MtM

It's Christmas time! I hope everyone has had or is having a wonderful day! Time for Norman's MJSW!

I remember all those games SS, some classics there, and I remember going into retailers like Woolworths etc to buy Spectrum Stuff. In fact if you remember John Menzies, they used to have big shops in town centres, a year after I got my first Spectrum I had saved up my Christmas money and Menzies was the only place that had a Microdrive and Interface 1 in stock near where I live, I think it cost £95, but briefly I had a colour portable, an int 1 and micro drive, an amazing set up! But I took the micro drive back and got a CBM128 instead - but that is a different story. But I can relate to going into the likes of Boots, WH Smiths etc to buy Speccy games, as well as issues of Crash of course too. Great times! Thanks for telling us about them.

That is a good story Danny, really good you had a Timex and it got you into the MM/JSW world, and you have never looked back! Your knowledge of all the different versions is a constant source of amazement, and I imagine like the rest of us you probably never thought all these years later since the 80s you would still be so involved. I hope I can do like you did and one day and the time to use an editor and release a new MM and then a JSW mod. We live in hope! it is a labour of love though and you know you will not make any money off spending all that time writing it, i can't really afford that at the moment. I have downloaded JSW Baby on the Go to give it a go and find that screen at least! So thank you for that.

Thru the Wall was very good fun as I recollect, yes, I played that too, like you it was a rubber keyed 48k model, never got the Six Pack you had Andy, but did have a fair few other tapes, mainly originals, I had managed to get hold of, I may have had original MM but I suspect I had a copy of JSW, or maybe the other way around. I did have an original JSW at one point with the colour code card in it. Although simple that is a really good clear diagram above about computers and how they input and output and would not take much changing today I think, names are different but the process is the same. I reckon anyway! Thanks for that Andy a great trip down Memory Lane. Anyone else? There must be other good stories out there about Spectrum Christmasses etc.

Yes go on Andy lets hear it! It took several months before I managed to get hold of a colour portable tv for the old Spectrum, my goodness that was such luxury then it really was. Not sure what people would make of the concept of a portable now, certainly not a b&w one! I kept that portable for years too it was a Ferguson, great little colour tv.

Hello all, Just thought I would start a topic about the above, i.e. this coming Christmas, if anyone has anything they want to say about what they are doing this year, what it means to them in terms if MM & JSW, or anything really. Personally, I got my first Spectrum at Christmas 1984, which meant from that time onwards I was playing MM & JSW and gave myself a royal headache on Boxing Day that year due to staring at the screen on MM for hours! Great times! But I always have an association of being happy and playing those games at Christmas, so naturally I will be firing them up this Christmas too. It is a pity there are no Christmas related mods that I can think of to play though I am sure JSWDanny will correct me if I am wrong about that 🙂 I suppose to broaden it a bit there are other games I associate with Christmas too, not least The Little Computer People Project, from 1986, I think I had just got a disk drive for my CBM and that was something I spent a lot of time on. But nothing will ever replace playing MM on a large old CRT telly with the red gun of the crt not working properly sometimes so the colours being off on Boxing Day 84. As the saying goes you never forget your first time, and that Christmas playing MM & JSW has stayed with me ever since. Happier, easier times, even if we were on the edge of a nuclear war with the USA & Russia at the time 😉 So in between family time this year that is an important tradition for me firing up those games and experiencing a tiny bit of the same excitement from nearly 40 years ago. I daresay I am not alone! Strange when MS wrote those games could he have ever thought all these years later people would still be playing them and writing new ones? Let's hear those recollections everyone has about Christmas and JSW & MM! There must be a lot better tales than mine! I hope we all have a great Christmas and New Year!

I have just rung the cell number Danny and left a message from Maria for him 😉

Hello All, Given the time of year thought it might be time to dust this thread off, as Christmas is clearly approaching - I have seen it in the supermarkets! How about some Christmas style demos and music being posted again? I can only apologise for my lack of ability in creating such materials but I know there are uber talented folks on here who can do it! It is still my plan one day when I have time to do an MM mod, called Manic Christmas, with 20 Christmas themed rooms etc and a suitable story to accompany it, but it will have to wait until I retire I expect 😉

I will fire it up on my Next at some point and give it a whirl ... thanks for flagging it up Andy!

Incroyable! Bravo!

The sad thing is we will never see their like again or experience that same joy when games came out like those on the list. Oh well. At least we can drink legally now 😉

This is a brilliant topic, very interesting for fans to hear of how things were created by their creators.

Norman, you have earned your legendary status of part of the JSW lore. However ... do you perhaps fancy having a go at JSW3? Maybe only you could do it Norman! How about a Kickstarter to get it funded? What will it take!?

Is he? Fantastic come on Crem let's have all the stories then! When are we getting the official JSW3? 😉

Just for the record I am actually Matthew Smith 😉 Well, I have been to Wallasey before anyway ... 🙂 I am not, of course, Matthew Smith, that is just a joke! Maybe he _does_ read these forums and may yet reveal himself?

It happens to us all Norman eventually 😉

Yes it might of been completed by one of the lesser mortals 😉

Yeah I agree Andy and looking to see the extra life I wondered if someone had actually wrapped it and played it through at least once to get back to the Central Cavern. Oh well, no real mystery.

My goodness, what hidden treasures are among that lot! We had a good clear out during the first lockdown but I have kept my old computer mags, well my single remaining issue of Crash and my Zzaps. But I understand, eventually it seems like that stuff is dragging you down a bit. Do you have a motorbike Norman? Just the cover that is over the magazines, looks like a motorbike cover. Could be a car cover I guess. Thanks for clearing up the Perils of Willy image, I had seen that inlay before but just never put it together with the image of the old SP card. He was/is a talented guy Roger, is he still with us or doing anything computer related do you know?

I should of said that is almost a game by 1982 standards really Jian. Good work on getting your Spectrum! I think we all probably had some kind of story a bit like that if we got Spectrum's as kids, tried to justify it by saying, "I will use it for my homework!" when really you just wanted to get a pirate copy of Match Day or something like that 😉 I can remember a salesman in an independent computer shop near me selling C64's simply by loading off tape Ghostbusters on and pressing the space bar so you heard the sample it would play that said "Ghostbuters! Ha ha ha ha ha ..." and people buying them on the strength of that alone! But in retrospect why not? Adults then didn't really know any better which worked to our advantage 🙂

That is almost a 1982 style game there Jian! 😉

I wonder why those scores in particular? Do they mean something, should I know really?

Here it is folks ... In truth, I do not think it is worth 25 bills. However, it is what it was sold as, just not worth that amount. You pays your money and takes your chance.

Norman I dread to think what other material went into the skip! But thanks for that, it's great computer game artwork, unlike the cgi stuff of today. I notice something like Thomas the Tank Engine in the bottom left corner, was that symbolic of something? I don't remember SP having the licence to do the game? The artist does have a highly recognisable style.

Thanks for that Norman, much appreciated. I will report back on anything I order.