The ZX Spectrum Vega+ was supposed to be the perfect way to experience classic ZX Spectrum games on the go, but after a botched crowdfunding campaign, ropey hardware and the collapse of the company behind it, Retro Computers Ltd, it has gone down as something of a disaster.
The bad taste left by the Vega+ hasn’t deterred another firm, Elmar Electronic, from having a stab at the concept, though. The ZX Touch is a portable take on Sir Clive Sinclair’s classic home computer which boasts a 7-inch touch display, WiFi, SD card support and a six-hour battery life.
Elmar Electronic is “a small company with more than 40 years of history and twenty dedicated employees” which specializes in “the development and manufacturing of industrial and telecommunication equipment”. One of its co-owners, Goran Radan, has a deep affection for the Spectrum, which led him to create the ZX-VGA-JOY project. The ZX Touch is his next Sinclair-flavoured venture.
22 games come built-in, all of which are included with the permission of the original developer or rights holder, but you can load up other titles via an SD card.
Both the hardware and software are entirely bespoke; there’s no OS included, as the software inside is “pure c/c++ code running on embedded high-performance ARM Cortex-M7 480Mhz MCU” according to the manufacturer.
Mixed feelings.
I love that people try to do this, but it’s $40 of hardware and they want £220 ??
Would you be able to notice much of a difference between this and a £60 Chinese handheld running Fuse? Plus the Chinese option will emulate pretty much everything up to Dreamcast or so. I know the screen is smaller, but something like a Powkiddy RGB30 has a square display that’ll be a better fit for a 4:3 display. Good luck to them but…
Honestly one of these days I’d like to see one of these doohickeys be an actual refresh of the original hardware. Not really an economical or low-effort angle to take, but hell, you can still get Z80 (and their successors) pretty cheap.
There’s also the Spectrum Next project, an FPGA based modernised Spectrum. Only available via crowdfunding but they are possibly doing another round on Kickstarter sometime this year I think.
and the ZX Omni
