AUSRETROGAMER

The Pop-Culture E-Zine

You are here: Home / Archives for zx spectrum

zx spectrum

From Pixels to Perfume: Retro Gaming Scents You Didn’t Know You Needed

By

Eau de nostalgia

Just when you thought retro gaming couldn’t get any cooler (or weirder), Andrews UK drops a surprise that’s equal parts nostalgic and nose-tingling: a collection of premium fragrances inspired by classic home computers. Yep, you read that right — retro gaming perfumes are officially a thing, and we’re absolutely here for it.

Launching just in time for Christmas 2025, the Retro Gaming Fragrance Collection features four unique scents that pay tribute to the legendary machines that shaped our pixelated childhoods: THEC64, The Spectrum, ZX80, and ZX81.

🕹️ The Lineup: Smell Like a Legend

Here’s what’s in the olfactory lineup:

  • THEC64 Fragrance Pour Homme
    Bold, sophisticated, and just a little bit mysterious — think citrus, florals, and a rich patchouli-musk base. It’s the scent equivalent of booting up your C64 and hearing that SID chip sing.
  • The Spectrum Fragrance Pour Homme
    A vibrant blend of bergamot, woody warmth, and musky depth. It’s like loading Jet Set Willy on a rainy afternoon — comforting, chaotic, and unmistakably British.
  • ZX80 Eau de Parfum
    Feminine, elegant, and sparkling with florals, soft fruits, and creamy vanilla musk. A scent that’s as graceful as the ZX80 was groundbreaking.
  • ZX81 Pour Homme
    Refined and masculine, with lavender, leather, and aromatic freshness. It’s the kind of fragrance that says, “Yes, I coded in BASIC — and I smelled great doing it.”

🧴 More Than Just a Scent — It’s a Collectible

Each 100ml bottle comes in packaging that nods to the iconic design of its namesake computer. These aren’t just fragrances — they’re wearable collectibles for the retro gaming elite. Whether you’re heading to a gaming expo or just want to smell like your favourite 8-bit machine, this collection has you covered.

And let’s be honest — they really missed a trick not bottling that hot C64 PSU smell. Imagine a cologne called “Thermal Drift” — notes of melting plastic, ozone, and the faint whiff of a CRT monitor warming up. Eau de nostalgia!

🎁 Pre-Order Now for Christmas 2025

The Retro Gaming Fragrance Collection is available for pre-order now via AUK Direct. Whether you’re buying for a retro gaming fanatic or just want to spice up your shelf with something truly unique, this is one gift that’ll raise eyebrows — and maybe a few pulses.

 

BBC Archive: Imagine Software – 1983

By

Cast your mind back to 1983, when Imagine Software were the pop stars of video games development!

Now this is a blast from the past! Imagine Software, the video games development superstars from Liverpool were going gangbusters when this video was aired on the BBC almost forty years ago on October 23, 1983. Who didn’t love Green Beret, Arkanoid: Revenge of Doh and Hyper Sports to name just a few.

We all know what followed – the high-profile demise of Imagine a year later in 1984 – but for now, let’s just cast our minds back 40 years and enjoy this vid!


source: BBC Archive



The Tainted Recreated ZX Spectrum

By

There are some crowd-funded projects that have a sordid and tainted history, like the darn Atari GameBand watch that never eventuated (Ed: we got burnt by that one!). Then there is Elite Systems’ Recreated ZX Spectrum (aka: Bluetooth ZX Spectrum), which was successfully funded on February 1, 2014 (via Kickstarter), but since then it has been nothing but heartache. Fast forward 8+ years and there are backers that have yet to receive their rubber-keyed beast. Back in 2016, Eurogamer documented the plight of this troubled campaign, which leaves us deflated even now, with the knowledge that another retro-inspired project had become a dumpster fire.

When we recently were donated a swag of retro goodies, amongst the absolute gold was a shiny ZX Spectrum which we thought looked brand new! There was a reason it looked brand new, it was indeed the elusive (and quite tainted) Recreated ZX Spectrum keyboard! Upon inspecting this recreation, we were quite impressed with its build and its close resemblance to the real deal from Sinclair. But that is where the good impressions stopped. This is nothing more than a glorified Bluetooth keyboard which you actually can’t even use as a keyboard as it sends ‘op codes’ when trying to use it on Windows, Android and iOS. It has an A and B layer switch, with A putting the keyboard into game mode and selecting B setting it to keyboard mode – but it doesn’t!

Surprisingly, the Recreated ZX Spectrum companion app is still available on the Google Play and iTunes stores, with a load of ‘free’ games to play. We eventually paired it to our Galaxy Tab and played Chuckie Egg. The experience was somewhat gimmicky, as using the keyboard to control Hen-House Harry proved to be sub-standard, with the keys feeling mushy or not responsive without a heavy push. We are still stunned that this made it in the donation we received and we must admit, we feel dirty about it.

Don’t even bother pairing it with Windows – it is useless!

The underside gives it away – it is or trying to imitate a classic Sinclair computer!

The only major switch on the back is the Layer A and B – which switches between game (control) or keyboard mode

The only redeeming feature (if we can even say that!) is we played Chuckie Egg on the companion Android app!



PICOmputer ZX: Raspberry Pi PICO Powered Pocket ZX Spectrum

By

Need a(nother) new project in your life? If you do, then check out Peter Misenko’s (aka: bobricious’) super cute PICOmputer ZX – Pocket ZX Spectrum on Hackaday, powered by a Raspberry Pi PICO!

This is an ongoing project, so expect more details and instructions on Hackaday. Also follow bobricious’ GitHub here.

image source: Hackaday



Sinclair Book of Remembrance (SBOR)

By

We received the following message from a friend on behalf of Jim (from SBOR – Sinclair Book of Remembrance) so we thought we would share with you all as we think it is a great idea for the community to share their memories of Sinclair’s computers and also remembering Sir Clive Sinclair.

The Sinclair Book of Remembrance (SBOR) is a project dedicated to the memory of Sir Clive Sinclair who sadly passed away on the 16th September 2021.

Moved as I was, SBOR has been a personal labour of love, to do something in honour of “Uncle Clive”. It is not a business project. It’s completely free and non-monetised.

The objective is to create a unique digital monument, composed of our shared Sinclair memories encoded together so that the final product represents each and every one of us.
For those thinking this is an NFT thing – it is definitely not! It is an opportunity for each of us to share a memory, and together create a unique dedication to Sir Clive.

I am asking that each of us contribute a Sinclair memory, by simply sending an email with your story (with up to 4 image attachments). By sending your email to [email protected] it will trigger the system to automatically create an entry to the SBOR site – for example: https://sbor.uk/m/1?code=41ce. You will receive a reply containing the link to your contribution, which I would urge you to share far and wide!

At a pre-determined date, say the 1-year anniversary of Sir Clive’s passing, all of the entries will be combined and encoded into a single unique value. This will be unique in the universe and will represent all of our combined memories of what Sinclair meant to us and something we can all share in.



The Rubber-Keyed Wonder: 40 Years of the ZX Spectrum

By

If you are fans (like us!) of the From Bedrooms to Billions film series then you will absolutely love their latest documentary film, The Rubber-Keyed Wonder: 40 Years of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. To make Anthony and Nicola Caulfield’s film come true, go and check out their Kickstarter!

Coinciding with the ZX Speccy’s 40th anniversary next year (2022), Anthony and Nicola are aiming to release the film by Christmas 2022 – make sure you let Santa know! The Caulfield’s are aiming to make a thorough and definitive film on the ZX Spectrum, going into all the finer details of how and why the ZX Spectrum was created, what impact the computer had as well as the various versions that followed right the way through to the latest iteration of the system with the ZX Spectrum Next.

The film aims to reunite as many of the original ZX Spectrum hardware team and of course many legendary game developers, artists and musicians, and also talk to fans of the ZX Spectrum as to understand the significance of the machine with the masses.

This Kickstarter campaign once again has some stunning artwork from Oliver Frey available as well as some wonderful posters and other add-ons to get your nostagia gland pulsating!

Now, we are Commodore fans, but we are also aware of the significance of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, so we are quite excited to support Anthony and Nicola on their new project!

image source: The Rubber Keyed Wonder – 40 years of the ZX Spectrum



Reset64 Presents – Chuckie Egg (VIC20)

By

This is so awesome to see – Chuckie Egg can now be played on the VIC20! Oh yeah, it can also be played on the TheC64/TheVIC20 or your fave VIC20 emulator. So those ZX Speccy, BBC Micro and Dragon 32 folks can stop gloating, us Commdore gamers can now play this classic game too! Big shout out to Reset64 Magazine and Derek for keeping us gamers entertained with brilliant (and quite nostalgic) video games!

For more information on (and instructions on how to play) Chuckie Egg (VIC20), and to download the game, go to the Reset64 Magazine itch.io page now! What are you waiting for, Hen-House Harry needs your help!!!

image source: Reset64 Magazine itch.io



Diary: Making of Mr. Do! for the ZX Spectrum

By


If you follow Mark R. Jones on Twitter, you may have come across his post about the Diary on the making of MrDo! for the 48k/128k ZX Spectrum.

Mark’s 50 page PDF is a fascinating read for any gamers that want to learn how Mark and co. converted the 1982 Universal arcade game and why it took nearly 2 years (Feb 2017 to June 2019) to complete! Oh yeah, did we mention it is free?!

source: Tweet link



 

BBC Archives: At home with the Codemasters – 1988

By

The BBC Archive is rich with gaming related content from the 80s! We wanted to share this particular video of the Darling family, better known as Codemasters, enjoying their dizzy-ing success in the video games industry. Ah, those were the times.

This originally aired on the BBC’s Breakfast Time segment on August 2, 1988!


source: BBC Archive

Get Your Mugshot in Chase H.Q. and Help NHS Charities

By

The talented Bill Harbison, veteran Ocean/Imagine Software pixel artist, who worked on titles like, Chase HQ, Batman The Movie and Jurassic Park is doing something really cool for charity!

Bill is supporting the NHS Charities COVID-19 Urgent Appeal via his Fiverr page where you supply him an image of yourself that he then takes to create a mugshot to be added to his old ZX Spectrum game, Chase H.Q. How awesomely cool is that? If you are keen to be featured in the ZX Speccy Chase H.Q. game and also help out a great charity, then hit Bill’s Fiverr page now!

We’ll update this post and share our screenshot once Bill weaves his magic and sends through the finished image. We can’t wait!

UPDATE: Guess what peeps?! Bill was super quick with his pixel wizardry and delivered our screenshot waaaay ahead of the due date! So here it is, our Ed, Alex Boz, in full pixel art (Chase H.Q. mugshot) glory! 🙂