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Sinclair ZX Spectrum Vega


save2600

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  • 2 months later...
  • 4 weeks later...
  • 6 months later...

Sounds like things have only been getting worse. It's like a UK version of the Coleco Chameleon, except in this case, they were unfortunate enough to "succeed" to the point of taking peoples' money.

 

http://www.indieretronews.com/2017/10/zx-vega-update-statement-from-lee.html

 

Income driven by past glories.

 

It's situations like this that risk driving people away from crowdfunding projects. Crowdfunding is a great concept when done well. It's borderline fraud if it isn't, even when there's an intention for a product to get to market.

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I shared the link with a friend of mine who actually participated in the crowdfunding of the Vega+. He mentioned that he had just received an email that said it is close to being launched. Whether that is just damage control or things are really about to happen, time will tell. I see that not everyone are fond of Lee anyway so everyone speak from their own personal interests rather than the public interests.

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Seen on the World of Spectrum forums:

 

 

 

Due to the amount of abuse the Vega+ crowdfunding project is currently receiving can we please ask all members to refrain from posting about the Vega+. Any posts found will be deleted immediately.

Thank you.

https://www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/

 

Too bad that their forum - that as far as I know has no direct relation with RCL - should take the abuse, but I suppose certain people have a desire to vent somewhere.

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Too bad that [the World of Spectrum] forum - that as far as I know has no direct relation with RCL - should take the abuse, but I suppose certain people have a desire to vent somewhere.

There is a relationship between the Vega+ project and WoS, actually. The guy who wrote the post that Flojomojo linked to above, Lee Fogarty, both was part of the Vega+ project (until he quit as announced in said post) and is one of the people who run WoS these days. At least, that's what I've gathered from assorted rants about him.

 

onmode-ky

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  • 4 weeks later...

RCL is trying to lampshade their "coming soon, now for realz!"-talk with delays again. This time apparently too few people has signed up on their "Roll of Honour" that was supposed to go with every console. They have used it for some time to delay it all. Oh and the old "we have sent it back for redesign because buttons was shit!"-excuse we hear from so many hardware crowdfunding projects these days.

If one really wants to go down into the dark dungeons and truly look into the eyes of the monster that is the Vega+ debacle/trainwreck/shenanigans/malarkey the one-stop-destination is at http://retro-computers.co.uk/ , which despite mimicking the real companys address is a website totally devoted to information and mockery of the Vega+ campaign and drama behind it all.

The centrepiece of it all is the massive information on what went on behind the curtains that a Mr. Lee Fogarty has given to the community. Mr. Fogarty was involved in this project for a long time and has been deeply involved in the (new) staff over at RCL after the whole drama-filled split between the original Vega team and the "new" crew that basically did a takeover of RCL when the Vega+ campaign was young.

There is apparently being a whole book written on this debacle, too.

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RCL is trying to lampshade their "coming soon, now for realz!"-talk with delays again. This time apparently too few people has signed up on their "Roll of Honour" that was supposed to go with every console. They have used it for some time to delay it all. Oh and the old "we have sent it back for redesign because buttons was shit!"-excuse we hear from so many hardware crowdfunding projects these days.

 

If one really wants to go down into the dark dungeons and truly look into the eyes of the monster that is the Vega+ debacle/trainwreck/shenanigans/malarkey the one-stop-destination is at http://retro-computers.co.uk/ , which despite mimicking the real companys address is a website totally devoted to information and mockery of the Vega+ campaign and drama behind it all.

 

The centrepiece of it all is the massive information on what went on behind the curtains that a Mr. Lee Fogarty has given to the community. Mr. Fogarty was involved in this project for a long time and has been deeply involved in the (new) staff over at RCL after the whole drama-filled split between the original Vega team and the "new" crew that basically did a takeover of RCL when the Vega+ campaign was young.

 

There is apparently being a whole book written on this debacle, too.

 

 

Seriously ..... I know I know not the same but hey, it fits here too.

 

Fool me once, shame on you

Fool me twice, shame on me

Fool me thrice, shame on Lee.

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Just wanted to come here and say for no real reason that I am a Yank who has been educated about 1980's British Microcomputers by Kim Justice, The Nostalgia Nerd, and many more. The Spectrum on paper is not well suited to games but that never stopped them from being made in huge quantities. While Nintendo had their boot on the throat of our video game market, British gamers had all kinds of gaming options with Sinclair, Dragon 32, Oric, Amistrad, Amiga, Atari XL, C64, etc. etc. etc. We had a monopoly that crushed all competition and did things we would today consider illegal. Gaming in the 1980's on the other side of the pond must have been very interesting experience. If not for all the Voltage and video signal incompatibilities I'd import a 128 but emulation is the only practical options. I wonder what would have happened (assuming it was technically possible) if the North American market received a Spectrum 100% compatible with the UK Spectrum and was sold by our big retailers of the day: Sears, Kmart, Wal-Mart, Woolworth etc. Sir Clive may have made Bill Gates amounts of money. An newly released NES game was $50 while a Spectrum game I'm thinking was $10-$15 in USD assuming it wasn't pirated for free.

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Just for the record, both the Atari 8-bit series and of course the Commodore 64 were sold in plenty in the US. Obviously the 8-bit computers lived on longer in Europe, apparently mainly because we could not afford IBM PC's. The Atari ST and Commodore Amiga series also were designed by US companies though both found larger market shares in Europe, for the same reason as the duration of the 8-bits: people weren't willing to spend a lot of money on a PC.

 

The Dragon 32 (basically the same as the TRS-80 CoCo series) and Oric series mostly were also-rans, so those didn't put a lot of competition on the market even in the early years when those were contemporary.

 

The Sinclair computers seem to have appeared a bit too cheap for US tastes. Timex Sinclair did try to sell the 2068, which is a somewhat compatible version of the ZX Spectrum but with 72K RAM and that requires a compatibility cartridge to run Spectrum software fully. It doesn't seem to have gone anywhere, just like most of the Japanese computers failed to enter the US market. In that respect, Nintendo did something few of their competitors back in Japan managed to, though I would hesistate to call it a "monopoly" or even an oligopoly.

 

In the early years of Atari, VIC-20 etc there seems to have been a market for tape based games but as the market evolved, the US mostly moved to bigger, disk based games or cartridges at a higher price point. I think it had been perfectly possible to still sell 8-bit games on tapes even in the US for those who didn't mind long loading times while saving a bit of money on game purchases. The reason the Spectrum games may seem cheap was it only supported tape recorders and eventually microdrives, endless string tape floppies though very few original games were released on that format.

 

Finally, the ZX Spectrum has its own BASIC that it not at all based on Microsoft BASIC, so I don't see how a lot of Spectrums sold in the US would have made a difference for Bill Gates. Rather the opposite, other computers that came with Microsoft BASIC where the manufacturer paid per sold machine may have suffered in sales. I don't know exactly which ones those would be though. Commodore already had an one-off deal with Microsoft. Atari had their own BASIC, Apple probably wouldn't be affected by Sinclair sales even if they eventually shipped their ][ series with a Microsoft dialect (perhaps also through an one-off deal, I don't really recall). TRS-80 and CoCo I dunno, they might've been the ones first to suffer from Spectrum sales, just like the Welsh Dragon 32 happened to turn out to be a spare computer lent to Spectrum owners when their own computer was on service and they didn't have any spare Spectrums to lend.

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  • 5 months later...

Latest news is that the first batch of the Vega+ is planned to be shipped between May 8-12, and we are speaking in the year of 2018!!

 

If it turns out to be true, it will have been delivered within two years of the original promised delivery date. It ain't over until the fat Speccy lady sings.

Edited by carlsson
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  • 1 month later...

Latest news is that the first batch of the Vega+ is planned to be shipped between May 8-12, and we are speaking in the year of 2018!!

 

If it turns out to be true, it will have been delivered within two years of the original promised delivery date. It ain't over until the fat Speccy lady sings.

Well... May 8-12 is now in the past. Did it happen?

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Based on what I've read on Twitter, no mortal has yet seen the Vega+ (or perhaps it is Vega Plus?). Someone speculated that newly wed Prince Harry & Meghan will divorce before the Vega+ is shipped. I countered with Prince Harry will become the King of England before the Vega+ is shipped. For reference, I believe Harry is number 6 in line to the throne after Charles, William and his three (?) kids.

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