Gouda

Cheese Whiz

It could be argued that it all started with a a simple post on the Penny Arcade forums.  It could also be argued that it started far earlier than that, with Europe’s refusal to buy into the whole ‘we love everything Nintendo does’ thing until the SNES arrived.  What ever the source of inspiration of the tale of what I’m about to reveal to you, I just hope you find it of interest!

PAX is about bringing gamers together under a single roof to celebrate all things gaming.  It’s about unifying like minded folk to exchange ideas and share experiences about any form of game, be it video, computer, board and pen & paper RPG’s, none of these forms of games are excluded.  This also applies to retro gaming, a increasingly popular niche within the video game milieu.  This is primarily because with the passing of time, video games of old are lost with only a few remaining thanks to remakes appearing on various digital distribution networks such as XBLA and PSN. Some of these lost games were considered gems at the time of their release, so to see them fade into the history books is not a scenario retro gaming fans are prepared to accept.

Sadly retro gaming is not much of a unifying force due primarily to fact that it is heavily region biased.  Each of the 3 key market regions, those being North America, Europe and Asia saw the rise of video games in very different lights.  North America took to the computer initially but then adopted the video game console as its primary means of consuming video games.  Japan preferred the environment of the arcades, with home consoles playing second fiddle to them with the only exception of RPG’s being the main genre that occupied the home video game console.  Europe was the main odd-man-out, with its refusal to fall out of love with the home computer and as such its affects still being felt to this day.

The key point here is that Europeans didn’t adopt the NESin the same vast numbers their NTSC region dwellers did.  They instead played games on a variety of 8-bit and 16-bit computers, none of which were compatible with one another and as such created a very splintered market for games developers and publishers.  One of the major formats in Europe, most notably the UK and Spain was the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.  It was thanks to the arrival of this machine in 1982 that saw the rise of the game development community in the UK that has managed to remain a significant force on the world stage since then.

So what does all this have to do with PAX, not to mention the forum post linked above?  Well it’s to do with the fact that I responded to the plea for classic consoles by offering a spare ZX Spectrum as a donation to the Classic Console Freeplay area.  I initially expected a terse ‘thanks but no thanks’ response, as I assumed that the ZX Spectrum is a format that would only be of interest to European gamers.  I was so very wrong on this score!  The response was positive as it was swift.  Reeling from this I suddenly realised what I’d gotten myself into.  Whilst the idea was a good one, how do I get 28 year old computer to the US and get it powered as well as display its output in a very foreign land? The answer to these, as well as all other questions could be found on the internet.  More specifically, at the World of Spectrum forums.

I went there and asked the question on how to get a ZX Spectrum to work in the USA.  There was a plethora of responses to my initial query, all ranging from altering the output of the Spectrum from RF to composite, using a PAL to  NSTC converter and the merits of buying a step up transformer over and above buying an off the shelf PSU. The whole thing can be read here.

For fear of blowing up the Spectrum by using a replacement PSU, I went for using 100w step up transformers for both the Spectrum and the WH Smith data-cassette unit.  I had originally wanted to use a card reader for loading games onto the Spectrum, but I ran into technical difficulties with it and thus resorted to using the more traditional tape loading system.  I also bought an PAL to NTSC converter that had a European plug.  To overcome that I had to use a European to North American plug adaptor.  What I’m getting at here is that I effectively had to create a kind of simulated environment in order for the ZX Spectrum to work.  It needed its own special power supply as well as video output in order for it to be of any use in the US.  The more I looked into it, the more I realised I may had bitten off more than I could chew.  Despite this I felt the need to pursue this endeavour as I hoped it would become a unifying symbol to bring the American and European gamer closer together.

Eventually the day came when I had to fly off to Seattle. I packed the ZX Spectrum along with all of its other life-support components into to my now bulging suit case and lugged it 6,000 miles across the planet.  Just as an aside, if there is anyone reading this that has never been to PAX simply because it’s ‘too far away’, just remember an Englishman travelled a significant distance with an antique computer in his luggage before making that your primary excuse for not going.  Just sayin’.  Anyway on the first day of PAX I went to the Classic Console Free Play area and declared to them that I had a ‘donation’ to offer.  With the ZX Spectrum being in a chrome carrying case, it looked like I was going to be offering a combination of guns/drugs/money to the enforcers that were manning the desks.  Thankfully it was none of those things.  It was instead the ZX Spectrum along with all the necessary kit to get it fired up and running.  I explained that I could not leave the enforcers to it as the machine is far from straight forward and some training was required to use it.

The PAX enforcers ripped out a NES from its station and I set about setting the ZX Spectrum, to their utter bemusement.  There was the machine itself, then there was the joystick interface, then the connecting the Spectrum to the tape deck.  Lest we forget the connecting the Spectrum to the PAL to NTSC converter and in turn the LCD TV.  The last thing we plugged in was the Zip Stick and we were good to go.  Crossing my fingers and toes, I plugged the ZX Spectrum PSU into the machine and turned on the TV.  Much to my delight I was greeted with the words ‘Sinclair Research Ltd 1982′ at the bottom of the screen.  I yelled in delight, much to the surprise to the PAX enforcers who asked if it was ‘working’.  I said that the best way to test that out was to load a game onto it.  I plucked out the original tape copy of Jetpac and set the machine off to load.  3 minutes later the game started up and I was shooting aliens with the little space man and refuelling the rocket in an attempt to escape the planet.  Again, all of this was in front of some very confused yet fascinated PAX enforcers.

I then explained how the ZX Spectrum worked and how games could be loaded onto it.  I provided 8 tapes, 3 of which were C90 cassettes that contained 18 games that I had taken from the internet and converted into sound so that they could be loaded onto the ZX Spectrum.  Once I was satisfied that the people who staffed the Classic Console freeplay area understood how to use the ZX Spectrum, I went back to the rest of PAX Prime 2010.

It was not until I got back home did I read on twitter that none other than Will Wheaton had seen the ZX Spectrum in all its fully functioning glory and posted about it in his blog, right here.  His enthusiasm for it made the whole, almost herculean effort to get the machine to PAX in working order worthwhile!

If you were at PAX Prime 2010 and missed seeing the ZX Spectrum in action, I can direct you to this site where you can play many of the 20,000 games (yes TWENTY THOUSAND) that were released for the machine via a Java emulator. Alternatively you can attend PAX East/Prime in the following years to come as the ZX Spectrum was a permanent donation by me to the Classic Console Freeplay area.

- Chris “Kropotkin” O’Regan

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