Zzap!64 it's over, eh?

Fiery Phoenix · Post by **Fiery Phoenix** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 6:11 pm

I can only see Zzap staying popular with the people who read it originally.

Obviously may always get someone new involved via this website who thinks ' hey, I'll take a look at this mag '

But I think it is something of it's time, I dont think it has universal appeal to new and old - just us saddo's in the 25-45 bracket proberly who are deperately trying to cling on to our youth.

In twenty years time, todays teenagers will be looking back fondly to the PS2 and XBOX, I still think we will be populating this forum!

Lloyd Mangram · Post by **Lloyd Mangram** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 10:45 pm

Worldwide crash and all that, and what's left of this place is about as much as my Icelandic bank account at the mo'.

Dr. Black, is it worth reanimating, shock therapy then? No? Right.

Post by **Iain** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 11:48 am

Now, it's not all doom and gloom. I actually did a bit of work on the site a couple of weeks ago. A new way of displaying the scans, which is more straightforward (no cookie messing) and more secure. I still have to complete that and redoing the frontend scan pages is still a plan... but yeah I don't think we'll see too many new Zzap fans. Why would we? The magazine won't mean anything to them along with the C64. But there'll be enough of us around for a few years anyway!

I'll set up a trust fund or something to keep the site going after I'm gone!

retronut · Post by **retronut** » Sun Nov 23, 2008 10:55 pm

i think its true that the kids today like there ps2 and x boxes im sure you get a few that like the old games.but like the other post on here i think most of the ones who like zzap and the 64 are in the the 25-40 range.its a shame as i loved the time when these machines were the one to have saveing up your money to buy zzap or games.raceing home with tape so you could play it.it always seem to take ages for the game to load.never mind good old days

Professor Brian Strain · Mon Nov 24, 2008 1:30 pm

Actually, that's a good point - do you think we invested more time in games because they took longer to load?

(Although, with this generation of consoles there seems to be some very long loading times. That's partly why I like the Wii and its quick access)

Mort · Post by **Mort** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 7:32 pm

My P.c has taken 2 weeks to load as it had a hd and mb failure, knocking me back a months worth of scans (Amiga Computing ho hum

)

The risk was far less with a tape game

Lloyd Mangram · Post by **Lloyd Mangram** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 8:23 pm

The things I've done to get a game loaded!
Please do not remind me.

argh! too late...

Mort · Post by **Mort** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 8:37 pm

Not the turning the tape player upside down, holding a stick of celery and chanting load you bugger whilst pressing the tape down

Professor Brian Strain · Thu Nov 27, 2008 11:56 am

Trying to load Rock 'n Wrestle once, I had to hold the PLAY key down until the game loaded...

andy vaisey · Post by **andy vaisey** » Thu Nov 27, 2008 8:06 pm

Professor Brian Strain wrote:Trying to load Rock 'n Wrestle once, I had to hold the PLAY key down until the game loaded...

That was adjusting the head alignment by virtue of applying extra pressure causing the heads to move closer to the tape, no?

Fiery Phoenix · Post by **Fiery Phoenix** » Thu Nov 27, 2008 8:52 pm

andy vaisey wrote:
Professor Brian Strain wrote:Trying to load Rock 'n Wrestle once, I had to hold the PLAY key down until the game loaded...
That was adjusting the head alignment by virtue of applying extra pressure causing the heads to move closer to the tape, no?

Thing is though - it did work - or loading the game with the data-cassette upside down

retronut · Post by **retronut** » Thu Nov 27, 2008 10:08 pm

i know on my tape player some games you had to hold the play down as it keep stoping on its own. to me the games that played up were the ones with the color bars on the screen as it was loading and got to the end of the tape then the tape stoped but no game loaded.

debit · Post by **debit** » Fri Nov 14, 2014 1:54 am

Reading this thread from the beginning for the first time tonight. Quite funny to read the posts from 2006 about how hard it was to track down people. These days, as Sam Dyer's book and other projects show, it's a lot easier and we've got some great projects out of it (my own website, the Commodore Format Archive - http://www.commodoreformatarchive.com - has tracked down most people just via FB and LinkedIn. Social media's just made it all so much more straightforward and I looking back at these posts it's easy to see we've taken it for granted so quickly!)

Anyway, for what it's worth now I remember seeing that Retro Gamer issue with the ZZAP! supplement on the stands in WH Smith and nearly falling over at the sight of the logo in a shop after all those years. Through it, I found this website (and ish 107) and rekindled my love of the Commodore.

Post by **Iain** » Fri Nov 14, 2014 11:16 am

debit wrote: Anyway, for what it's worth now I remember seeing that Retro Gamer issue with the ZZAP! supplement on the stands in WH Smith and nearly falling over at the sight of the logo in a shop after all those years. Through it, I found this website (and ish 107) and rekindled my love of the Commodore.

That's great to hear! So you had no idea that the supplement was coming out? Were you even looking for Retro Gamer or did you just notice the Zzap logo when browsing the shelves? I can imagine the shock of seeing the logo if it was totally unexpected.

Fantastic that it led to your more recent retro work, even if it was for the competition!

debit · Post by **debit** » Fri Nov 14, 2014 1:37 pm

Hey Iain,

No, absolutely wasn't looking for Retro Gamer and didn't know the ZZAP! thing was coming *at all*. It was a proper movie style double take at the shelf! I was totally career minded post uni and it was pre the days of everyone having the internet at home or on a phone of course, so I had no idea. Even *these* memories are getting blurred and retro now - what year did you start the site Iain?

I was one of the younger C64 fans, much like Frank Gasking (this is my C64/CF story on the site: http://commodoreformat.wordpress.com/my-cf-the-kid-who/), so missed out on the days of ZZAP being brilliant but I still used to get it most months.

I was still very passive for a long time, I just enjoyed the nostalgia of your brilliant site and others. It was the excellent and fascinating contributions from old writers that grabbed me, the behind the scenes stuff and that was the starting point for my own site, for sure. To tell people stuff they wouldn't know from buying the mag.

I was simply too career obsessed to have space for anything else for a very long time, but after I changed my life, moved overseas, got married etc I got back into games properly in 2010. I bought a PS3. I also embraced the games I loved as a kid again. Recently, I bought a C64 and disk drive. Gap in my game playing years of about 15 years I guess!

C64 for frickin' ever!

The Def Guide to Zzap!64

Zzap!64 it's over, eh?

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Re: Zzap!64 it's over, eh?