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Okay, this one is a serious (one sided) discussion, unlike my previous ramblings. We're talking about what makes the Spectrum the Spectrum, and it's more than just the games, or the rubber keys, or it's easy programming. It's that Spectrum feeling, and I feel that when I use my emulator to play Spectrum games, I'm losing something, and I think I know why.
There was a discussion around February on comp.sys.sinclair about the merits of using a Spectrum Emulator over a real Spectrum to play Spectrum games, and I must confess to being in the Emulator camp, although, as I said, that's mainly because my Spectrum doesn't work any more (join the club). However, I also use an Emulator to play Spectrum Games because it's so much quicker and easier to load the games than using the real thing, which can be an edgy affair, and due to my hardware, I could only play games that I have tapes of (about 20, compared to about 150 snaps in total). And there we have the two problems in a nutshell - speed and quantity. It's too easy and too quick!
In the old days when I used a real Spectrum, I didn't have that any games and those that I did have took five minutes to load. So when they did load, I spent a long time with them, exploring them and seeing how far I could get. Now, with the Emulator, I load up a snap (say Rollercoaster), jump around for literally about 30 seconds, lose a few lives, and then load another game. I can remember playing Rollercoaster in the past on my real Spectrum, and I played it for days! (I even thought it was better than MM and JSW). Maybe it's because I'm older now and prefer games to be deeper, but it's so easy to give a snap 30 seconds to prove itself, and if it fails (as most will do in that time limit), to load up another one, and then another etc. The ftp sites means that we have an almost unlimited supply of games to try out. I don't give them a chance any more, but I'm determined to change.
Thank you for listening!
Stephen Smith
"Spectrum Users do it with rubber".