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Comment by ChrisRR | Hacker News Reader

As a ZX spectrum fan, I love the idea but at £300? That's way too rich for my blood.

You are paying for fulfilling your childhood dreams (of not owning the worst home computer on the market). This alone is priceless. ZX Spectrum Next piles a ton of features from good computers back to the Spectrum. Storage, sound, sprites, no color clash, real keyboard, things owners used to vigorously argue were not important back in the day on the playground. Now is your chance to experience alternate universe where Spectrum actually was that good home computer, the best actually for ~1982-87.

Product itself is fantastic, you can clearly see a lot of love went into polishing the old .. erm computer.

If you buy a e.g. 2+ plus some mods you can attach it to a modern TV and use SDs or even harddisks to load roms in a jiffy, which exeeds, at least my, childhood dreams. That you get for half the price imho.

And still cheaper in real terms than a 16k Spectrum in 1982!

I love the QL-esque keyboard and the case design is a thing of beauty.

The extra capabilities remind me of the SAM Coupé which was a similarly "enhanced" ZX spectrum compatible, albeit still limited compared with this product.

Honestly, if it's not restricted to an enthusiastically awful colour palette, what's the point?

I am somehow lost given that C64 wasn't even considered good enough for most shops on Iberia Peninsula to sell it. :)

The only playground discussions were feeling a bit sorry for those that made the mistake of buying MSX clone, or Timex compatibles vs the real Species.

What's wrong with Timex? IIRC it was almost a perfect clone.

Me as well, proud Timex 2068 owner.

However that 48KB compatibility cartridge wasn't 100% perfect.

On the other hand we had our sound chip already without getting into the +2/+3 variants.

But getting back to my point, I even saw SAM Coupé on sale on my small town, which I cannot say for the C64.

£100 in 1982 have inflated to roughly £305 today:

https://www.inflationtool.com/british-pound/1982-to-present-...

The original 16K Speccy launched for £125, worth a whisker under £350 in 2019 (per wikipedia). So the Spectrum Next with Raspberry Pi Zero preinstalled is actually cheaper than the original entry-level Spectrum.

I also think it is over board. Besides, you can get ZXEvo board http://nedopc.com/zxevo/zxevo_eng.php for about 150$. Hardware wise, mostly, it is even more advanced.

It's not a mass produced device; it can probably be made cheaper but it would have to be produced in 1-2 orders of magnitude more. Plus it's a kickstarter donation, not a retail price.

Did you read the specs? This model has 1 Mb of RAM!! Take my money I say

It's not just a Spectrum remake though, it's an actual "Spectrum Next" with new graphics and sound capabilities, but still following the "home computer spirit". It's a perfect retro-hacking machine. 300 pounds is a bargain IMHO, especially when it's a professionally designed and manufactured ready-to-use system, not a soldering kit ;)

Well I see ZX Spectrum Next (issue 1 guess) for ~$1200 on eBay...

Inflation-adjusted, it's cheaper than the original.

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