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Sinclair's ZX Spectrum is coming back as a retro gaming console

Sinclair's ZX Spectrum is coming back as a retro gaming console

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Retro in both look and function

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Sir Clive Sinclair earned his knighthood by building some of the earliest affordable computers for the home back in the 1980s. One of his best-loved machines was the ZX Spectrum — think of it as the UK equivalent of the Commodore 64 — which is now being recreated by an Indiegogo project endorsed by Sir Clive himself. The new Sinclair Spectrum Vega simplifies the original keyboard into a rectangular gamepad and comes preloaded with 1,000 games for the Spectrum. What's more, you can use an SD card to load up old Spectrum games you still have lying around, and the company behind the project, Retro Computers, promises to iteratively release more free games once the console is out.

The price of the ARM-based Spectrum Vega is £100 (about $150), and deliveries of the first 1,000 units are expected to begin in February of next year, provided the funding campaign goes to plan. It's all very geeky and soaked in nostalgia, but there's one unforgivable flaw to the whole thing: the £20 "Byte" funding tier is only four times the size of the £5 "Bit" funding.