The ZX Spectrum Next: KickStarter Part III

If there was another KickStarter for the Sinclair-branded ZX Spectrum Next, what should be done differently?

It came to my attention recently that we are fast approaching seven years since the launch of the aforementioned ZX Spectrum Next. Although not necessarily since it was a real thing beyond the prototypes and development boards, but since the world first knew about it.

Whilst I was pondering where that time went, someone suggested that they were waiting for another KickStarter (KS) campaign for another batch of Speccy Next computers. As some of you may know, and as I have adumbrated elsewhere, I have some critiques of the Next, some of which I think are fair and all are well meaning.

My previous conjecture was that most people who procured their Speccy Next machines - either through the KS campaign, or through the official website shop - did so because it was [in theory] a reliable modern days ZX Spectrum. It uses new screens and load entertainment software reliably via SD Card. No more aging CRT TVs with fuzzy pictures. And no more R: Tape Loading Error to worry about. The Next offers crystal clear images, especially good for aging eyes.

I'm not a zealous collector who buys stuff as an investment, and I therefore did not consider this as a possibility. But clearly though many people nabbed a ZX Next for investment purposes too; perhaps some will be sitting in display cases, unused and unloved except for a bit of eye candy. Perhaps worse, some have yet to be opened. But whatever the reason for purchasing, both KS campaigns were very successful. Who am I to judge someone else's motives if it means that a highly compatible machine based upon Sinclair's rubber-keyed monolith is an actual thing? It's what I dreamt of back in the late 1990s when I was being left behind with my Commodore C64c and other 8-bit computers including a 48K Speccy.

After that mental meandering, which I'm often guilty of, I'll get back to my main point: if it was up to me and I was in charge of the next Next KS campaign, what would I do differently? As difficult as it might be, and as unpopular with certain people as it would make me, I would try to break out of the Speccy Internet bubble (which clearly guided the scope and features of the original KickStarter). What I would do is something that some people would hate: I would look at reducing costs so to manufacture to scale, and look for a distribution partner to get it into retail. This would ultimately mean cutting the number of features that both revisions of the KS Next machines have (I'm not sure about the N-Go or other versions here). My aim would be simple: to get it to a consumer price point of £125.00, which was the launch price of the original (albeit 16K) machine, and would be competitive against some other modern takes on old computers, such as THEC64 from Retro Games Ltd, for instance. So, what would go?

Let's first look at what I would keep: I would want my KS 3 machine to do three things well:

1. Play all 16K and 48K Speccy games;
2. Play all 128K games; and
3. Be compatible with all native Next software titles except those that require an internal Raspberry Pi or networking capability.

I would keep the reset switch, and the SD Card reader as is, and remove the expansion bus and PS/2 socket. And, if I could achieve it at a sensible price, include some USB ports. I might even remove the joystick ports in favour of USB and just allow the use of USB controllers. I would leave the ULA+ support, but remove the option for VGA output, so there is only one video output, which would be real HDMI. And perhaps, finally, I would look at removing the audio input and output, although on this latter point, if I could get it to cost, I might leave this in.

This sounds a lot like leaving the world of FPGA behind in favour of the much more cost effective System on a Chip (SoC), so of course some of the purists will hate it because, in essence, the Next has always been in the FPGA camp as far as I can tell.

But here's the thing: another KickStarter based upon the last one won't significantly increase the number of ZX Spectrum Next users, as many people who own one or both revisions of the Next (or maybe even the white ultra rare version too) will find a way to back the third, and despite all of my critiques, that'd probably include me too. You might therefore increase the user base by another 10 or 20% and most of those new users will be there just to play original Speccy games, or as essentially investors hoping for a good return one day. In other words, in my view, you've only increased the potential market for actual Next specific software marginally. Making the price point attractive and accepting that people just want to play Speccy games on reliable hardware as their old machines fail is more likely to increase the interest in the Next specific software too. Adding USB connectivity and cutting the nice-to-have features will allow for a better end-user experience, as the current ZX Next feels unfinished, at least to me. Remembering to unplug the HDMI each time is one of those annoyances that I have. Changing displays (and remembering how to do so) is another.

Ultimately, more users will surely mean more interest in the Next as a viable platform and more than just a curiosity.

Saying all of this, I am trying to find some use cases for the nice to have features, such as the classic CP/M; I am finally making progress with the CP/M mode on the Next, and have software running on it, including MicroSoft BASIC, Zork and other text adventures. What I really want is to use WordStar to write my articles for some printed matter publication that I am going to be writing for. And although I don't like the ZX Next keyboard too much, I do have an external PS/2 keyboard that works well for me. If I do manage to author any articles on CP/M WordStar, I'll let you know how I went about it, but some suggestions that I should print out my work to submit it to my editor are probably more ridiculous than this 'ere blog!

And on that note, dear reader, I'll thank you kindly for taking time to read. Let's see if another KS for the Next happens, and we'll also see if a fool (like me) and his money is easily parted, as I'll probably end up backing it again.