ScuzzBlog: Diaries November 2018 Entry 23rd November 2018: Post 02: Spectrum - Taped Stuff Spectrum - Taped Stuff I have a good volume of the tapes that have been used to record games and the like. I also have a quite large collection of my own tapes from years gone by. I note from various of my own tapes that they contain bits of programs that I have written. My older tapes are quite ancient and have been used and abused pretty endlessly. For a good period of the seventies and the early eighties I would record on these tapes over and over again. They generally would hold recordings of the chart shows, radio programmes and favourite TV stuff. None was recorded with high quality equipment and often just a microphone in front of a TV or record player. Times use to be way different to what they are today. We just didn't have the spare cash to go keep buying music. The radio was like a god and provided us with all we needed. For years I had never actually heard the entire versions of many songs as the Radio 1 DJs would talk over the beginnings and the ends of tracks. And so the tapes hold fragments of lost times and in amongst them carry some of my early computer programs. Finding them is the bigger problem and with so many I just don't have the time. I do have quite a few cassette players. It was interesting that most of the stores re badged the old cassette players as computer cassettes, when in truth they were just older players. The Alba turned out to be a little gem and I have stuck some tape over the volume control so I don't change the setting. I did pull out some of my vast collection of Spectrum games to demonstrate that I do own the games on the bogus tapes. I have even photographed some of my first games that I bought for the Spectrum. I note the receipt for Embassy Assault is dated Sept 83. I will keep all the tapes together and may even copy a few of the bogus ones just to keep them safe. I have started labelling them. If I was honest to the past I would use the two cassettes shown linked together, however, it is easier to use my twin deck Sharp tape machine. This has been a trip down memory lane I can tell you. We forget how tape use to be used for so many things. I have my own recordings of playing my songs on guitar. There is an old college project called Hi H19 which was a study on James Stirling. There are recordings of meetings. Folks just chatting in groups. There are TV documentaries and radio shows. The tapes are broken up and not in anyway organised. They are worn and broken in places and the labels written and over written over and over. The tape was more than just a way of recording music, it was my way of recording my life before I had the benefit of a computer. The use as a valuable storer of memories is sometimes forgotten. We all had cassette recorders and we all had our tapes. Good times. Spectrum - Taped Stuff Various bogus tapes of games. Note the tape counter numbers. Tape contents continuously changing. The very first Football Manager. Just about read Manic Miner. Note the 15 minute tapes. The length being shorter was seen as more suited to safe data storage. The longer the tape the more likely to slow down and slip and even stop. Not all contents were computer related. The very splendid Alba. The tape counter on different machines was never the same. The Amazing Pye that served me the longest with the Spectrum. Still works. The Pye has the very valuable tone control. Various boxed data cassette recorders. Just re badged cassette players. Part of my seventies tape collection. Radio 1's Robbie Vincent and Top of the Pops. Plus very faint reference to my very own created computer game. Sorry Paul I know that is not how you spell your name.There is a copy of TTL for the Spectrum on this tape. Memorex in these special cases were always the very best tapes. Hi H19 was a college tape that I created to accompany a video we made at college. It had been written over Peter Sellers. The very last radio show Kenny Everett did for the BBC. He recorded them on his farm so the programmes could be checked by the BBC before they went on air. He had already been sacked once for being outspoken. Neil Innes of the Ruttles and Bonzo Dog Band had his own series on the BBC. Great music. Beware the C120.. may appear wonderful but they just jam up the player. More Robbie Vincent.. He was just the best. Seems I destroyed the Roxy Music that I said do not destroy. Mine actually cost £44.99 if I recall from Currys in Brownhills. We started with a 16K but it broke and they replaced it free of charge with a 48K. Cost then was £75. OK just a selection of my Spectrum tapes. I have a wall of the things. Never play them. Some of my very first games. Aquarius.. dreadful bore. Even more boring. Quite fun and advanced for the day. Classic Gobble a Ghost. JetPac was brilliant... really brilliant. Atic Atac was and still is fun to play. Probably the best Spectrum game ever. 3D Tunnel was just so crap. Don't think I ever played it. The receipt is for September 1983. from the place that brought the very first computer into most in the days life... WHSmith. Thank you.

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Last updated 23rd November 2018

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