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Talk:ZX Spectrum/GA3

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Latest comment: 6 months ago by PresN in topic GA Review

GA Review

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Reviewer: PresN (talk · contribs) 23:38, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply


Claiming this review; I'll start posting comments soon. --PresN 23:38, 25 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for taking the Herculean task of reviewing the mighty Spectrum, PresN! I have returned in good time, and will begin addressing your comments. I note that some of the technical sections have been altered or degraded since I have been gone - but will tackle that when we come to it. ♦ JAGUAR  22:52, 4 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Lead
  • It's odd for the lead to launch almost immediately into the clones, before discussing what the machine is or that it was released outside the UK. I would have expected that sentence at the end of what is now paragraph 3.
  • "The machine was the brainchild of" - oddly informal
  • Inclined to agree, though I think most know British English employs a more colloquial reading experience, even for Wikipedia. I've changed it to 'creation'. ♦ JAGUAR  23:19, 4 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • The lead says it was released "in some parts of Europe as the Timex Computer 2048.", but the infobox just says Spain in 1985. Sounds like at minimum that should be changed to EU in 1985, unless you want to get more specific about the countries.
In 1985 Spain wasn't in the then EC (the EU didn't exist under that name in 1985 either). Although I can't quickly find a single source which lists release dates in different European countries, I would have expected that it was launched earlier in e.g.
Ireland than Spain. 90.167.254.202 (talk) 22:29, 29 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
'EU' is generally referring to Europe; it is easier to cluster the releases that way. ♦ JAGUAR  21:56, 2 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • Actually, now it seems like the issue is that lead is playing loose with whether the Timex versions were versions of the Spectrum or were clones of the Spectrum. It doesn't seem right to call the Timex a clone, then turn around and say the Spectrum was released in the US as the 2068. Personally, I'd stick with calling them versions or variants, seeing as they were official (slightly modified) Spectrums.
  • Agree. Since I removed the mention of clones above I hope it negates this issue. I'd call the Timex versions versions, and the Soviet imitations clones. Let me know how it reads? ♦ JAGUAR  23:19, 4 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • Sorry to butt in but I have an issue with the first sentence of the lead : "one of the most influential computers ever made" seem quite the bold statement and I wanted to know why did you write such a claim ? I have added a "According to whom?" template. DanganMachin (talk) 21:26, 18 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • @DanganMachin: The lede is a summary of the body- the sentence could use a qualifier, but it's based on a sentence from "Legacy": "The importance of the ZX Spectrum and its role in the early history of personal computing and video gaming has left many to regard it as the most important and influential computer of the 1980s.[2][3][230]". It's a strong statement, but not really inaccurate depending on how you define it. --PresN 03:05, 19 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
Background/Development
  • This feels like its going way too deep into Sinclair's history. Nothing about Sinclair Radionics is directly relevant to this computer; its important to note they had made the ZX80 and 81, and had been making electronics since the 60s, but the details of his business history is too much.
  • I've cut down on some of the less relevant company history. I took inspiration from the ZX81's background subsection, which to be fair adheres much less to WPVG's manual of style. I think keeping the mention about Sinclair's relationship with the NEB is important, as his breakup prompted him to develop microchips, which ultimately led to the Spectrum. ♦ JAGUAR  11:51, 13 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hello, Jaguar, and thank you for your interest in the article.
I didn't see this review on time, so I reverted your edit [1]. If you really feel that it doesn't belong to the article, then you can undo my revert. However, I personally find the remove sentence both interesting and relevant. Z80Spectrum (talk) 16:00, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • "Sinclair resolved to make his own products obsolete before his rivals developed the products that would do so, thus seeking to make the technology as cheap as possible." - not following how wanting to make a computer better than the ZX80/81 leads to making the Spectrum (or is it computers in general?) cheap.
  • "Architecture from the ZX80 and ZX81 were recycled" - tense issue, but also more clear as "parts of the designs of the ZX80 and ZX81 were reused
The bigger problem with that sentence is that it might be misleading, not factual. Spectrum is a very different machine than ZX81. Reused was the idea to use Z80 CPU, to use a Ferranti ULA, to output a TV signal, bitmapped graphics, a big chunk of code for BASIC.
However, those are just some generalistic issues. Nothing specific in the architecture was reused on Spectrum. Z80Spectrum (talk) 16:14, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • "According to Sinclair, the team had the concept of using..." - so... did they do so or just "have the concept"? And what does it mean in practical terms to combine the video and audio RAM?
I can guess what it means. It was probably a part of the Spectrum's design goals to consider using only one bank of RAM. The Spectrum 16K actually uses only one bank (4116 DRAM), and the access to this bank is multiplexed (both CPU and video). Spectrum can store everything in this bank: video, audio, code, etc...
However, the 48K model has a second bank of RAM (and this bank is expensive, 8 chips of 4532, which is a half-malfunctioning 4164 DRAM, where 4164 is a more modern and more expensive tech than 4116).
So, the end design only partially follows the idea of a single bank of RAM, but it can certanly be claimed that the design goal of a product with a single bank of RAM was achieved, in the form of Spectrum 16K. Z80Spectrum (talk) 16:25, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I have attempted to quickly dig out the DRAM chip prices, just to show the bill of materials.

(Edit: I quoted prices from wrong years (1981 instead of 1982); corrected)

4116 - (16 Kib per chip) - the price fell sharply in 1981, and then leveled off. In 1982, the price was about 0.91 USD/KiB (150 ns)
4164 - (64 Kib per chip) - the price was about 1.1 USD/KiB in 1982 (150 ns). The price was going to drop significantly in the middle of 1983, which contributed to the decrease of Spectrum's price.
4532 - (32 Kib per chip) - the price per chip was from 10% to 30% less than 4164 DRAM (which has double capacity). However, these are salvaged 4164 chips, so Sinclair could probably had made some good bargains.
The DRAM chips make about 30% of the ZX Spectrum's bill of materials (well, depending on the year). Z80Spectrum (talk) 17:58, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I would estimate the ZX Spectrum's bill of materials at around 125 USD in January 1983 (without assembly, packaging and Q&A costs). However, this is original research. I know approximately the price of each component (individual chips), if anyone is interested. Z80Spectrum (talk) 18:13, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • "Much of the code was written by" - given this is a computer, the code for what? You start talking about the interpreter next, but without the context of how early 80s computers worked (e.g. that you loaded in programs that the computer ran, without a fancy operating system GUI), this is really hard for a reader to follow.
  • "the ZX Spectrum was, as quoted by Sinclair's marketing manager, essentially a "ZX81 with colour". - given that you just talked a little about the changes and go on to spend another big paragraph talking about hardware changes, this sentence seems out of place. Overall, these two paragraphs jump around between hardware changes from the ZX81 and how the software works, with this line in the middle; it would read smoother if you reorder the sentences so it's "these were the changes made, but ultimately it was a ZX81 with some changes made to support colour. The operating software for the machine to run programs was written by Vickers. It handled color like X. It took up 7kb of the system's total 16kb of memory." (also note that 16kb was the minimum/default memory amount, since there was a 48kb version at launch)
As far as I understand it, the sentence is still wrong. The sentence claims that ZX Spectrum was "ZX81 with colour", which is terribly wrong. If the sentence indicated this claim as an opinion of the marketing manager, it would be much less wrong, but still misleading. Z80Spectrum (talk) 23:20, 18 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
Aldo, that entire paragraph is quite badly written, confusing and inaccurate. Unfortunately, I don't have spare time at this moment to fix it, maybe some other day. Z80Spectrum (talk) 23:43, 18 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • The paragraph that starts with "A divergence of perspectives between Nine Tiles" uses about 50% too many words to explain that Sinclair wanted to reuse the ZX80 software architecture with additions in order to launch quickly, but Nine Tiles (and you haven't previously mentioned that it was more than just Vickers, but was the company as well) thought that it would make a mess as the ZX80 design was optimized for less memory and processing demands. It just reads really stilted, and a quick rewrite would sort it out. Also, you don't actually say which side won, just that they disagreed, so it doesn't really go anywhere in the end.
  • "brainchild" is still informal
Point 1. Jaguar wrote: Much of the code was written by - I think that you have nailed the problem there: the article is missing an entire section describing how the Spctrum was operated in practice. I think that some sections from the article on ZX81 can be reused for this purpose. However, this will further expand the article, so I propose splitting the history section into another article.
Point 2. Jaguar wrote the ZX Spectrum was, as quoted by Sinclair's marketing manager, essentially a "ZX81 with colour - the problem here is the following: from a perspective of initial concept of ZX Spectrum, it was a "ZX81 with color". That's what Clive Sinclair wanted, and that has been cited everywhere. However, the end-design, by engineer Altwasser, is much more than that. Alwasser has obviously put a lot of sweat into the design, even whan working under the extreme time pressure that was obviously imposed by Clive Sinclair. To cut it short, the end design is much more than just "ZX81 with color", and in that sense the sentence is misleading. Z80Spectrum (talk) 16:41, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Point 3. Jaguar wrote The paragraph that starts with "A divergence of perspectives between Nine Tiles - the development of the firmware ended when the ROM was full, and development time had also 'run out'. It was essentially the BASIC from ZX81, plus floating point math (demanded by Clive Sinclair), additional graphics routines and a few extras (new cassete tape routines). I don't know how should that be interpreted in the article as somebody's 'win'. Perhaps it's more towards Sinclair's viewpoint. Z80Spectrum (talk) 16:53, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • Was the Designing of the keyboard "minimalised", or was the design "simplified"?
  • I have an electrical engineering degree, and the paragraph on the cassette reader makes perfect sense to me. I'm not convinced the average reader can follow it unless they dealt with cassette-based computing. I don't think it's a major problem for GA, but you should consider if there's way to make it more clear.
  • I'm a little confused about the Timex paragraph- you say that it wasn't an obvious manufacturing partner as they made watches, but then sneak in that it manufactured the ZX80. 1) It also manufactured the ZX81, which isn't mentioned, but more importantly 2) if it had been the manufacturer for the previous 2 computers, then at that point it was a very obvious manufacturing partner.
Launch
  • "With the arrival of the more inexpensive Issue 2 motherboard, production rapidly increased." - this is the first mention of "Issue 2"; what is that? Also the first mention of a motherboard, so link and maybe namedrop earlier in the article. And why did a cheaper motherboard mean they could suddenly produce so many more units a month, or was it just that they increased production when they launched a second version?
  • Good question. I have determined from the Adamson and Kennedy source that the former is correct, as Sinclair started producing more units with a streamlined, cheaper motherboard. As such I've rephrased this to clarify. Also linked motherboard. ♦ JAGUAR  23:25, 2 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • Again with Issue 3- why did the introduction of a new computer part boost sales?
  • You give sales numbers of 200k in the first 9 months, 300k in the first year, and 500k by August 1983... but you started the paragraph by already saying that "a further" 500k had been sold in 1982 and into 1983. So... which is it?
  • What was unusual about the marketing campaign, other than the weird lack of budget?
  • I hate to ask for more content, given the length of the article, but... it is really jarring to spend so much time talking about how successful the computer was in the UK and then just have a one sentence "oh yeah, it was a failure in the US btw." Do we know why?
Success and market domination
  • Oh, you talk about the marketing campaign here. So, that little paragraph needs to move down with the rest of the marketing talk.
  • " in due part to saturation of home computers such as the ZX Spectrum." - to clarify, is this trying to say that the UK market was into microcomputers instead of game consoles, so the crash of the game console market didn't affect the UK industry the same way?
  • Alternately, you could just drop the microcomputer bit entirely and just say that the crash of 83 only affected America and not the UK (it didn't much affect Japan either- the main cause of the crash was oversaturation of supply in US retailers by publishers aka Warner due to a misreading of increased store demand (due to an increase of retailers carrying video games) with increased consumer demand (in turn due to nonsensical supply chains causing a complete lack of clarity of what was going on), but that only happened in the US).
  • While I agree the crash of '83 was primarily a 'US thing', it did send ripples through the video game market worldwide. There was a short-lived console market in the UK between 1980-82 which the crash may or may not have killed off. I'd prefer its inclusion, but I have tweaked it to make it clear it affected American markets. ♦ JAGUAR  21:48, 23 April 2024 (UTC)Reply
Later years and company decline
  • "The Spectrum+ retained the identical technical specifications as the original Spectrum." - you already said it was just a rebranded Spectrum, so this sentence can be cut.
I appologize for previously attributing Jaguar instead of PresN, sorry.
Point 4. PresN wrote With the arrival of the more inexpensive Issue 2 motherboard, production rapidly increased - 'Issue 2' is the version of the motherboard. There were multiple revisions of the motherboard, because ZX Soectrum was initially full of hardware bugs. That means many Spectrums were malfunctioning when tested brand new out from the factory line. New motherboard issues fixed those problems. It also makes the production cheaper, by not creating a huge pile of malfunctioning products. Z80Spectrum (talk) 17:05, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • "Despite the continued domination of home computer market with the ZX Spectrum" - needs a "the" before home, but also the whole phrase is odd- "despite his success, he hoped to repeat his success"? Also we just spent 2 paragraphs talking about how by 1985 things weren't going well, so it's a little jarring to jump back to them being dominant.
  • Did this myself

I'm going to take a break here, and pick back up with the rest of the article later. --PresN 21:55, 26 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Jaguar: Are you going to be able to work on this article? --PresN 23:31, 3 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@PresN: I can take over this review if he's gone AWOL. DigitalIceAge (talk) 00:48, 11 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
He last edited this article a few days ago and I've been talking to him on Discord about it. --PresN 01:27, 11 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
  DigitalIceAge (talk) 01:58, 11 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I won't be editing the article (for the time being), but if anyone needs my suggestions, or advices, feel free to ask. Z80Spectrum (talk) 17:09, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Jaguar: Poke. --PresN 01:41, 23 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

You have the patience of a saint, PresN! I have returned from abroad and am addressing your comments now. Let's hit this phase on the head. ♦ JAGUAR  21:54, 15 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Okay, this long-running review has gotten a bit messy. I've gone through and made tweaks to the sections above, so we're on to "Hardware" and below. --PresN 01:14, 24 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Hardware
  • "where a desired colour of a specific pixel could not necessarily be selected." -> "where a desired colour of a specific pixel could not be selected, but only the colour attributes of an 8x8 block." (Since this is a restatement ("In practical terms"), you should re-emphasize the 8x8 block concept.)
  • "It is controlled by a single EAR bit, located on port 0xFE." Waaaay too overdetailed. This is an article in a generalist encyclopedia; specific bit names and port numbers are too much. This extraneous detail is then repeated in the next sentence for some reason.
  • That color palette image would make more sense in the graphics section; maybe swap with the motherboard photo.
  • Firmware restates the stuff about Vickers/Nine Tails for some reason
  • I'm on the fence about if this whole section is a little too detailed... I think it's okay for GA, though.
Sinclair Research models
  • "An "Issue 1" ZX Spectrum can be distinguished from later models" - there were only 3 issues, right? Or at least that's all that's mentioned in Development, so this can state "can be distinguished from Issue 2 or 3 models" to be clear. Also, if you don't solve it in Development, this first paragraph should explicitly state how many issues there were, since it talks about the first.
  • "Within the original iterations of the 16 and 48K models, an internal speaker with severely restricted capabilities served as the audio output. This speaker, capable of producing just one note at a time" - this was already discussed above in "Sound"
  • "outsold the rubber-key model 2:1" - ugh, "two to one", please.
  • "RAM disc commands save !"name"" - the specific command used is meaningless to 99.9% of readers
  • "Sinclair unveiled the ZX Spectrum 128 at The May Fair Hotel's Crystal Rooms in London" - the preceding sentence said it was presented at SIMO '85, so how could it be "unveiled" later? Also, when is later?
  • " it has no internal speaker, being produced from the television speaker instead." - " it has no internal speaker, and can only produce sound from the television speaker."
Amstrad models
  • "The ZX Spectrum +2 used a power supply..." - don't do one-sentence paragraphs. Integrate this into the first ZX Spectrum +2 paragraph with the rest of the hardware.
  • I admit to have given the least amount of attention to this section. I chose to remove this sentence rather than insert it elsewhere because the source's credibility was dubious. ♦ JAGUAR  17:36, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • Not a real comment, but I cannot believe they thought it was good marketing to have a +2, +3, +2A, +2B, and +3B models. And the original Spectrum. At the same time. What a mess.
  • It went downhill when Amstrad acquired Sinclair in my opinion, the machines themselves look dull and uninspiring, nothing like the iconic Spectrum. I don't know much about the Amstrad era admittedly. It may surprise you that they even produced a video game console, sadly crap and confined to the dustbin of history. ♦ JAGUAR  17:36, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • In general, I think this whole section is probably too detailed on the specifics for a generalist encyclopedia, which I won't complain about at GA but would be an issue at FAC.
  • I agree. I was tempted to condense all three subsections into one (and possibly for the Sinclair models too), but that's a discussion for another day. Cut down on some cruft anyway. ♦ JAGUAR  17:36, 1 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
Clones and re-creations
  • Paragraph 1 has no citation, and so does much of what follows.
  • This whole "Official licences" subsection is messy- we already talk about the Timex Sinclair 2068 in "Launch" as just... the Spectrum in America, and no longer call it a clone in the lede, so listing out the US and European models as clones contradicts. I think you should scrap this whole thing and write a one or two paragraph summary of the non-UK models. I would also move it out from under Clones and re-creations to be "Officially licenced models" right after "Amstrad models".
  • I have renamed the entire section to 'Licences and re-creations', if we were to consider the licences to be official models in their own right. I'm not sure I could get away with putting the official licences in its own section without bloating the article too much. What do you think? Regardless, I have tidied the entire section, added more details and better quality refs. ♦ JAGUAR  22:30, 15 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • Most of "Unofficial clones" is uncited
  • Taken care of. Also surprised to discover what an interesting machine the SAM Coupe is - many consider it to be the 'true' successor to the ZX Spectrum. So much I considered inserting it as a 'spiritual successor' in the infobox. Anyway, expanded on that. ♦ JAGUAR  22:30, 15 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • I feel like "Recreations" is too long, but I guess 1 paragraph for 5 things adds up.
Peripherals
  • Any release dates for any of these? Not a major deal if not.
  • RAM pack is just hanging out in the middle of the sentence without explanation
  • Ref 191 covers the Disciple, but doesn't say it was the most popular in Western Europe, and does not the cover first half of paragraph 4
  • The single sentence hanging out at the end should probably be part of the list of 3rd party peripherals in paragraph 3
Software
  • The four small "game" paragraphs should be combined into one, and the sentence on one magazine's opinion on the ten best games omitted altogether. (Maybe moved to List of ZX Spectrum games.)
  • Community section is under-referenced.
Reception
  • This feels short, but is actually on par with Master System and Sega Genesis, two 80s console FAs. And as a product, sales are the real reception, and that's elsewhere in the article Still, if there's anything else out there, would be good to add it.
  • The Mega Drive is an 80s console? Jesus! I will get to fleshing out this section - will take me an hour or two to shift through some old magazines. ♦ JAGUAR  23:14, 15 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, it's the opposite end of the 80s, if only technically; I just didn't have better comparison points. --PresN 00:31, 16 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
Squeezed some more content, though it's perplexing how many magazines didn't review the Spectrum until months after its release. Sinclair was notoriously late in delivering its machines indeed, unless it was the war's fault? ♦ JAGUAR  10:55, 18 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
Legacy
  • "most important and influential computer of the 1980s" still makes me frown in favor of the IBM Personal Computer, which while not as directly explosive did end up having its hardware architecture win out over every single other computer type. I guess it's okay. "left many to regard" is a bit weasle-wordish, though; "Some credit it as being responsible" is even more so.
  • Rephrased and combed the first paragraph somewhat. Don't want to make it sound like the ZX Spectrum was definitively the most influential computer of them all. Most explosive in the 80s, perhaps. ♦ JAGUAR  21:56, 20 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • Last half-sentence of the first paragraph needs a citation (probably cobbled together from up above)
  • Try to combine the tiny paragraph stubs into something bigger
  • Last sentence should now be past-tense.
References
  • Formatting:
  • WP:ALLCAPS in refs 9, 109, 141, 142, 147, 156, 164, 176
  • ISBNs weren't consistent, so I just fixed them
  • Lack of archives and dead links abound; I ran the archive bot on it, but it crashed because some link is on the spam blacklist- I'll try to track down what.
Oh, it's kickstarter. Replaced and re-ran, but some things are still marked "[permanent dead link]".
  • "Microcomputers: No room at the inn" is a deadlink in sources but it's a google books link so it should be fixed or removed
  • 142, 143, 147 missing source (and have it in the title instead); 232 missing source altogether
  • 70 is in references but looks like it should be in sources?
  • "The precarious balance between research, fashion and price" is in sources but looks like it should be in references?
  • 209 has CRASH unlinked and formatted differently than other refs
  • There's actually a bunch of petty inconsistencies in formatting like magazines sometimes unlinked, access dates sometimes missing, things in sources that have page numbers instead of just the work and letting the reference pointer have the page number, etc.; it doesn't really matter for GA, but someone will care for FAC if you go there. --PresN 00:46, 16 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
  • Spotchecks:
  • Spotchecks were clean, but there are a lot of refs so I could have missed something.
  • ref 102 is to a wiki
  • refs 30, 175 link to an archive page, not the original
PresN 00:51, 16 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

@PresN: while I am burned out, this GAN has given me Stockholm Syndrome since I can't believe it's the end! Is it the end? I have addressed all your comments now. I deleted the 'community' subsection since it mainly consisted of repetitive factoids, and I didn't feel inclined to source it. I moved one of its sentences to the legacy section, and cleaned it up somewhat. Standardising all the refs will take time, but like you say it's not an actual requirement for GA and will certainly be done if (more likely when) I take this to FAC. This has been a monumental project for me, among the most challenging articles I've written for Wikipedia. I sincerely thank you for your patience over the months and keenly await your response, if you think it's ready. ♦ JAGUAR  22:05, 20 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

I think it's the end! It's certainly a monumental project, and a long-running GAN, and of course any FAC will find more things to complain about, but for now it's over. I'm happy to promote! Congratulations! --PresN 22:09, 20 May 2024 (UTC)Reply
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