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ZX Spectrum reboot promising – steady now – 28MHz of sizzling Speccy speed now boasts improved Wi-Fi

Heir to 2017’s successful Spectrum Next hits target in minutes

The team behind 2017’s successful re-imagining of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum is back with another new cut of the classic British Micro.

Issue 2 of the ZX Spectrum Next is a creature of Kickstarter, and improves on the first issue with wireless networking fixes.

Like the first revision, you can crank up the resident Z80 processor's clock all the way to a sizzling 28MHz. The speed boost is said to make games more playable, although the device’s makers warn that not all software appreciates the extra speed.

A whole megabyte of RAM is still standard, and, as previously, there’s a “high resolution” video mode at an eyeball-wearying 640 x 256. Dual-screen support is still possible, and in the video below, the machine is shown driving a CRT and HDMI monitor simultaneously, in mirrored mode.

The Wi-Fi chippery has been moved to reduce interference and improve performance, which should make it easier to connect to the revived version of Teletext devoted to the new machine.

Youtube Video

The cost of the 'puter has risen to £300 because some component prices have increased and this time it includes relevant taxes. The campaign’s creators say they had bad advice about tax on their first go-around and ended up shelling out from personal funds.

At the time of writing the campaign has more than tripled its ground-level fundraising goal of £250,000, having hit its target within five minutes of going live, and appears to have secured sufficient funds for all machines to receive an upgrade to two whole megabytes of RAM.

Delivery is promised in August 2021, which is a fair while to have your cash sitting in a stranger's bank account. Thankfully the Spectrum Next team delivered without notable complaint on their previous venture, which can’t be said of the controversial Spectrum Vega+ Sinclair revival. ®

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