World of Spectrum
| Web address | http://www.worldofspectrum.org/ |
|---|---|
| Commercial | Yes (Online Shop) |
Type of site | Retrocomputing |
| Registration | Forum posting only |
| Owner | Martijn van der Heide |
| Launched | 30 November 1995 |
| Current status | Inactive |
World of Spectrum was a website devoted to cataloging and archiving material for the ZX Spectrum home computer popular in the 1980s, and had been officially endorsed by Amstrad which holds the rights to the ZX Spectrum brand.[1]
History
It was started by Martijn van der Heide in 1995 as a website dedicated to hosting unavailable Spectrum games (Abandonware), but grew into hosting anything and everything that was remotely connected to the computer declaring itself as "'the world's biggest and most popular archive of Spectrum related material."[2] with a catalogue of 24,000 software titles, 1000 hardware items, 1,500 books and more than 350,000 references.[3]
Copyright Issues
One of the website's stated goals was to obtain distribution permission from copyright holders of the software kept in its archives,[4] and had received permissions[5] for hundreds of the 24,000 software titles available for download.
In 2003 the Interactive Digital Software Association filed an automated complaint against the site for copyright infringement when a number of titles hosted by the site were mistakenly flagged as being modern titles belonging to IDSA members.[6][7] The website claimed that the case was "retracted" on 14 February 2003,[8] and continued distributing their content for another decade.
The collection of Spectrum related publications included magazines such as CRASH, Sinclair User, and Your Sinclair scanned page-by-page and distributed (while without clear permission) until they were deleted from the server in 2015.
Current Status
On 15 September 2013, van der Heide announced that he was having a sabbatical[9] and the last updates to the site were made on 5 January 2014.[10] At the time of writing (April 2016) the site has fallen into disrepair with a large number of inaccessible files and broken links.
Reception
.Net Magazine stated that the site was "essentially the biggest and best site for connoisseurs of the ZX Spectrum"[11] and the Daily Mirror newspaper proclaimed "it contains every single piece of software ever created for Spectrum, it has full descriptions, hints and cheats. Sir Clive Sinclair must be very proud."[12]
In December 2005 Retro Gamer wrote "World of Spectrum is not just the best Speccy site on the Web, but arguably the best retro resource full stop."[13]
The site has received a number of awards[14] most recently the Golden Web Award for 2002-2003.
References
- ↑ van der Heide, Martijn. "Endorsement". World of Spectrum. Retrieved 4 August 2008.
- ↑ van der Heide, Martijn. "THE WOS FAQ". World of Spectrum. Retrieved 25 February 2012.
- ↑ van der Heide, Martijn. "Sinclair Infoseek". World of Spectrum. Retrieved 22 July 2012.
- ↑ van der Heide, Martijn. "What we are after exactly". World of Spectrum. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
- ↑ ARCHIVE - DISTRIBUTION PERMISSIONS - SOFTWARE HOUSES on worldofspectrum.org
- ↑ Lettice, John (7 March 2003). "Games anti piracy bot fingers ZX Spectrum archive site". The Register. Retrieved 8 February 2010.
- ↑ "World of Spectrum gets a Visit from the IDSA". Slashdot. Retrieved 28 February 2003.
- ↑ ARCHIVE - COPYRIGHTS AND DISTRIBUTION PERMISSIONS on worldofspectrum.org "Cases filed against World of Spectrum: IDSA / DMCA #922932 (14/2/2003 - result: case retracted)"
- ↑ van der Heide, Martijn. "Updates at this site". World of Spectrum. Retrieved 28 November 2013.
- ↑ van der Heide, Martijn. "Updates at this site". World of Spectrum. Retrieved 29 March 2016.
- ↑ .Net magazine, June 2002
- ↑ The Daily Mirror, 23 October 2001
- ↑ Retro Gamer, issue 19 December 2005
- ↑ "Awards". World of Spectrum. Retrieved 5 April 2016.