They also have a Philips VG8020 MSX on display.
Ah nice, my first love. I still have it, working. I will go sooner.
Perhaps with a decent keyboard, the ZX Spectrum could have stood a chance against the Commodore C64. The price of the ZX Spectrum was 175 £ ($306 at the time) and the Commodore cost $595. Of course, the C64 also had much better gfx and sound capabilities.
Isn't it kind of the other way round? When both machines were current there wre about ten ZX Spectrums sold for every Commodore 64, at least in the UK and Europe.
The Commodore 64 like the Apple II was very much a North American thing.
Exactly. The membrane keyboards weren't aesthetic choices, they were one of a number of compromises that were necessary to achieve the price point set by Clive Sinclair. He intuited that a sub-£200 colour computer would sell in huge quantities, and he was right. My (middle class) parents couldn't countenance the cost of a Commodore 64, but they were prepared to buy me a ZX Spectrum.
https://bluerenga.blog/2025/02/10/kim-venture-1979/
https://github.com/markbush/KIM-Venture
Also, MicroChess. I tried to find a MIT licensed copy for the Kim-Uno in order to adapt it from the ACIA (serial) output to the simulator from https://t3x.org written in T3X, but I had no luck. But you can virtually use the C sources with the bundled MOS 6502 CPU emulator, so in the end it's the same outcome as running an emulator and the MicroChess code on it. Also, it's MIT licensed.
https://www.benlo.com/microchess/ForsterMicrochessC.zip
GCC/Clang will compile it staight under GNU/Linux, BSD and OSX. Windows users can just use MinC and compile it if they want to peek and improve the implentation.
https://www.benlo.com/microchess/index.html
Kim-Uno emu, Sim65 kit https://t3x.org/t3x/0/sim65kit.html
(use T3X's "tx0 -c" command against .t files):
tx0 -c sim65
As for the ZX, there's this gem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1K_ZX_Chess and I'm pretty sure people ported MicroChess for the Z80 based computers.
And, well, as for gaming, The Hobbit surpasses the adventure of the Kim-1, but with far more resources. Still, before the ZX there was the ZX81 and people did crazy things on it, even Sokoban games. But Sokoban it's something playable even with a graph paper, pen and some tokens.
imglorp•2mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Computer_2048
empressplay•2mo ago
https://cybernews.com/editorial/the-1977-trinity-and-other-e...
anthk•2mo ago
spants•2mo ago
pjmlp•2mo ago
Only recently I got to understand Timex spotlight in USA was long gone, while in the Iberian Penisula it was still all over the place, alongside ZX Spectrums and some MSX models.
I never knew anyone with a C64 back then.
Then the next computing wave was mostly Amiga, there were some people with Sam Coupe, until Windows 3.1 came to be, which is when I left my dear Timex 2068 into PC land, buying on credit, hardly anyone could afford paying on the spot.
xcf_seetan•2mo ago
pjmlp•2mo ago
That was eventually the next step, for the school trading ground activities.
Not that the Portuguese shops had any original stuff anyway, I bought several games with clear copied covers in black and white, without manuals.
xcf_seetan•2mo ago
pjmlp•2mo ago
anthk•2mo ago
Similar on how the Play Station spread about the country: burning CD's and modding the PSX was trivial.
pjmlp•2mo ago
Microhobby, Micromania, Solo Programadores (this one came later in 32 bits days), are some I still remember the names.
La Abadía del Crimen, Sir Fred, Livingstone Supongo, Game Over, and such.
anthk•2mo ago
pjmlp•2mo ago
anthk•2mo ago
If you are interested, I can send a zip to you with a PDF and the TAP files.
Also, on modernish platforms, there's "El archipiélago", probably the best Spanish Z Machine game ever. You can get the last one at IFDB. Getting the first saga it's a bit cumbersome because you need to get nine downloads and sort the 'volumes' after that.
Back to "Van Halen", as the games are designed with PAWS/GACG or whatever was called that universal format from the 80's, the Zesarux emulator can trap all the interpretatation (as if it were a ZMachine-like interpreter itself) and giving you options to both debug the adventures and translate them to Portuguese (from any to any language) on the spot with online services (and maybe local, IDK; it shoudn't be difficult to add support to Argos Translate, Apertium and the like). Input is not translated but, well, these games have a really common verb set.
aa-jv•2mo ago