THE SPECTRUM

IT’S ONE OF THE MOST ICONIC HOME COMPUTERS EVER MADE, AND IT’S BACK IN PLUG-AND-PLAY FORM. WE SPEAK TO THE PEOPLE BEHIND IT TO FIND OUT WHY IT’S TAKEN SO LONG, AND GET A CHANCE TO GIVE OUR FIRST IMPRESSIONS AHEAD OF LAUNCH

- nick thогре

If all the things the Retro Gamer team could be surprised by, you wouldn’t think the device you’re seeing on these pages should rank very highly on the list. We didn’t think so either, but the more we thought about The Spectrum, the more it has surprised us. What initially seemed like something simple and obvious has given rise to a whole load of questions, which ultimately left us dumbfounded as to how the machine could even exist.

What is The Spectrum? It’s a full-sized recreation of the classic Sinclair computer in its original form, complete with working rubber keys. It comes with 48 built-in games ranging from Eighties icons to modern homebrew hits, and the ability to load your own games via USB memory stick. If you want to forego the slick menu and jump straight into a familiar grey prompt screen, that’s possible too. Naturally, it also has USB controller support and outputs video via HDMI at 720p. It’s going to be out on 22 November 2024 for £89.99, but we’ve already had our hands on a prototype version of the machine.

So, let’s take the surprises one by one. First of all, the timing – The Spectrum comes hot on the heels of The 400 Mini, which released on 28 March 2024, and we simply weren’t expecting a new machine so fast. As Chris Smith tells us, much of it comes down to the experience and growth within the company, which has previously created The C64 Mini and its full-size counterpart, The A500 Mini and The 400 Mini. “When we did The C64 Mini, we didn’t know what we were going to be doing next – the full-size 64, yes, but we didn’t know what we’d be doing past that. When we built the Atari, we knew what we were going to be doing next,” he explains. “We’ve got more staff, and the people we do have really understand the Spectrum. We set ourselves some goals around this to see how fast – not so much how fast – it’s more how efficiently can we do this?”