Visit Guide
We are getting closer to the end, but you cannot leave without taking a picture. This is one of the best places for that and who knows? Maybe you will find some of the cassettes you bought back in the day.
Before you leave this room, we want to show you the Custom Made Devices section, in the workbench to your right.
CASSETTES – SELFIE WALL
Cassette tapes are something closely connected and related to the Spectrum. Cassettes for a new game were all the rage and represented the anticipation felt when thinking about unmeasurable bours of fun we all had ahead of us.
It is important to note that most foreign game cassettes in Portugal were pirated. This happened because the anti-piracy law was only created in 1991, and up until then it was “acceptable” and usual to copy games, even in stores.
The demand was so high that some would put recorders behind the counter (pr even cover an entire store wall), where the clients would go to, would pick a game and, in the meanwhile, would have their brand-new games ready to take home.
With the increasing demand, stores quickly started recreating their own covers where they specified the name of the game. Today, those covers have become something of a collector’s item, and the target of research.
Vasco Gonçalves, a fellow collector and member of the Portuguese ZX Spectrum community, dedicates his study to doing that. It was thanks to Vasco’s collaboration that we were able to build this cassette wall that allows for visitors to try and identify the cassettes they themselves bought back in the day.
Even though the information is not yet available, we already know which stores a lot of the cassettes came from. But, if you happen to recognize any, please send us a message (via Facebook or e-mail: curator@loadzx.com), so that we can confirm our sources.
If you have any that we do not yet know of or have, we are also very interested.
If you have any that we do not yet know of or have, we are also very interested.
Besides these cassettes, we also have on display on these shelves some original games and programmes (TIMEX, Sinclair and others) and we also have Timex’s showcase (behind you), where a lot of cassettes are, mainly from TIMEX itself, and also some relics like original Portuguese games.