Links
The following links are to external ZX Spectrum sites. This site cannot be held responsible for the contect of these sites. Please report any broken links using the contact page.
General Spectrum sites
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- World of Spectrum - The best Spectrum site on the internet. The site contains a wealth of information about the ZX Spectrum, including a massive archive of all known games for the Spectrum, the vast majority downloadable. There are also thousands of magazines, publicity photos, books, manuals and more available to view. You can also download Spectrum emulators from this website if you want to play the games yourself.
- ZX Spectrum on Wikipedia - The entry for the ZX Spectrum on Wikipedia.
- The Games that Time Forgot - A website devoted to games which were due to be released for the Spectrum, but then, for whatever reasons, were not. A fascinating read.
- Spectrum Magic - Another excellent fan site which has reviews of the authors favourite games, as well as information on emulators, high scores and maps amongst other things.
- ZX Planet - A wealth of information on all things Spectrum, including demos, remakes, magazines and lots more. Excellent.
Spectrum magazines
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- Crash Online - A massive resource of all things to do with Crash, one of the most popular Spectrum magazines, which ran from 1984 to 1992.
- The Your Sinclair Rock 'n' Roll Years - Archive of the magazine Your Sinclair, a Spectrum magazine which took over from Your Spectrum and took an often irreverent look at the Spectrum scene between 1985 and 1993.
- Sinclair User Magazine Online - Sinclair User was a magazine which ran for almost the whole lifespan of the Spectrum, from 1982 to 1993. This is the unofficial archive.
- The Games Machine - official website for the multi-format magazine, which is now published in Italy.
Spectrum software
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- Cronosoft - Cronosoft are a company which specialise in releasing games for now defunct systems, and have a large range of Spectrum software, as well as for other computers, such as the ZX81, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and Dragon 32.
- Minigame - This website holds competitions for games to be written in a tiny amount of memory, even as small as 1K. Games are available for other systems as well as the Spectrum.
- Little Shop of Pixels - This coding group have released a small number of games for the Spectrum, which are available for free download.
Spectrum software companies
These websites are for companies who produced Spectrum software, and are still in operation. There may be little or no Spectrum related information on these websites, but they are included as a point of interest.
- Activision - Activision began writing for the Spectrum in 1984, but began software production years earlier for the Atari VCS. Activision's most famous game was Ghostbusters, one of the best selling games of all time.
- CDS Microsystems - Now trading under the name iDigicon Ltd, CDS were responsible for a number of strategic and sports games for the Spectrum, including the board/computer game hybrid, Brian Clough's Football Fortunes.
- Code Masters - originally a budget company, Code Masters released many Spectrum games, and were renowned for their arcade adventures, expecially the ones starring Dizzy. They were one of the last companies to stop production of games for the Spectrum.
- Durell Software - Now a leading provider of business software, Durell were renowned for releasing a small number of high quality games for the Spectrum since 1983, including Saboteur, Fat Worm Blows a Sparky and Turbo Esprit.
- Electronic Arts - arguably the biggest games company in the world, EA released several Spectrum games in the late 1980s, most notably The Bard.
- Elite Systems - Elite started out as Richard Wilcox software, but changed their name to Elite in a blaze of hype in 1984. Critical success arrived a year later, with a series of arcade conversions, the best of which was Bomb Jack.
- HiSoft - Producer of "serious" software for the Spectrum, such as version of the languages C and Pascal and the assembler Devpac and Debugger.
- Infogrames - Infogrames now trade under the name Atari, but on the Spectrum they were known for their rather surreal games, such as Captain Blood, as well as the excellent Hostages.
- Psygnosis - Now known as Studio Liverpool, Psygnosis convered some of their 16-bit games to the Spectrum, including the classic Lemmings.
- Superior Software - Mainly known for its range of BBC software, Superior produced very good versions of the Repton games for the Spectrum in the late 80's.
- System 3 - Although their first release for the Spectrum was way back in 1985, System 3 are more well known for their later Spectrum releases, the best of them being Myth, but other excellent releases included IK+ and Last Ninja 2.
- Ubisoft - Ubisoft released several games towards the end of the 80s, and were usually of high quality, their best being probably the highly original arcade adventure Zombi.
- Ultimate Play the Game - Now known as Rare, Ultimate were responsible for releasing some of the Spectrum's best early games, such as Jetpac, Atic Atac and they revolutionised the Spectrum gaming scene with their 3D arcade adventures Knight Lore and Alien 8.
- Zenobi Software - Zenobi were an indpendent software company specialising in text adventures towards the end of the Spectrum's life. On the site, you can buy compilations of the games or just read the highly entertaining information.
- Zeppelin Games - Zeppelin started late in the 1980s, producing budget games and also full price games through their other labels, Cognito Software and Impulze. Now known as Eutechnix, they were best known for their range of games starring Blinky the Ghost.
Software authors
- Derek Brewster - now a commercial artist, Derek was the Crash adventure columnist for many years, but was also responsible for the excellent Codename Mat, as well as others for Micromega.
- Jon Ritman - author of Match Day, Head Over Heels and Batman. (Not updated since 2006)
- Jonathan Cauldwell - wrote Egghead for a Crash covertape, and is still writing Spectrum games today!
- Sandy White - wrote Ant Attack and Zombie Zombie for Quicksilva.
- The Shaw Brothers - authors of many a budget game for Atlantic and Cult, including the excellent Superkid series, their games were recognisable by the small, but detailed very colourful graphics and oodles of playability.
Other websites
- Sinclair Research - the company that manufactured the Spectrum are still going! A fascinating site with pictures of some of their major inventions over the last forty years.
- Amstrad - Amstrad bought the rights to the Spectrum from Sinclair in 1986, and released three versions of the machine. This is their official site.
- Retroleague - A weekly competition in which the entrants have to score as many points as possible on a different nominated game. Games are nominated on a variety of systems, including the Spectrum. Great fun, and a good way of experiencing new games and systems.
- Crap Game Finder - a searchable database for all games entered in the comp.sys.sinclair Crap Game Competitions from 1996 to the present day.
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