ZX Spectrum Loading – Daley Thompson Decathlon

This is a video of a ZX Spectrum +2 (128k) loading Daley Thompson’s Decathlon. There’s something super nostalgic about these sounds (and the coloured bars in the border) for anyone of a certain vintage who owned one of the fantastic ZX Spectrum computers in the 1980s. The sound is equally lovely and horrific to listen to, as the high pitched wails and screeches are not pleasant, but the nostalgia that it brings helps sooth them – much like a dial up modem sound takes you right back to the 1990s!

As soon as I hear this, I can close my eyes and I’m right back in my bedroom in around 1987 waiting for the game to load. In those days it seemed to take forever to load, and was often plagued with the dreaded “R-Tape Loading Error”, but it was only 2-3 minutes (I guess depending on the game it was loading).

I think my favourite part is the subtle change in noise it makes when the loading screen gets drawn line by line. I think we forget just how great it was in those days to see simple things like a new game load up on your Speccy for the first time and see the loading screen appear, as this was often the best graphical part of the game! Ahhh, those rose tinted glasses that I seem to wear most of the time these days!