Premiering today, ZX Spectrum: The Next Generation explores the weird and wonderful world of software available for the much-loved Sinclair (later Amstrad) ZX Spectrum, an 8-bit home computer from the 1980s, and it’s modern successor the ZX Spectrum Next. In this Program: Dizzy, a 4-year old gets to grips with the controls of a 37-year-old game.

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Dizzy – The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure is a puzzle platform adventure game created by the Oliver Twins, and published by Codemasters in 1987. It stars the eponymous anthropomorphic egg. Dizzy’s objective is to gather special ingredients to brew a magic potion, acquire a protective amulet, and use them to defeat the evil wizard Zaks who is blighting the fairytale land of Katmandu.

Despite becoming obsolete even in it’s own time, people have continued to develop software for the ZX Spectrum. A big hit in the UK, the computer was also popular in the Eastern Bloc and other parts of the world where clones of the hardware were made. The comp.sys.sinclair Crap Games Competition also continues to run, and is now in its 42nd year. As a result there is an enormous amount software to delve into, some of it strange and amusing.

In 2020 the Oliver Twins released the latest game in the Dizzy series, Wonderful Dizzy, inspired by L Frank Baum’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz which came out in 1900. Visit https://www.olivertwins.com/wonderfuldizzy for more information.

Codemasters, founded by the Darling brothers in England in 1986, now employs more than 700 people and has become a subsidiary of the US company Electronic Arts (EA Games).