The ZX Spectrum Next meddles with the primal forces of nature and cooks an egg
No.
This isn't right.
Not at all.
You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Olifiers. And you will atone.
What we have here is the ZX Spectrum Next (which has been talked about previously at Retronauts towers) showing off the benefits of its new, larger FPGA -- which it reached thanks to achieving its first stretch goal. Because of this, they've been able to add some more functionality to the system...part of that being the ability to play with (or emulate accurately) a SID music chip. The SID is, of course, the chip that was used in the Commodore 64 to make some of the best game music of the decade -- created by Robert Yannes, it was a technical marvel that still baffles people somewhat today, considering that most other computers at the time (including the Spectrum 48k) possessed little more than a single-channel beeper in terms of sound. The Spectrum 128k upgraded its sound to an AY chip -- the same sort of thing you get in a Game Boy -- but still, the SID was the undisputed champion in the world of '80s computer sound.
Even though I myself belong more to the Spectrum crowd than the C64 crowd, hearing a ZX Spectrum playing SID tunes so effectively is almost wrong, as if the streams have just been crossed. Of course, it is just a cool little bit of functionality and emulation -- the Spectrum Next folk are not busy cannibalising old C64's and cutting out their SID chips in order to stick them into the Spectrum Next (something that actually can happen to C64's that you buy on Ebay due to the chip's value as a synthesizer), but the feeling this brings is strange, as if someone managed to get a Mega Drive cartridge to run on a Super Nintendo. We truly are in an odd dimension.
In other Speccy Next-related news, the system has already managed to secure itself a big name character -- one that may be familiar to anyone who grew up in the era. Dizzy is an egg with hands and feet, and the ability to roll around all over the place collecting objects, solving puzzles and saving his kinfolk from evil wizards -- he was one of the most popular characters around back in the UK computer days with several big games under his belt, although there's a chance that Americans may know him from Fantastic Dizzy, which did come out for both the NES and the Mega Drive/Genesis. It has been announced by the creators of the series, Philip and Andrew Oliver (better known as The Oliver Twins), that a brand new Dizzy game directed by themselves and made by a team that remade Crystal Kingdom Dizzy -- one of the more maligned entries in the Dizzy canon -- will be released onto the ZX Spectrum Next, not for two pounds nor for three pounds, but for free as a way of commemorating the success of the project. After several false starts and failed Kickstarters, said new game will be the first official Dizzy title in 25 years, ending a pretty long wait. Speaking of the project, there are four days left to run on the Next's Kickstarter, and it stands at over half a million pounds -- if you fancy sticking your two'pennorth in, then don't hesitate to do so.
