was quite an addictive concept.
There is no denying Jet Pac is a Holly Grail, but if you've ever wonder what else could of been possible look no further than the Commodore C16 which only had 12k free memory! Manic Miner while slightly striped down was released on it back in the day. They even got Finders Keepers running on it. And one of the greatest achievements of all time has to be Tom Thumb. Over at Plus4 World if you check out the Covers section your get an idea of the commercial software that was available with many of the big hitters coming from Mastertronic, Gremlin Graphics, Anirog & Anco. More people should embrace the under dog computers as it's fascinating seeing what can be done with less memory. The Electron, sister of the BBC is another. 👍
Stuntman on the Atari 2600 also chose to play the death march like Sir Lancelot on every death. I wish there was an easy way to bypass that on the 2600. It's brutal having to wait for it each time.
6:33 Of course, Penetrator was better known and enjoyed because of the larger size of physical memory involved ... That was a stick you'd want to grab.
Just imagine that game with modern graphics- it could be freakin' awesome. I remember it being one of my first games when I had a Speccy- great memories I have of it.
Artic Invaders, Artic Galaxians, Jumping Jack, Colour Clash, Pssst, Cookie, Tranz Am - these were all 16K as well and excellent games. Magic Meanies was acceptable too.
Although the Timex Sinclair 2068 is capable of having two frame buffers and switching between them, but I'm not aware of the Spectrum having this ability.
My sister's boyfriend in the mid 80's let me use his 48k Speccy & just as I was falling in love with it they split up. The first time I saw The Great Escape on it my 7 year old brain nearly exploded. I ended up with a CPC464 soon after.
Anyone else notice resemblance between the knight in Sir Lancelot and another early rare game, Wizards and Warriors? Maybe they saw that game while making other ZX games and got inspired.
16K Spectrum games can be fun to write, a challenging programming exercise. Once you've taken into account memory used for the screen and other things a programmer is left with around 8.5K to maybe 9K tops.
The Spectrum and the Timex Sinclair 2068 have a weakness in the first 16K of RAM is interfaced through the video chip making it contested RAM. The processor can't access this 16K bank while the display is being drawn to the screen. That means any machine code in the first 16K of RAM will run slower than machine code in the upper 32K of RAM. BASIC code starts in the first 16K so it has the same weakness. It would have been smarter to have the video RAM mapped to the top 16K instead of the first 16K of RAM, but that would have been trickier for models that only have 16K of RAM. They would have to figure out where the RAM was. Given that the first 16K bank of RAM has this problem, it would have been smart to start the BASIC user RAM as the second 16K bank. This would only show 32K RAM free, but the unused video memory could be used to store graphics or data. Apparently, somebody thought of this. In the 2068 technical manual available online, I saw a function call in the ROM that would relocate the BASIC code to the top 32K of memory. This would give less free memory but make the BASIc code run faster.
You need to do one on games that push the Acorn Electron to the limit as it shares a similar problem vs the BBC B that the 16k had against the 48k - slow memory. So bad that even thought the CPU runs at 2MHz like on the BBC it runs at half that when accessing RAM.
Yes I would love to. I've not done anything on Acorn yet apart from a video about the Atom years ago. It is on my list. I remember Exile uses the video ram to store data so it's got that really weird border on the screen, that will be fun to explain.
Honestly, if gameplay is more important than graphics and sound then just about any system can do just fine. Case in point: The original Commodore Vic-20 came with only 5k of RAM and yet had some fun games, and the Atari 2600 only had 128 bytes, BYTES!, to speak of!
Ahhhh, penetrator. A game whose meaning would be questioned by today's paltry generation. I used to love playing River Rescue and Wheelie. Not sure if 16k because I only ever had the 48k.
Manic Miner wouldn't run on the 16K Spectrum. The room definitions alone were nearly 19k, and screen buffers take up another 9k. Jet Set Willy used a more efficient level storage format, allowing for a much larger game within 48k. skoolkit.ca/disassemblies/manic_miner/hex/maps/all.html
One thing to bear in mind: £125 in 1982 had the same purchasing power that £451.15 has today. Compared to then, technology today is extremely affordable.
I originally had the 16k version, my parents could not afford the 48k. All my mates did have the 48k, though. I later got the chip and upgraded it to 48k. I loved the Speccy.
'idiot brother'! Great stuff. The challenge of tighter constraints makes for more interesting stuff.
Thank you so much!
Another extremely entertaining video from you. Thanks! 👏🏻👏🏻
I know it would not be your usual stomping grounds, but have you considered doing an episode on games for the TI Calculators?
This is an absolute quality channel with a personal touch! Everyone should recommend this to anyone interested in these kinds of topics!
Great video. Jetpac is one of my favourites from back in the day. Fueled my love for gravity-style shooters. Like Gravity Force on the Amiga :D
I'm late to the party, but want to say well done on a really fun video. I got into developing Speccy games at the back end of 2012 and targeted the 16k model because the memory limitation prevented me getting too ambitious with my first projects. I got 3 games out before real life stuff pulled me away, it was all great fun.
Awesome video, Please do one on pushing the limits of the VIC-20 (and/or the Plus4/C16)
There are a lot of limits to push there. I would love to see such a video.
Another vote for the Vic20
that would be quite interesting
The VIC would be interesting, but if you include games that REQUIRE a memory expansion cartridge, it would be kind of cheating. So where do you draw the line. If you were to do a VIC 20 limit pushing video, you should only include games that push the limits of the BASE memory
@@lordevyl8317 While I do agree with that to a certain point, look at his Atari 2600 limit pushing videos. A lot of the limit pushers on the 2600 (particularly the ones from Activision) had extra memory inside the cartridge that "piggybanked" off the base memory, so I don't really see much difference TBH.
0:43 The spoof reviews and other such stuff on the old magazine/marketing material is brilliant :D
Glad someone noticed! I'll do that sort of thing more if people pick up on it.
Loving how many of the games I'm this video I played on my dad's 128k speccy! Makes me thirsty for a video about 128k speccy exclusives if that is a thing!
It is, the 128k had many advantages to the 16/48k ones so there were many exclusives to the 128k models: the AY audio chip, a double frame buffer for video and of course lots and lots of ram (if you consider 128k lots and lots of ram xD). For example there are "La abadía del crimen" (The Abbey of Crime), "Where Time Stood Still" and "Carrier command" just to name some :)
@@drgusman then bring it! :D
Cool to see another young person here.
Honorable mentions go to Arcadia by Imagine and Pheenix by Megadodo which is very good.
Pheenix was awesome!
Sharopolis at 1:47: Seal the deal
Me, a Volbeat fan: And let's boogie for awhile!
1:26 Being part of bundles sold with the computer itself also helped I guess... I loved it anyway.
Excellent video. I'm always curious about the 16K stuff.
I'm going to try some of these on the play zx app.
PS, you missed out TransAm, not only my favourite 16k speccy game, yet one of the 1st games I ever played on a spectrum back in the 80s.
Dune Buggy?
0:29 - I nearly missed that. proper cracked me up!
What, the bold statement of 'High Resolution Graphics' (meaning user definable 8x8 grid characters, and not just the 16 4x4 blocks that came with the '81) ...or the 'POO BUM WILLY'?
Many classic coin-op arcade games from the early 80s only had around 8-16k of RAM and ROM, things like Galaxian, Galaga, Donkey Kong, Pacman, Missile Command, etc.
PSSST works on the 16k? Magnificent!!! One of the best game ever. You shouldn't have left it out.
It does! Its darn good fun but I just liked Jetpac a bit better, sorry!
Computer gaming back then must of been so magical. I remember trying to ensure my 640K on my 386DX was managed properly so I can play certain games.
Great video. We never got these in Canada and I had no idea there were different versions. Always assumed there was just one. 🤓 Thanks for making this.
Thanks for watching!
Great video! I'm impressed you found so many limit pushing games for the 16k!
Thanks, there's more too, I'll revisit the subject one day.
0:15 “Brimming with musty vigour”. Ok......
Excellent video! Very interesting that bit about the scramble game and how they alternated the scrolling, clever, and a nice port. Deathchase was really impressive, it felt quite spectacular at the time. Jet Pac is just pure class, I might have a game later if my hangover clears up a little... One thought on these great vids, might it be possible to add the game sound, even if low in the audio mix?
I never realised that Deathchase was a 16k game, pretty amazing really. Would have been interesting to see what they could have done if they did a 48k version.
Actually I just discovered there is a 48K hack that someone has done. It speeds things up a bit by using the uncontended memory I talked about in the vid. I wish I found out sooner, it would have been good to put it in this video.
@@Sharopolis Do you have a link, perchance?
@@jezz2k www.the-tipshop.co.uk/cgi-bin/info.pl?name=Deathchase&publisher=Micromega&alias_string=
It's here on this tipshop page. There's no complete ready to load version, you need to load a file first then load the original game. There's a different version for the two different releases.
www.the-tipshop.co.uk/hacks/ArchieRobins/TAP/0/3D%20Death%20Chase%20(16K)(1983)(Micromega)[p].tap
www.the-tipshop.co.uk/hacks/ArchieRobins/TAP/0/3D%20Death%20Chase%20(16K)(1983)(Zeppelin%20Games)[p].tap
There was a pretty decent Pinball game for the 16K Speccy as well, programmed by Sagittarius Software.
Am I reading that advert/review right? Printed on the TV screen is... POO BUM WILLY???! hahaha that'd be too funny.
0:22 - What I used to do in the 80's in the UK as a kid in computer stores on the display Commodore 64's.
I glad someone noticed, it took me ages to do that. My art skills aren't the best.
Just picked up an issue 1 16k low serial number .really happy
...There was also Mastertronic and Firebird Software who were bargain bin games distributors of not always so commercial quality games, but most were at least very playable. I think Mastertronic did a version of Space Invaders and Galaxians, and Firebird did Phoenix, which was a kind of hybrid of the two. I'm not entirely sure, but its very probable they were 16k games. Some other less popular games from the likes of Ultimate and USGold came in 16K on a double sided cassette where the game was in two seperate halves. Of course there was also a plethora of text adventure games which tried to capitalise on the popularity of fantasy adventure books of the time (anyone remember The Wizard of Firetop Mountain?), But they weren't so popular. Somehow, rolling actual dice and flicking through pages of a book was more fun that staring at a black screen or splash screen picture and typing in to the input buffer at the bottom of the screen (after you got it to actually load after the third attempt, having already drank two cans of pop and eaten three packets of crisps while waiting!)
Yessssssss a great video from the glorious comrade himself!
Arcadia should be on this list for sure!
Indeed. Arcadia was really impressive when it appeared. The first title which looked like something I'd have been willing to pay 10p a time to play at the arcade
Tranzam
Back in the day, Xmas day, i received a 16k ZX Spectrum. I played the hell the game Jetpac. Eventually i would save my pocket money and purchase a 32k plug-in memory upgrade, thus allowing me access to a greater choice of games.
Arcadia was a rather decent 16k game ^_^
I had another 16K computer at the time... might be worth a look as well: the Commodore C16. The unloved child. But it was my first computer and it seemed to me like it had endless possibilities... for a short time at least.
Mine was the Plus4
@@Turrican I bought one a few years ago to play the "advanced" games ;-)
I went from a zx81 to a c16 , it was like the wizard if oz movie , going from black and white to colour
Actually, I always found Jumping Jack to be pretty slick on the 16K. Its minimalist approach to graphics meant it ran surprisingly quickly for the Spectrum, and was quite an addictive concept.
There is no denying Jet Pac is a Holly Grail, but if you've ever wonder what else could of been possible look no further than the Commodore C16 which only had 12k free memory! Manic Miner while slightly striped down was released on it back in the day. They even got Finders Keepers running on it. And one of the greatest achievements of all time has to be Tom Thumb. Over at Plus4 World if you check out the Covers section your get an idea of the commercial software that was available with many of the big hitters coming from Mastertronic, Gremlin Graphics, Anirog & Anco.
More people should embrace the under dog computers as it's fascinating seeing what can be done with less memory. The Electron, sister of the BBC is another. 👍
Stuntman on the Atari 2600 also chose to play the death march like Sir Lancelot on every death. I wish there was an easy way to bypass that on the 2600. It's brutal having to wait for it each time.
Galaxians and Space Invaders, both by Artic, were also good.
Vic-20, Apple II, Atari 400, they all craved for 16KB of ram.
Very nice video! Any plans on making a "Software that push the MSX" video?
6:33 Of course, Penetrator was better known and enjoyed because of the larger size of physical memory involved ... That was a stick you'd want to grab.
Cavern Fighter looks REALLY damn good for a 16K game. Could easily pass as a 48K version.
I still play Deathchase on my 128K, it passes many hours.
Just imagine that game with modern graphics- it could be freakin' awesome.
I remember it being one of my first games when I had a Speccy- great memories I have of it.
Artic Invaders, Artic Galaxians, Jumping Jack, Colour Clash, Pssst, Cookie, Tranz Am - these were all 16K as well and excellent games. Magic Meanies was acceptable too.
Although the Timex Sinclair 2068 is capable of having two frame buffers and switching between them, but I'm not aware of the Spectrum having this ability.
My sister's boyfriend in the mid 80's let me use his 48k Speccy & just as I was falling in love with it they split up. The first time I saw The Great Escape on it my 7 year old brain nearly exploded. I ended up with a CPC464 soon after.
I want to do feature the great escape in a video at some point, 4 way scrolling isometric graphics is no mean feat.
Anyone else notice resemblance between the knight in Sir Lancelot and another early rare game, Wizards and Warriors? Maybe they saw that game while making other ZX games and got inspired.
16K Spectrum games can be fun to write, a challenging programming exercise. Once you've taken into account memory used for the screen and other things a programmer is left with around 8.5K to maybe 9K tops.
Hey great video ! Are you going to make the same with Amiga ?
I loved sir Lancelot
A couple of other 16k games I recommend... Arcadia (a somewhat flickery but very enjoyable fixed screen shooter), and Push Off (a Pengo clone).
The 128k ZX Spectrum completely dwarfed the 16k Speccy regardless when that was available, though the 48k and 128k were both very popular by fans
The Spectrum and the Timex Sinclair 2068 have a weakness in the first 16K of RAM is interfaced through the video chip making it contested RAM. The processor can't access this 16K bank while the display is being drawn to the screen. That means any machine code in the first 16K of RAM will run slower than machine code in the upper 32K of RAM. BASIC code starts in the first 16K so it has the same weakness. It would have been smarter to have the video RAM mapped to the top 16K instead of the first 16K of RAM, but that would have been trickier for models that only have 16K of RAM. They would have to figure out where the RAM was.
Given that the first 16K bank of RAM has this problem, it would have been smart to start the BASIC user RAM as the second 16K bank. This would only show 32K RAM free, but the unused video memory could be used to store graphics or data. Apparently, somebody thought of this. In the 2068 technical manual available online, I saw a function call in the ROM that would relocate the BASIC code to the top 32K of memory. This would give less free memory but make the BASIc code run faster.
You need to do one on games that push the Acorn Electron to the limit as it shares a similar problem vs the BBC B that the 16k had against the 48k - slow memory. So bad that even thought the CPU runs at 2MHz like on the BBC it runs at half that when accessing RAM.
Yes I would love to. I've not done anything on Acorn yet apart from a video about the Atom years ago. It is on my list. I remember Exile uses the video ram to store data so it's got that really weird border on the screen, that will be fun to explain.
Thanks!
Thank you!
Jetpac, the best 16k game ever :)
Honestly, if gameplay is more important than graphics and sound then just about any system can do just fine. Case in point: The original Commodore Vic-20 came with only 5k of RAM and yet had some fun games, and the Atari 2600 only had 128 bytes, BYTES!, to speak of!
16k wouldn't even cover one letter of text on screen these days to think you used to be able to fit a whole game in that space.
One letter of text is one byte.
@@JB_inks No, he means the text of a letter.
@@wisteela still not sure that's right. That's 16,000 characters which is pretty generous.
Not even 16K for the code, since a part of the RAM is shared with the graphic subsystem, as explained in the video.
@@JB_inks It's certainly impressive what they managed to do.
Don't forget Tranzam
TransAm was one of the 1st games I played on a rubber key speccy back in the 80s.
Brilliant little game
@@mattsmedley.onehandedgamin9029 me too. I just have been about 8 or 9 but in my mind at the time it was just as immersive as modern games
That’s some limited limit limitations.
7:25 few advantaGES - why did he say that like a french cartoon character? I did not see that coming.
It was my tribute to Asterix The Gaul. Actually it's just the way I talk.
@@Sharopolis Okay then. Carry on.
We bought it to help with your homework! 😉
Can you make an episode about the mz700?
That's a really interesting system, so maybe one day.
So, in essence 32kb works out at £50.
If memory prices had stayed the same then my 16Gb memory for my pc would cost £25m
Sounds about right. I shopped around a bit last time I built a PC and got some unbranded DDR4 ram on eBay for only £22 million.
@@Sharopolis sounds about right.. Especially for non-ecc
Did anyone else notice dont panics ship has F U on it lol
Yep spooted that 😉
Oh dear I missed that! I've no idea why, but I didn't pick up on that.
@@Sharopolis loving the vids bud, ive just started my channel doing retro repairs. x
Can the 16k model be upgraded to 48k?
Yes
Most were, in fact. My 16K Issue 2 eventually became a 48K Plus through upgrades.
Yep, that's why unmolested 16Ks make such big money on eBay nowadays.
Love me some 16k
Me too!
Just don't play Jet Pac on the ZX Spectrum Next @ 28MHz - it's nuts!
Ahhhh, penetrator. A game whose meaning would be questioned by today's paltry generation. I used to love playing River Rescue and Wheelie. Not sure if 16k because I only ever had the 48k.
The sinclair user review questions the name. Your paltry generation were just as bad apparently.
@@medes5597 it had to start somewhere. Thankfully in my day it was rare.
Meanwhile I'm watching this video on a phone with 12gb of RAM. lol
inefficient battery users
Action games on the speccy is a no-No, so 16k was enough and when you went on the c-64 you really needed the 128k
not just that it pushed things jetpac used 8k not even 16k
I thought the original "Manic Miner" could be played on a 16k Spectrum? It's sequel for 48k only. Might be wrong.
Manic Miner wouldn't run on the 16K Spectrum. The room definitions alone were nearly 19k, and screen buffers take up another 9k. Jet Set Willy used a more efficient level storage format, allowing for a much larger game within 48k.
skoolkit.ca/disassemblies/manic_miner/hex/maps/all.html
@@gwishart I thought I remembered playing it on my old 16k speccy, but it must have been round a friend's house. His dad was made of cash. 😂
I had the same thought when I started making this video, but no, as @gwishart says, Manic Miner pretty much fills 48K.
Styx by Matthew Smith, the game he wrote before Manic Miner, was a decent 16k Game
Styx
Winged Warlords (a Joust clone)
Arcadia
Horace?
Not really a limit pusher
@@theyamo7219 Well, Horace Goes Skiing managed to cram two sub-games into 9K which was kind of a feat I suppose.
To think 16K and 48K were considered high-end 🤣. These days modern PC gamers laugh at you if you run only 8 gigs 🤣.
One thing to bear in mind: £125 in 1982 had the same purchasing power that £451.15 has today. Compared to then, technology today is extremely affordable.
Spectrum...Ew!