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In this mode, the keyboard detects not only when a key is pressed, but when it's released, making it more suitable for gameplay. This is the one that fully mimics a ZX Spectrum keyboard, using all the keys as they were originally intended, including now defunct ones such as Symbol Shift. One is what they're calling the Game Layer. It's able to do this because it has two input "layers" in the same keyboard, alternated by a switch on the back of the unit. "But you can also use it to play Game of Thrones on a Mac, or process your email."

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"Although we conceived the device as a controller for an iPad, for our apps, what it's developed into is a device that will enable you to play Spectrum games on an iPad or Android tablet," Wilcox says.

The decision to expand the device's compatibility to Android opened the door to making it work with PCs, and from there it evolved into a more adaptable piece of kit than was originally planned. In the time since the campaign finished, with just over £63k in funding, that spec has changed considerably. So we've ended up with this lengthy name - the Recreated Sinclair ZX Spectrum - which I think for convenience we should probably compress to just Recreated Spectrum." Chuckie Egg is one of the only games confirmed for the associated app, but up to 100 will supposedly be available when it launches.īack when the keyboard took to Kickstarter in December 2013, it was to be sold mainly as a controller for Elite's own range of Spectrum apps. "Once we'd got their general agreement to do what we wanted to do, they said it was all fine but we couldn't call it a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, because it isn't one. "At the time we struck the deal with them a couple of years ago to publish this product, we were only dealing with the lawyers," Elite boss Steve Wilcox explains as I fondle the machine. That means that while Elite has been able to use the name, it has to be made clearly distinct. The trademarks for both Sinclair and ZX Spectrum both now reside with Sky, following BSkyB's takeover of Amstrad, which bought out Sinclair in the 80s. It's noticeable enough for an 8-bit geek like myself to notice, but you'd have to be hopelessly wedded to the past to allow a detail like that to detract from what is otherwise an impressively faithful recreation.īut it is just a recreation - something that is reflected in the name. The main visual difference is that the embossed logo at the top left is more pronounced than on the real thing. It has the metal faceplate, it has the same lettering, the same multiple BASIC functions sprawling across the keys in a flood of red and white text. It doesn't feel cheap or plasticky, which was one of my main concerns.

It's slightly lighter than a real 48k rubber key model, but not distractingly so. In physical terms, it's a near perfect likeness.

#THE RECREATED SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM GAMES PC#

Not, I should point out, because I'm easily bowled over by the mere sight of a rubber keyboard - I've still got a real Spectrum set up right next to my PC and four shelves of games to play on it - but because I really wanted to see the thing in action and find out what, exactly, it would be able to do. The Layer switch on the back is central to the way the keyboard can work as both a Spectrum and a modern keyboard.Īs a lifelong Sinclair fan, I've followed the saga with interest and when I was asked if I wanted a demo of the device ahead of its launch, I jumped at the chance. It's been a controversial product from the very start, facing cynicism from within the hobbyist Speccy scene regarding its legitimacy as an actual "Spectrum" as well as criticism from the games industry itself after it was revealed that game developers who had licensed their games for use in Elite's apps hadn't been paid.

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Often at the forefront of that coverage has been a Kickstarted Bluetooth replica Spectrum, produced by veteran Britsoft publisher Elite Systems.Īfter a long and fraught development process, a retail release is finally drawing near.

The Recreated ZX Spectrum will be available later this year, when it will retail for £99.99.įollowing the machine's 30th anniversary in 2012, which saw mainstream media outlets reminding the nation of our coding roots, there has been a surge in interest that has taken Sinclair's creation from fondly remembered obscurity to pop culture touchstone once again.

That small, flat, black electronic beermat, with its colourful corner flash and bizarre rubber keyboard, may not be as world famous as a London cab but it seems to attract a similar swell of patriotic and nostalgic longing, at least if the current popularity of the humble Speccy is anything to go by. Add to that list the iconic Sinclair ZX Spectrum, a pioneering home computer that managed to showcase the best of British innovation as well as our more eccentric nature. We define ourselves by red buses, black taxis, cups of tea and the Sunday roast. The British have a very totemistic self image.