The Rubber-Keyed Wonder

Without this affordable home computer i would not have had the long and successful career in the Information Technology industry. As a Kid of the 1980's I was there I experienced the home computing boom starting with the Commodore Vic20 which I guess some smarmy salesman convinced my dad to buy for me and my brother when in reality most kids wanted the the Speccy. The Rubber-Keyed Wonder is a long documentary on the most successful product that Sir Clive Sinclair ever produced. Though long the documentary does cover all angles and it is nice to see those who were there at the time., though the addition of mentions of subsequent models such as the 128K and QL me thinks do not add anything to the story., where as Micro Men does. I am glad I was a backer of this movie/documentary otherwise the story would not be told of the pioneering days of the computer industry without which we may not have the multibillion industry we have today.

This is a great documentary on the history, and even a little on the future, of the ZX Spectrum. There's a lot to be enjoyed by those filled with nostalgia, or even younger enthusiasts who want to see why the UK punched way above its weight in software and game development for a long time.

If I had one or two suggestions... It all felt a little 'dry'. The Netflix 'Movies that Made Us' or 'Toys that Made Us', series, or even the recent and superb 'Robodoc' on the making of Robocop, are perfect examples of how to bring life and fun to these kind of documentaries using humour, punchier editing, and animated inserts. 'Robodoc' for example, is so long it spans four, yes four, separate episodes and is at least twice as long as this. But it flies by. This drags a little by the end, despite there being enough material to probably make something twice as long but still more attention grabbing.

Secondly, they covered the Spectrum Next and numerous clones, but there was a seriously missed opportunity to do a small section on the SAM Coupé, which is every bit (if not more) attached to the Spectrum's legacy, since many people who worked on the spectrum created it to be a successor, with backward compatibility.

Lastly, all of the people interviewed were relevant to the history of the machine except James O'Brien. Why spoil a great documentary by adding the irrelevent musings of such a divisive and often vitriolic individual? He felt jarring and out of place, and could have been left out without losing anything.

Otherwise, an excellent documentary that is well worth watching!!

OK, so maybe a 2¼ hour documentary populated by 1980s computer nerds doesn't sound so hot, but actually for those of us of a certain ages this is really quite a fascinatingly engaging nostalgia trip. I was never into computer games as a kid, nor am I now, but my best pal at school (Paul) was what passed for an anorak back then and constantly raved about his ZX80, then a ZX81 and then the pièce de résistance with 48k memory and it's colour games - the Spectrum. That was the console that finally got us out of the local chippy which undoubtedly made much more cash from kids playing "Asteroids" than it ever did selling fish suppers. What we have here is all kick-start funded, and a great deal of effort has gone into piecing together an history of not just the evolution of the British micro-computing industry, but also of the game. It was ultimately the games that helped them sell millions of units to ordinary families up and down the UK in a similar fashion to that other icon of British design at the time - the Mini Metro. The contributors are a wide range of folks ranging from the coders to the designers, the marketeers and the players. Criticism goes hand in hand with enthusiasm and the rise and rise of this two-bit operation located in a small office in Cambridge is rather faithfully recounted here. If you are a gamer, then you'll recall the cassettes and the floppy discs that all now belong in a science museum (or a dustbin), all the angular characterisations and the desperate analogue audio that the mere memory of drives me mad. The research is to be commended. Where these magazine articles and boxes complete with intricate and space-age cover designs came from is astonishing, and as the history of the enterprise gathers pace it really is quite an interesting look at just how a small concept can end up off the scale. You don't need to be a player to appreciate this, but if you were remotely dextrous in the 1970s/1980s then you might enjoy this. I did.

As a ZX Spectrum fan from behind the iron curtain I was waiting for this film my whole life. So well done! Being a Sinclair fanboy perhaps I'm not objective, but that was one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. The directors found so many people to interview. It feels like people have so much to say about the topic, like it comes from their hearts, so moving. Super impressive work given the niche subject. The music in the background combined with the visuals from the ZX Spectrum almost made my cry. I could not recommend it more to anyone interested in history of computers. And if you used ZX Spectrum you should drop everything and watch it now.