Retro Asylum Interview
October 2014.
Here is my interview from episode 100 of the Retro Asylum podcast.
RA: Welcome to Retro Asylum.
PJ: Hello, thank you for inviting me on.
RA: So can I just get your gaming backgrounds and when you've got into the ZX Spectrum?
PJ: Right, it's a long story, so I hope you’re settled in. It started in about 1981, as did a lot of people with the ZX 81, of course. And the reason I got it in the first place was that I was one of those people that hung around the arcades with kids at the seaside but was never brave enough to play them because I was absolutely rubbish.
RA: Yep, I had that feeling as well.
PJ: And I wanted to practice but I didn't want to spend any money because originally, I come from Yorkshire. So I thought, what's the best way of practicing? And I saw an advert for a ZX 81, so I thought that's the one to get. Obviously, before that, I had one of those little Binatone TV games that gave you about eight versions of Pong.
So I got a ZX 81 with the 16K Rampack, bought a few games and then I was absolutely amazed when the Spectrum came out. It had colour, it had sound, even though I only had a black and white TV at the time. I thought that's the one, get hold of one of those, and it all started from there.
RA: Great. So what sort of games were you buying first of all? Or were you trying to, you know, was you one of these kids who tried coding yourself?
PJ: I started coding very early. That was another thing I wanted to do. Even though I wasn't very young, but the idea of seeing my name on television somehow meant that I was famous. No idea where the connection came from. But if you could write your name on the TV, it was, your name was on TV.
It didn't matter that no one else could see it, but it was there.
RA: There was certainly magic and a charm back in those days of trying to get your TV to display, like you say, your name or just to make it do something if it was just a beep or if you could get a screen flashing.
PJ: Oh yeah, when I first hooked up the Spectrum up to a colour TV and saw the colours after having a ZX 81 for about a year, it was magic and you could get eight colours and 16 with bright and it was absolutely brilliant.
RA: So what inspired you to do the Spectrum show?
PJ: I'd been following the World of Spectrum for quite some time in the background and I liked downloading PDF magazines that other people had created. Things like the ZX Shed and ZX Format when it was going. My original idea was to create a PDF magazine. I approached a few people on the World of Spectrum forums. Some of them said they might be able to help me. Some of them said you've got no chance, nobody will help you. That's the sort of thing that you'll get. So I started putting a magazine together slowly but surely. And then when at work one day, somebody asked me to do a video for something. So to brush up my skills on my video editing, I thought I'll just try and knock a little sort of Spectrum show together and see what the outcome is.
It was quite good. So I thought I'll put this on YouTube and see what the reaction is. And everybody enjoyed it. It started off very slow with just a few views but it slowly grew and everybody said that you should do another one. And that was two or three years ago.
RA: Yeah, I remember the first episode coming out. I've actually watched it from the very beginning. I think it’s absolutely fantastic. So you'd never really done any videos before that.
PJ: No. Some people said they were professional but it's far from professional. I did a few things for work but there were just sort of throwing photographs together in a slideshow for presentations on presentation evenings and that sort of thing. So I haven't done anything serious like mixing music in or putting credits in the background or anything like that.
RA: Yeah, that's amazing because I've got to say the quality of the show itself is very crisp and you've got a nice calm voice while you're narrating over what you're doing.
PJ: In the background I'm panicking, I tell you. The first couple of shows are a bit ropey and I have actually thought about redoing them again because when I look at them now nearly two or over two years old I think, oh my god, I could have done a lot better but obviously you'll learn as you go along and you'll learn new techniques and things just improve.
RA: Absolutely, you should hear some of the first episodes of this podcast.
PJ: I have.
RA: Oh dear! It's wonder that you agreed to this interview.
PJ: Well, just like just like anything else the more you do it the more practice you get and the better it becomes.
RA: So how about collecting of the games? Is it something you've continuously done or was there a phase where you stopped getting ZX Spectrum games?
PJ: Well, it's a sort of come full circle and I've actually written a piece for the next PDF magazine because as you may or may not know, there's a sort of associated PDF magazine with the show. It’s called Plastic Fantastic which sort of covers the whole thing that you're asking. I started off collecting them and I wanted to collect full sets so I'd get the full set of Silversoft games and the full set of Ocean games.
And then I sold the whole lot to get an Amiga.
RA: Right. Yes.
PJ: And the moment I sold it, that was the moment I regretted. It was they’d all gone and that they weren't on the shelf. And to me, when you put games on a shelf like that, it reminds me of going into really small computer shops because my local computer shop was about the size of a small bedroom.
You can get four people in max and the games were lined up on the shelf and it was like Aladdin's cave. It was really nice to go in. And I tried to recreate that with all the games that I had but when I sold them, it was empty. And then slowly but surely, a friend of mine gave me his old collection that he found in the loft of about 20 games. And then I went on eBay and bought a job lot of 50 games quite cheap. And so all of a sudden, I had 50 games and the shelf was starting to look good again.
RA: I've got to say, obviously, this is an audio show. And our listeners, won't be able to see you. But we're doing this interview via Skype and I can see you've got a lovely collection behind you.
Very impressive. And we do get to see that occasionally on the show, don't we? We'll get a quick glimpse at that.
PJ: Occasionally, yes. Yeah. When I've got the video camera pointing at the Plus 2 or Plus 3 they’re sat right next to it.
RA: So tell us, you know, put him a show together. How long does an average episode take to film?
PJ: The quickest I've put one together was four days. And I did that because I lost all of one episode just as I was about to put it out. And I took four days off work and I just worked nonstop. So the quickest I've done one is four days.
RA: And some time off work as well. That's dedication.
PJ: I know. But the longest one took me was about six weeks. But in general, two to three weeks, on and off.
RA: And for those who haven't watched the show, I'm guessing it can only be now, you know, people, Commodore fans, Amstrad fans, Amiga fans, maybe, please do give it a watch because although it is obviously focused on the ZX Spectrum. It's still very interesting for any retro fan to view.
PJ: I have had a couple of Amiga people, particularly lemon Amiga, who watched the show. I've also had a couple of Commodore fans who say, even though they didn't like the Spectrum, they liked watching the show because it gave them a chance to catch up on what they missed in back in the day.
RA: Yeah. Absolutely. Obviously you've had an Amiga in the past. Yeah. Would you ever considered doing maybe an Amiga show?
PJ: I've been asked to do a Commodore show. I've been asked to do an Amstrad show and I've been asked to do an Amiga show. The problem is the amount of time it takes out of my life doing just the Spectrum show. I've just wouldn't be able to do it. And I'd have to start buying all the things again off eBay. Because as you know, the games and the hardware that I do review.. I don't do emulation. Well, I do emulated games when I'm recording, but the actual games I actually own physically.
The same with the hardware. All the hardware that I review I own physically. So I'd have to go out and start buying things for Amstrads and Commodore's and the Amigas.
RA: Yeah. It's strange because we've actually started a YouTube channel for the podcast, and I do the same thing. I don't like to emulate. Everything that we've done so far has been on real hardware, but because we're multi-format, a lot of the stuff isn't boxed. You know, I've got a lot of loose tapes for the Commodore. For the Amstrad, I've only picked that up recently. I think I've got two discs, so it's going to take some time to cover that.
So yeah, on your show, you normally take a look at an arcade game, and then compare all the different clones. Because in the early days of the ZX Spectrum, not many people really release the official license game. They've done their own version.
PJ: That's right.
RA: How long do you spend playing all these games?
PJ: For arcade shootouts, a long, long time. The hardest part is going through the archives, trying to look at all of the clones, all of the games that are labelled as clones. Because a lot of them are labelled as an invader clone, and it's actually a Galaxian game, and vice versa. So it can take a couple of days just to trawl through all the archives to find out which games are which.
Then I've got to play a couple of seconds of them just to make sure they're the right game that I'm looking for. And then I've got to spend about another at least 10 or 15 minutes on each minimum, to get a feel for what it's like.
RA: Recently, you've done a light gun special. Did you ever figure out what was causing you problems while you was recording? Because it was just to explain to people haven't seen the show. Paul was playing the game's, when, not recording, and the aiming was working, and then when you were recording, the aiming seems to be off.
PJ: Yeah, I think it's down to two things. Somebody mentioned on the forums and you need to get the brightness spot on. And secondly, I had a sort of a bit of a brainwave because the way light guns work and they use the raster, and they blank the screen and the actual targets appear as white blocks.
And I was working on a 14-inch TV. My logic was that if I got a bigger TV, the blocks are a bit bigger, therefore the accuracy would be better. So I went out and bought a 21-inch CRT TV, and lo and behold, it all seems to work!
RA: Oh, cool. Well, I'm glad you got to the bottom of it. Maybe you can revisit some light gun games in the future.
PJ: Yes, I certainly am. I've got some planned already.
RA: Now you've got someone who started helping out, I understand, on more recent episodes. Can you tell us anything about him?
PJ: Geoff Neil yes. He first sent me a couple of emails when he was watching the show, and we met about two years ago at the replay expo in Manchester, and he very kindly brought me a pint. And then from there, we just started chatting. I originally wanted him to do something about mobile gaming, because he had a couple of handheld devices that he was running spectrum emulators on, but he just didn't have time to do that. And then he came up when I was asking for people to do sections for the next series, which I think was series three. And he said, can I do a game playing tip section? So I said, yes, but, and then I'll let it down all the rules. Basically, I need 10 of them. They have to be within this amount of time, and I need the RZX of what you're saying, and the WAV file, etc. etc.
So he sort of went away and came back and said, okay, here's one, what do you think of this? And I said, right, I need another nine, please.
RA: Superb. So you mentioned there about the series. How, you know, because it must take a toll making these. How often is there a break between each series?
PJ: I try to, if anybody that's seen the show, at the end of the series, with 10 episodes per series, and at the end of episode 10, or 20 or 30, I always say, I'll take a shot break, but sure enough, a month later, the next one's back on there. It's a sort of bad habit. Once I've finished, I can't wait to start the next one, because I've got.. I know in my mind what's coming, I know what I've got lined up.
I know I've got a piece of hardware to play with that I want to get on with, are there some games that I want to play and review?
RA: I've got a say, I've noticed on the World of Spectrum forums the day, because you normally release the episode roughly the same day each month. You're getting guys actually asking why isn't it out yet, if it isn't there.
PJ: Yes, I know. As if like isn't hard enough as it is? I try to release, usually, on the last weekend of the month, if possible. But like you say, people are saying, where is it? Are the next one should be due now? I can't wait. And, you know, it doesn't give me any time to go on holiday. Thanks guys!
RA: Give the man a break, you need the rest.
PJ: Too right, yeah.
RA: I've got to ask you, is there a, you know, a favourite all-time ZX Spectrum game you've got, or is there just a bunch of games that you really love for?
PJ: My all-time favourite is Jetpack.
RA: Jetpack.
PJ: Because it's 16k, it was released early in the Spectrum's life. It's blew everybody away because at that time, the graphics and sound for 16k games in 1983 were pretty poor, if you look at a lot of the games of the similar age. And Jetpack came out and blew me away. It was, to me, it was arcade perfect. And I played it and played it and played it. And now I still do.
RA: It certainly set a standard back then, didn't it?
PJ: It did. And I mean, the other games, some of the other Ultimate games, I wouldn't say are as playable, although they do look as nice and sound as nice. But when you put other games on, all you have to do is look at the Invaders shootout that I did in episode one and you can see the really bad quality of some of the games that were out in 1983, and comparing with Jetpack, it's just brilliant.
RA: How about later releases? Because I get the feeling you wasn't really around in the later 80s playing these games, at least you were certainly a fan of the earlier stuff.
PJ: I am. That sort of triggers memories for me. I mean, I do try and cover all games because somebody said very early on, it's good to watch the show because it doesn't just stick to one type of game and it doesn't stick to one manufacturer or doesn't stick to one era. I cover as much as I can.
So in essence, it's a bit of an adventure for me because I can play games that I never played back in the late 80s and early 90s when they were still producing games because I finished about 87 when I got my Amiga. So anything after 87, I've not seen really.
RA: Right, okay. Yeah, and that's, see, for me, I guess I'm a little bit younger than you. I actually got my spectrum in 87. I'd had access to a 48k machine that my cousin had and a good friend of mine had a 48k machine since about late 84. So for me, watching your show, I'm catching up on a lot of classic games that I missed, you know, the first time around. So it appeals to me, even though, I was the later user of the spectrum.
PJ: Yeah,as much as I'm surprised at some of the games that I've found that happened after I sold my spectrum, I think it's the same view the way around. People have been surprised at some of the good quality games that happened early on in 83 and 84.
RA: Yeah, when you were talking about buying the Amiga first of all. I've got an Amiga 600 and then when I upgraded to a 1200, that's when I first started trying to emulate the spectrum. I'd only had it about a week and I found out there's an emulator and I was trying to load up School Days on it.
PJ: Yeah, everybody that knows me socially always says that I won't buy any piece of new equipment unless I can emulate a spectrum on it and that's pretty much true. If I'm going to buy a new games console or a new phone or whatever, I won't buy it unless you can emulate a spectrum on it.
RA: Yeah, that sounds similar to me actually. I think all machines should come with a spectrum every night. The world would be a better place. What is your favourite ZX Spectrum model?
PJ: Up until very recently, it would have been the 48k Rubber keyboard version. But having got a plus 3, that was when I didn't have a spectrum and after I'd sold my spectrum and the plus 3 came out, that was the machine that the spectrum should have been early on in my opinion with a decent keyboard and the storage. It was the storage that made all the difference.
So when I actually got one recently, it was like rediscovering the spectrum again. I could load and save games to the disk and it had a proper keyboard with a really nice feeling and sound to it. So I think that one sort of crept up and has gone over the 48k Rubber keyboard.
But I still like getting them all out. The standard plus and the plus 2 and the plus 3. Because the hardware that I review doesn't always work on a 48k, or it doesn't work on a plus 3 and vice versa. So I have to use whatever's there.
RA: Sure. Back in the day, I had my first one I had sadly was an Amstrad model. It was the grey plus 2. Now I've got the last Sinclair model, which is the 128k plus, which I absolutely adore. And I was lucky enough to buy it boxed for 15 quid two years ago.
PJ: You don't want to sell it for 15 quid, do you?
RA: I'd rather not, no. It's my prized possession. I've got to admit, I've got nearly every 8-bit computer there was, and that is there, in the middle. That is the one that I still use and I can hook my iPhone up to it and load games up with the speccy tape out. It's just ideal.
But I do fancy a ZX Spectrum Plus 3, but what's put me off is one of my friends had one back in the day and the music on the 128k Soundchip was amplified too much. Have you ever experienced that problem?
PJ: Yeah, I believe it's a well-known fact that the plus 3's had a sound fault on the circuit and the only way to fix it is to, I think there's three or four mods on the internet that you can get to fix it. One involved replacing some resistors and diodes and one you can get an actual small soundboard that plugs in and connects to some chips in the back. But yeah, the plus 3 has got bad sound.
RA: Yes, I've got to admit I don't think I'm brave enough to.
PJ: Me neither. I'm not going to do it on my own.
RA: To attempt anything like that.
PJ: No, but you've got the 1-2-8 with a big red box.
RA: Yes.
PJ: That's the only one I've not got and that's the one I keep looking at getting.
RA: Ah, I can tease you with that now. I was very lucky. It was on Gumtree and I messaged the guy and he didn't get back to me for a couple of weeks, I thought it'd gone. You know, he just didn’t bother replying and it turned out he was on the holiday. I had to drive about 40 miles to go and get it.
PJ: Worth it though?
RA: Yeah, and when I got it home, I'm expecting its either going to have a puffer smoke come out of the back or, it's just not going to be working. And sure enough, I did have to change the membrane. A couple of keys weren’t working, but yeah, I'm very happy with it.
PJ: Yeah, one of these days I'll buy one of them. One of these days.
RA: Yeah, it's tracking them then now. I would like to get the numeric keypad that was only released in Spain. Just to finish it off.
So now what you have done in the past, you've got these devices, I can't remember what it's called off the top of my head, that you use for storage on your spectrum as well.
PJ: Divide it?
RA: Yeah, how do you find that?
PJ: Absolutely stunning. If that would have come out in the early 80s, that would have just flown off the shelves. Because it's using real hardware, even though the storage is modern, it makes everything so convenient.
If you've got normal Fatware, you can just do read only, but that's all I want at the moment. But if you upgrade it to Exedos or another firmware, then you've got read-write capabilities as well.
So it's modern storage using retro equipment. So you get best of both worlds and it's absolutely stunning.
RA: The only trouble with anything like that I find is that I end up flicking through games rather than playing them properly. When you've got so much of a choice, do you ever find that?
PJ: Umm, not really.
RA: You're quite good, are you? You're able to sit down and play a game with that?
PJ: Well, usually when I'm playing games at the minute, it's for a review, so I have to sit down and I have to play them for 15, 20 minutes. Play them once, 15 to 20 minutes make notes and then I go back and play them for another 15 and 20 minutes before I do the video. And then I do the video via emulation. So I'll play it again for another 15 or 20 minutes.
RA: Yeah, cool.
So Paul, I'm going to ask you, what have you got coming up on the next episode?
PJ: Next episode, I should just check….
RA: If you're allowed to reveal what you've got..
PJ: The next episode, I have something that I've been trying to get older for a long time, which is the Cheetah Rat, if you remember what that is.
RA: I do, yes. You managed to find have you?
PJ: I have a fully working one, and for anybody that doesn't know, it was probably the first infrared wireless remote control for any 8-bit computer, possibly, and it works very much like a TV remote.
It's about the same size as a TV remote, and it's Kempston and compatible. So you can stand at the other end of the room and play any game you want.
RA: And everyone thought that the PlayStation 2 wireless pad was the first thing.
PJ: Oh, no, no, no.
RA: How wrong we were.
PJ: Yes indeed. So I've been playing with that recently, and I'll leave my comments about it for the show.
RA: I'm looking forward to seeing it.
Okay, Paul, just to wrap it up, then, you've got a blog as well. What's the address of that?
PJ: This is embarrassing. [removed as the blog no longer exists – it was replaced by the website]
RA: All right, be sure to check that out, because you often publish a lot of the typing games that you feature on the show don't you?
PJ: Yep, all the typing games are there, plus episode indexes, so you can see what I've reviewed and what the features are, and some hardware reviews as well.
RA: Great, lovely. Okay, Paul, well, thanks for joining us. It's been a nice little chat.
PJ: Brilliant.
The link to the audio of the podcast seems to be broken!
This is the link to try when it gets fixed.
Here is my interview from episode 100 of the Retro Asylum podcast.
RA: Welcome to Retro Asylum.
PJ: Hello, thank you for inviting me on.
RA: So can I just get your gaming backgrounds and when you've got into the ZX Spectrum?
PJ: Right, it's a long story, so I hope you’re settled in. It started in about 1981, as did a lot of people with the ZX 81, of course. And the reason I got it in the first place was that I was one of those people that hung around the arcades with kids at the seaside but was never brave enough to play them because I was absolutely rubbish.
RA: Yep, I had that feeling as well.
PJ: And I wanted to practice but I didn't want to spend any money because originally, I come from Yorkshire. So I thought, what's the best way of practicing? And I saw an advert for a ZX 81, so I thought that's the one to get. Obviously, before that, I had one of those little Binatone TV games that gave you about eight versions of Pong.
So I got a ZX 81 with the 16K Rampack, bought a few games and then I was absolutely amazed when the Spectrum came out. It had colour, it had sound, even though I only had a black and white TV at the time. I thought that's the one, get hold of one of those, and it all started from there.
RA: Great. So what sort of games were you buying first of all? Or were you trying to, you know, was you one of these kids who tried coding yourself?
PJ: I started coding very early. That was another thing I wanted to do. Even though I wasn't very young, but the idea of seeing my name on television somehow meant that I was famous. No idea where the connection came from. But if you could write your name on the TV, it was, your name was on TV.
It didn't matter that no one else could see it, but it was there.
RA: There was certainly magic and a charm back in those days of trying to get your TV to display, like you say, your name or just to make it do something if it was just a beep or if you could get a screen flashing.
PJ: Oh yeah, when I first hooked up the Spectrum up to a colour TV and saw the colours after having a ZX 81 for about a year, it was magic and you could get eight colours and 16 with bright and it was absolutely brilliant.
RA: So what inspired you to do the Spectrum show?
PJ: I'd been following the World of Spectrum for quite some time in the background and I liked downloading PDF magazines that other people had created. Things like the ZX Shed and ZX Format when it was going. My original idea was to create a PDF magazine. I approached a few people on the World of Spectrum forums. Some of them said they might be able to help me. Some of them said you've got no chance, nobody will help you. That's the sort of thing that you'll get. So I started putting a magazine together slowly but surely. And then when at work one day, somebody asked me to do a video for something. So to brush up my skills on my video editing, I thought I'll just try and knock a little sort of Spectrum show together and see what the outcome is.
It was quite good. So I thought I'll put this on YouTube and see what the reaction is. And everybody enjoyed it. It started off very slow with just a few views but it slowly grew and everybody said that you should do another one. And that was two or three years ago.
RA: Yeah, I remember the first episode coming out. I've actually watched it from the very beginning. I think it’s absolutely fantastic. So you'd never really done any videos before that.
PJ: No. Some people said they were professional but it's far from professional. I did a few things for work but there were just sort of throwing photographs together in a slideshow for presentations on presentation evenings and that sort of thing. So I haven't done anything serious like mixing music in or putting credits in the background or anything like that.
RA: Yeah, that's amazing because I've got to say the quality of the show itself is very crisp and you've got a nice calm voice while you're narrating over what you're doing.
PJ: In the background I'm panicking, I tell you. The first couple of shows are a bit ropey and I have actually thought about redoing them again because when I look at them now nearly two or over two years old I think, oh my god, I could have done a lot better but obviously you'll learn as you go along and you'll learn new techniques and things just improve.
RA: Absolutely, you should hear some of the first episodes of this podcast.
PJ: I have.
RA: Oh dear! It's wonder that you agreed to this interview.
PJ: Well, just like just like anything else the more you do it the more practice you get and the better it becomes.
RA: So how about collecting of the games? Is it something you've continuously done or was there a phase where you stopped getting ZX Spectrum games?
PJ: Well, it's a sort of come full circle and I've actually written a piece for the next PDF magazine because as you may or may not know, there's a sort of associated PDF magazine with the show. It’s called Plastic Fantastic which sort of covers the whole thing that you're asking. I started off collecting them and I wanted to collect full sets so I'd get the full set of Silversoft games and the full set of Ocean games.
And then I sold the whole lot to get an Amiga.
RA: Right. Yes.
PJ: And the moment I sold it, that was the moment I regretted. It was they’d all gone and that they weren't on the shelf. And to me, when you put games on a shelf like that, it reminds me of going into really small computer shops because my local computer shop was about the size of a small bedroom.
You can get four people in max and the games were lined up on the shelf and it was like Aladdin's cave. It was really nice to go in. And I tried to recreate that with all the games that I had but when I sold them, it was empty. And then slowly but surely, a friend of mine gave me his old collection that he found in the loft of about 20 games. And then I went on eBay and bought a job lot of 50 games quite cheap. And so all of a sudden, I had 50 games and the shelf was starting to look good again.
RA: I've got to say, obviously, this is an audio show. And our listeners, won't be able to see you. But we're doing this interview via Skype and I can see you've got a lovely collection behind you.
Very impressive. And we do get to see that occasionally on the show, don't we? We'll get a quick glimpse at that.
PJ: Occasionally, yes. Yeah. When I've got the video camera pointing at the Plus 2 or Plus 3 they’re sat right next to it.
RA: So tell us, you know, put him a show together. How long does an average episode take to film?
PJ: The quickest I've put one together was four days. And I did that because I lost all of one episode just as I was about to put it out. And I took four days off work and I just worked nonstop. So the quickest I've done one is four days.
RA: And some time off work as well. That's dedication.
PJ: I know. But the longest one took me was about six weeks. But in general, two to three weeks, on and off.
RA: And for those who haven't watched the show, I'm guessing it can only be now, you know, people, Commodore fans, Amstrad fans, Amiga fans, maybe, please do give it a watch because although it is obviously focused on the ZX Spectrum. It's still very interesting for any retro fan to view.
PJ: I have had a couple of Amiga people, particularly lemon Amiga, who watched the show. I've also had a couple of Commodore fans who say, even though they didn't like the Spectrum, they liked watching the show because it gave them a chance to catch up on what they missed in back in the day.
RA: Yeah. Absolutely. Obviously you've had an Amiga in the past. Yeah. Would you ever considered doing maybe an Amiga show?
PJ: I've been asked to do a Commodore show. I've been asked to do an Amstrad show and I've been asked to do an Amiga show. The problem is the amount of time it takes out of my life doing just the Spectrum show. I've just wouldn't be able to do it. And I'd have to start buying all the things again off eBay. Because as you know, the games and the hardware that I do review.. I don't do emulation. Well, I do emulated games when I'm recording, but the actual games I actually own physically.
The same with the hardware. All the hardware that I review I own physically. So I'd have to go out and start buying things for Amstrads and Commodore's and the Amigas.
RA: Yeah. It's strange because we've actually started a YouTube channel for the podcast, and I do the same thing. I don't like to emulate. Everything that we've done so far has been on real hardware, but because we're multi-format, a lot of the stuff isn't boxed. You know, I've got a lot of loose tapes for the Commodore. For the Amstrad, I've only picked that up recently. I think I've got two discs, so it's going to take some time to cover that.
So yeah, on your show, you normally take a look at an arcade game, and then compare all the different clones. Because in the early days of the ZX Spectrum, not many people really release the official license game. They've done their own version.
PJ: That's right.
RA: How long do you spend playing all these games?
PJ: For arcade shootouts, a long, long time. The hardest part is going through the archives, trying to look at all of the clones, all of the games that are labelled as clones. Because a lot of them are labelled as an invader clone, and it's actually a Galaxian game, and vice versa. So it can take a couple of days just to trawl through all the archives to find out which games are which.
Then I've got to play a couple of seconds of them just to make sure they're the right game that I'm looking for. And then I've got to spend about another at least 10 or 15 minutes on each minimum, to get a feel for what it's like.
RA: Recently, you've done a light gun special. Did you ever figure out what was causing you problems while you was recording? Because it was just to explain to people haven't seen the show. Paul was playing the game's, when, not recording, and the aiming was working, and then when you were recording, the aiming seems to be off.
PJ: Yeah, I think it's down to two things. Somebody mentioned on the forums and you need to get the brightness spot on. And secondly, I had a sort of a bit of a brainwave because the way light guns work and they use the raster, and they blank the screen and the actual targets appear as white blocks.
And I was working on a 14-inch TV. My logic was that if I got a bigger TV, the blocks are a bit bigger, therefore the accuracy would be better. So I went out and bought a 21-inch CRT TV, and lo and behold, it all seems to work!
RA: Oh, cool. Well, I'm glad you got to the bottom of it. Maybe you can revisit some light gun games in the future.
PJ: Yes, I certainly am. I've got some planned already.
RA: Now you've got someone who started helping out, I understand, on more recent episodes. Can you tell us anything about him?
PJ: Geoff Neil yes. He first sent me a couple of emails when he was watching the show, and we met about two years ago at the replay expo in Manchester, and he very kindly brought me a pint. And then from there, we just started chatting. I originally wanted him to do something about mobile gaming, because he had a couple of handheld devices that he was running spectrum emulators on, but he just didn't have time to do that. And then he came up when I was asking for people to do sections for the next series, which I think was series three. And he said, can I do a game playing tip section? So I said, yes, but, and then I'll let it down all the rules. Basically, I need 10 of them. They have to be within this amount of time, and I need the RZX of what you're saying, and the WAV file, etc. etc.
So he sort of went away and came back and said, okay, here's one, what do you think of this? And I said, right, I need another nine, please.
RA: Superb. So you mentioned there about the series. How, you know, because it must take a toll making these. How often is there a break between each series?
PJ: I try to, if anybody that's seen the show, at the end of the series, with 10 episodes per series, and at the end of episode 10, or 20 or 30, I always say, I'll take a shot break, but sure enough, a month later, the next one's back on there. It's a sort of bad habit. Once I've finished, I can't wait to start the next one, because I've got.. I know in my mind what's coming, I know what I've got lined up.
I know I've got a piece of hardware to play with that I want to get on with, are there some games that I want to play and review?
RA: I've got a say, I've noticed on the World of Spectrum forums the day, because you normally release the episode roughly the same day each month. You're getting guys actually asking why isn't it out yet, if it isn't there.
PJ: Yes, I know. As if like isn't hard enough as it is? I try to release, usually, on the last weekend of the month, if possible. But like you say, people are saying, where is it? Are the next one should be due now? I can't wait. And, you know, it doesn't give me any time to go on holiday. Thanks guys!
RA: Give the man a break, you need the rest.
PJ: Too right, yeah.
RA: I've got to ask you, is there a, you know, a favourite all-time ZX Spectrum game you've got, or is there just a bunch of games that you really love for?
PJ: My all-time favourite is Jetpack.
RA: Jetpack.
PJ: Because it's 16k, it was released early in the Spectrum's life. It's blew everybody away because at that time, the graphics and sound for 16k games in 1983 were pretty poor, if you look at a lot of the games of the similar age. And Jetpack came out and blew me away. It was, to me, it was arcade perfect. And I played it and played it and played it. And now I still do.
RA: It certainly set a standard back then, didn't it?
PJ: It did. And I mean, the other games, some of the other Ultimate games, I wouldn't say are as playable, although they do look as nice and sound as nice. But when you put other games on, all you have to do is look at the Invaders shootout that I did in episode one and you can see the really bad quality of some of the games that were out in 1983, and comparing with Jetpack, it's just brilliant.
RA: How about later releases? Because I get the feeling you wasn't really around in the later 80s playing these games, at least you were certainly a fan of the earlier stuff.
PJ: I am. That sort of triggers memories for me. I mean, I do try and cover all games because somebody said very early on, it's good to watch the show because it doesn't just stick to one type of game and it doesn't stick to one manufacturer or doesn't stick to one era. I cover as much as I can.
So in essence, it's a bit of an adventure for me because I can play games that I never played back in the late 80s and early 90s when they were still producing games because I finished about 87 when I got my Amiga. So anything after 87, I've not seen really.
RA: Right, okay. Yeah, and that's, see, for me, I guess I'm a little bit younger than you. I actually got my spectrum in 87. I'd had access to a 48k machine that my cousin had and a good friend of mine had a 48k machine since about late 84. So for me, watching your show, I'm catching up on a lot of classic games that I missed, you know, the first time around. So it appeals to me, even though, I was the later user of the spectrum.
PJ: Yeah,as much as I'm surprised at some of the games that I've found that happened after I sold my spectrum, I think it's the same view the way around. People have been surprised at some of the good quality games that happened early on in 83 and 84.
RA: Yeah, when you were talking about buying the Amiga first of all. I've got an Amiga 600 and then when I upgraded to a 1200, that's when I first started trying to emulate the spectrum. I'd only had it about a week and I found out there's an emulator and I was trying to load up School Days on it.
PJ: Yeah, everybody that knows me socially always says that I won't buy any piece of new equipment unless I can emulate a spectrum on it and that's pretty much true. If I'm going to buy a new games console or a new phone or whatever, I won't buy it unless you can emulate a spectrum on it.
RA: Yeah, that sounds similar to me actually. I think all machines should come with a spectrum every night. The world would be a better place. What is your favourite ZX Spectrum model?
PJ: Up until very recently, it would have been the 48k Rubber keyboard version. But having got a plus 3, that was when I didn't have a spectrum and after I'd sold my spectrum and the plus 3 came out, that was the machine that the spectrum should have been early on in my opinion with a decent keyboard and the storage. It was the storage that made all the difference.
So when I actually got one recently, it was like rediscovering the spectrum again. I could load and save games to the disk and it had a proper keyboard with a really nice feeling and sound to it. So I think that one sort of crept up and has gone over the 48k Rubber keyboard.
But I still like getting them all out. The standard plus and the plus 2 and the plus 3. Because the hardware that I review doesn't always work on a 48k, or it doesn't work on a plus 3 and vice versa. So I have to use whatever's there.
RA: Sure. Back in the day, I had my first one I had sadly was an Amstrad model. It was the grey plus 2. Now I've got the last Sinclair model, which is the 128k plus, which I absolutely adore. And I was lucky enough to buy it boxed for 15 quid two years ago.
PJ: You don't want to sell it for 15 quid, do you?
RA: I'd rather not, no. It's my prized possession. I've got to admit, I've got nearly every 8-bit computer there was, and that is there, in the middle. That is the one that I still use and I can hook my iPhone up to it and load games up with the speccy tape out. It's just ideal.
But I do fancy a ZX Spectrum Plus 3, but what's put me off is one of my friends had one back in the day and the music on the 128k Soundchip was amplified too much. Have you ever experienced that problem?
PJ: Yeah, I believe it's a well-known fact that the plus 3's had a sound fault on the circuit and the only way to fix it is to, I think there's three or four mods on the internet that you can get to fix it. One involved replacing some resistors and diodes and one you can get an actual small soundboard that plugs in and connects to some chips in the back. But yeah, the plus 3 has got bad sound.
RA: Yes, I've got to admit I don't think I'm brave enough to.
PJ: Me neither. I'm not going to do it on my own.
RA: To attempt anything like that.
PJ: No, but you've got the 1-2-8 with a big red box.
RA: Yes.
PJ: That's the only one I've not got and that's the one I keep looking at getting.
RA: Ah, I can tease you with that now. I was very lucky. It was on Gumtree and I messaged the guy and he didn't get back to me for a couple of weeks, I thought it'd gone. You know, he just didn’t bother replying and it turned out he was on the holiday. I had to drive about 40 miles to go and get it.
PJ: Worth it though?
RA: Yeah, and when I got it home, I'm expecting its either going to have a puffer smoke come out of the back or, it's just not going to be working. And sure enough, I did have to change the membrane. A couple of keys weren’t working, but yeah, I'm very happy with it.
PJ: Yeah, one of these days I'll buy one of them. One of these days.
RA: Yeah, it's tracking them then now. I would like to get the numeric keypad that was only released in Spain. Just to finish it off.
So now what you have done in the past, you've got these devices, I can't remember what it's called off the top of my head, that you use for storage on your spectrum as well.
PJ: Divide it?
RA: Yeah, how do you find that?
PJ: Absolutely stunning. If that would have come out in the early 80s, that would have just flown off the shelves. Because it's using real hardware, even though the storage is modern, it makes everything so convenient.
If you've got normal Fatware, you can just do read only, but that's all I want at the moment. But if you upgrade it to Exedos or another firmware, then you've got read-write capabilities as well.
So it's modern storage using retro equipment. So you get best of both worlds and it's absolutely stunning.
RA: The only trouble with anything like that I find is that I end up flicking through games rather than playing them properly. When you've got so much of a choice, do you ever find that?
PJ: Umm, not really.
RA: You're quite good, are you? You're able to sit down and play a game with that?
PJ: Well, usually when I'm playing games at the minute, it's for a review, so I have to sit down and I have to play them for 15, 20 minutes. Play them once, 15 to 20 minutes make notes and then I go back and play them for another 15 and 20 minutes before I do the video. And then I do the video via emulation. So I'll play it again for another 15 or 20 minutes.
RA: Yeah, cool.
So Paul, I'm going to ask you, what have you got coming up on the next episode?
PJ: Next episode, I should just check….
RA: If you're allowed to reveal what you've got..
PJ: The next episode, I have something that I've been trying to get older for a long time, which is the Cheetah Rat, if you remember what that is.
RA: I do, yes. You managed to find have you?
PJ: I have a fully working one, and for anybody that doesn't know, it was probably the first infrared wireless remote control for any 8-bit computer, possibly, and it works very much like a TV remote.
It's about the same size as a TV remote, and it's Kempston and compatible. So you can stand at the other end of the room and play any game you want.
RA: And everyone thought that the PlayStation 2 wireless pad was the first thing.
PJ: Oh, no, no, no.
RA: How wrong we were.
PJ: Yes indeed. So I've been playing with that recently, and I'll leave my comments about it for the show.
RA: I'm looking forward to seeing it.
Okay, Paul, just to wrap it up, then, you've got a blog as well. What's the address of that?
PJ: This is embarrassing. [removed as the blog no longer exists – it was replaced by the website]
RA: All right, be sure to check that out, because you often publish a lot of the typing games that you feature on the show don't you?
PJ: Yep, all the typing games are there, plus episode indexes, so you can see what I've reviewed and what the features are, and some hardware reviews as well.
RA: Great, lovely. Okay, Paul, well, thanks for joining us. It's been a nice little chat.
PJ: Brilliant.
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