Frequently asked questions

Every now and then I get an email from a visitor to this site asking me a popular question. This page will hopefully answer all the usual ones.

Who are you?

I'm me!

Why did you create this site?

During the Spectrum's heyday, YS had a character all of it's own - it was funny without being silly, intelligent without being dull and, in some cases, downright surreal without getting too bizarre. No other magazine got the balance right, either then or in the present. The closest nowadays would probably be PC Zone, but it just isn't the same.
    When the heyday started to wind down, and the amount of new software started to drop (around end-1990/1991), I used to flick through the old mags rather a lot. By that time I was the owner of one of the doomed SAM Coupes as well as an old 8086 PC. It all ended when I went to university, ditched the SAM and packed the mags into my parents' loft and concentrated on "real" programming on PCs and UNIX boxes.
    Then in 1993/4 I discovered the retro scene - it was in a very scattered state at that time, but I followed the developments through my time at uni. When I got a "proper" job and moved out of my parents place, I rediscovered the magazines and used to flick through them again and again. I saw how the Speccy retro scene was developing and was getting organised and saw a small gap in the market (this was early 1997): there were effecively two kinds of Speccy retro fans - those who originally had Speccies and want to relive their time with them using emulators, and those who never had a Speccy but now use Speccy emulators.
    Both these groups had a common problem - there were central repositries containing thousands of original Spectrum games ready to be downloaded onto their machines, but they either don't remember or don't know which were the classics and which were the turkies. So, in the time I spent waiting for things to cook/doing my laundry/etc, and inspired by BBC's "Rock'n'Roll Years", I typed up the "Your Sinclair Rock'n'Roll Years" containing news and game review ratings and designed it to be a monthly set of Usenet newsgroup postings to comp.sys.sinclair - a sort of "in this month in history" for Speccy fans.
    It got a good reception, people emailed me asking for the whole series, so I had the idea for the website. I decided I'd design it so that it's future-proof - instead of creating each webpage by hand I'd write a program that generates them for me from the original text I'd done before - the upshot is that when I redesign the site I don't have to change 1000 odd files by hand, instead all I do is write a new script.
    The website was also well received, and people wanted more - they wanted to see the original articles. Once I'd looked into the copyright situation (Future Publishing weren't interested in it, but I've been trying to get as many of the original writer's permission anyway) I started putting a few on, as well as developing the site so it contained things like screenshots and search links to the snapshot websites, as well as graphics and other YS related stuff. The site is ever-expanding and still doesn't approach my "vision" for it - I want it to try and relate some of the atmosphere of the Speccy years, the hype, the expectation, etc. That will take a LOT of time.

How is this site generated?

I used to use a hell of a lot of UNIX scripts to generate both the issue and the article pages. Since the scripts evolved from simple text formatter to full relational database (and the fact that as the site got bigger, it took over EIGHT hours to build), I rewrote the whole complation process from scratch using Perl and have cut build time to a little over a minute. The original text for the issue pages were typed in manually, the articles were scanned in using OCR software.

Isn't this site illegal?

Yes and no - there are parallels with the legalities of using emulators and game snapshots. The issue pages are legal - those listings and summaries come under "fair use". The articles are a different matter - the copyrights for those still belong to the original writers. What I've done is get a load of articles scanned in and put them up on the site with the understanding that they can be taken down at any time. I then try and contact the original writers to try and get their blessing. On the whole, the writers don't mind me reproducing their work on here, so long as there's a disclaimer box describing the copyright situation and the fact that these articles are around a decade old. Only two writers have said that they don't want their articles on here, and I have respected their decision. For a list of who've given their blessing, check out the "Bless Them..." section on the Credits page.

Can I copy an article/a page and put it on my own site/CD-ROM/whatever?

Not without asking first. Since the copyright is a complex issue, we'd need to talk. Generally speaking, no you may not, but you MAY link to a page on this site.

Where can I find game XXXXXXX for the Speccy?

The World Of Spectrum archive is the most complete game archive on the net.

Where can I find game XXXXXXX for the XXXXXXXXX(not the Speccy)?

I don't know - my knowledge of the non-Speccy emulator scene is pretty dated, you'd best try elsewhere.

Where can I find playing tips and cheats for a game?

Try The Tipshop, or by clicking the Tipshop icons next to the game names within this website.

Why is the article which I want to read not on this site?

Could be for any of the following reasons:
    1) I haven't reached that issue in the current pass thru all 93 issues.
    2) I haven't got that issue.
    3) This site isn't meant to be a complete archive - there'd be way too much work involved and many of the articles wouldn't be read (would you bother reading a review for a game that got, say, 1/10?). Instead, I intend to concentrate on the major reviews, as well as the most interesting reviews. This, at the moment, gives an average of about six articles a month.
    4) The article was printed using an unscannable colour scheme. YS had a tendency to be a little "creative" with colour - yellow text on white background isn't that scannable, and black on some shades of red cannot be scanned either. Then there's those reviews which have multi-coloured artwork behind them... those are the hardest of all to scan, and some are impossible (e.g. white text on white background).
    5) I had a tendency to collect coin-op conversion adverts, which meant ripping out the page and eventually losing it. This affected quite a few articles which I now want to scan.
    6) The original writer doesn't want their article on the site.

HOWEVER you can request an article by emailing me what you want. I'll then put it on my "to do" list and will get around to it any decade now (yep, turnaround time can be rather long).

Why haven't you responded to my email? A bit rude isn't it?

A little, yes, but I'm a busy man. Rest assured that all email is read, if not replied to.

I have a question about the Spectrum scene in general - where can I get answers?

Try the comp.sys.sinclair FAQ. If that doesn't answer your question, try emailling me.