60 free ZX Spectrum trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The ZX Spectrum was launched on 23 April 1982 with a rubber keyboard that felt like dead flesh, a rainbow stripe and a price under £200, and it sold five million units and kick-started the British games industry. This quiz covers the machine itself: the Z80 at 3.5 MHz, the ULA that Richard Altwasser designed, the 8x8 attribute grid that gave us colour clash, the beeper, the 1500-baud cassette loading, the Microdrive and the Kempston interface. It also covers the people and the games. Sir Clive and his earlier calculators and watches, Rick Dickinson's case, Timex in Dundee, the mail-order backlog, the Spanish-built 128, the Amstrad takeover for £5 million and the +2 and +3. Then Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy, Ultimate Play the Game and Knight Lore, The Hobbit, Elite, Chuckie Egg, Skool Daze, Dizzy, Crash and Your Sinclair, right through to Micro Men, the Vega, the Next and Black Mirror's Bandersnatch. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the Spectrum, Sinclair Research and the individual games and add-ons, so the dates, prices and kilobytes are correct.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On what date in 1982 was the ZX Spectrum first released in Britain?
23 April
Sinclair unveiled it to journalists at the Churchill Hotel in Marylebone that day.
Q 02Roughly how many ZX Spectrums were sold in total?
Over five million
It was Britain's top-selling computer until the Amstrad PCW overtook it in the 1990s.
Q 03The Spectrum was manufactured in Dundee by which company, better known for watches?
Timex
Timex director Fred Olsen wanted to diversify beyond mechanical watches.
Q 04Which industrial designer created the Spectrum's case, rainbow motif and rubber keyboard?
Rick Dickinson
His drawing board is now in the Science Museum in London.
Q 05The name 'Spectrum' was chosen to emphasise what?
Its colour display
During development it was called the ZX81 Colour or ZX82.
Q 06How was software loaded into a standard Spectrum?
From compact audio cassettes
Video went to an ordinary television rather than a monitor.
Q 07What was the launch price of the 16 KB Spectrum?
£125
The 48 KB model was £175, about a third of the price of an Apple II.
Q 08The Spectrum's rubber keys were famously said to feel like what?
Dead flesh
Sinclair conceded the rubber mould was 'unusual'.
Q 09Which processor, running at 3.5 MHz, powered the ZX Spectrum?
Zilog Z80
Its 16-bit address bus could only reach 64 KB directly, which is why the 128 needed bank switching.
Q 10Which single chip integrating the ZX Spectrum's essential hardware did Richard Altwasser design?
The ULA
The uncommitted logic array also handled a graphics mode that used under 7 KB of memory.
Q 11Because colour was stored per 8x8 cell, the Spectrum suffered from what graphical limitation?
Attribute clash
Only two colours could appear in any 8x8 block; the Amstrad CPC and C64 did not share the problem.
Q 12Besides colour bits, each ZX Spectrum attribute byte held one bit for brightness and one for what?
Flashing
That gave the machine its 15-colour palette.
Q 13Who wrote most of the Spectrum's ROM code and Sinclair BASIC, working for Nine Tiles?
Steve Vickers
Nine Tiles and Sinclair fell out over how much of the ZX81 software to reuse.
Q 21The Spectrum's intended successor, announced in January 1984, was which flop?
The QL
Only 139,454 were made; a gold-coloured QL was given away as the five-millionth Sinclair machine.
Q 22The ZX Spectrum 128 was launched first in which country, financed by distributor Investrónica?
Spain
A Spanish tax on computers with 64 KB or less helped prompt it; the UK launch waited until January 1986.
Q 23Which chip gave the Spectrum 128 three-channel sound and MIDI compatibility?
AY-3-8912
The 128 also had 32 KB of ROM and an RS-232 port but no internal speaker.
Q 14What was distinctive about how BASIC keywords were typed on the Spectrum?
Each keyword was entered with a single keystroke
All 192 functions had to fit on 40 physical keys.
Q 15What data rate did the Spectrum's cassette interface achieve, beating the target of 1000?
1500 baud
Unlike the ZX81, it could keep the display up while loading, so games could show a loading screen.
Q 16The original Spectrum's sound came from what?
A single-channel beeper
The BEEP command tied up the processor until the note finished.
Q 17How was the Spectrum initially sold, leading to a backlog of 40,000 orders by summer 1982?
By mail order
Sinclair issued a public apology in September 1982; supply only normalised at Christmas.
Q 18Under what name was an enhanced Spectrum sold in the United States from 1983?
Timex Sinclair 2068
It flopped and Timex Sinclair collapsed the following year.
Q 19Which magazine's gossip columnist is credited with creating the 'Uncle Clive' persona for Sinclair?
Personal Computer World
The Sun called him the most prodigious inventor since Leonardo da Vinci.
Q 20Clive Sinclair was knighted in the 1983 Birthday Honours on the recommendation of which prime minister?
Margaret Thatcher
Sinclair Research made a £14 million profit that year.
Q 24In April 1986 Sinclair sold its computer range and brand name to Alan Sugar's Amstrad for how much?
£5 million
Amstrad went on to release three more Spectrum models.
Q 25Amstrad's ZX Spectrum +2 came with what built in?
A cassette recorder
The grey machine's 'Datacorder' echoed the Amstrad CPC 464.
Q 26The 1987 ZX Spectrum +3 replaced the cassette deck with a floppy drive of what size?
3-inch
It was incompatible with the Interface 1, so Microdrives could not be used.
Q 27In which year was the ZX Spectrum officially discontinued?
1992
It had been on the market for ten years and had over 24,000 software titles.
Q 28The ZX Microdrive, launched in July 1983, stored data on what?
A continuous loop of magnetic tape
Each cartridge held at least 85 KB and cost £49.95, but needed the Interface 1 to connect.
Q 29The Kempston joystick interface reported joystick state at which Z80 I/O address, read in BASIC with IN?
31
It let Atari-standard sticks plug into the Spectrum's rear expansion slot.
Q 30Fans affectionately call the ZX Spectrum by what nickname?
The Speccy
Its rivals were the Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Dragon 32 and Amstrad CPC.