Work · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to BBC Basic on the ZX Spectrum Next
I’ve been looking for a decent project to get my teeth into on the Spectrum Next. Apart from my Next Z80 library routines, I’ve dabbled with a few demos, and considered writing a drawing package similar to Deluxe Paint. But on the whole have felt rather unenthusiastic about starting that
BBC Basic on the ZX Spectrum Next is a programming environment for the Spectrum Next retro computer. It brings the classic BBC Basic language to the modern hardware, allowing users to write and run programs on the… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. BBC Basic on the ZX Spectrum Next launched in 2021; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1IR
Recently, I managed to recover some of my earliest work from the ZX Spectrum era from an old audio cassette. It is a mini-game, that I created as a teen, called "Atomix," written in BASIC with a mix of Z80 assembly — some of which I coded myself, while other parts were disassembled from existing games. I put the game in an modern emulator and recorded a screencast. See the video in my linkedin post: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7288665...
2025 · its alternatives →
- 2
An excellent pixel art book
2016 · bitmapbooks.com · its alternatives →
- 3
Finally got my hobby OS up and running on real hardware. I love the old IBM thinkpads, so thought it was the perfect machine to get it working on. Been working on it for quite some time now, but this has been a big milestone!
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 4IR
After 25 years of writing software, I was feeling nostalgic for the kinds of things that got me into programming in the first place: the old DOS demoscene. I spent a weekend seeing if I could recapture some of that INT 13H VGA magic using today's web tech, but with the old-school constraints of doing it from scratch. The result is this portfolio of ten classic effects running in a single HTML file. It's all vanilla JavaScript writing to a element, with no external libraries. It was a fun challenge to implement things like: * The color palette cycling and smooth fading in the Plasma demo. *…
2025 · jdfio.com · its alternatives →
- 5AS
Lots of fun to do. I would have not taken the time without the speedup provided by Claude. https://andyrosa.github.io/Sinclaude/simulator.html
2025 · its alternatives →
- 6EZ
I've been playing around with ESP32 MCUs and displays for a while and finally got around to getting a ZX Spectrum emulator working. I then saw that you can now do full color silk screen printing on PCBs and got the thinking - the ESP32 has capacitive touch capabilities - I could make a full ZX Spectrum keyboard on a PCB along with all the electronics for running the emulator. And it actually works! There's a full video here: https://youtu.be/foP81O48WAI And you can sign up here for updates as I move towards getting it ready for a production run:…
2024 · its alternatives →
- 7
This is a little toy project of mine that lets you simulate digital logic graphs. It was inspired by Minecraft's Redstone and the Piet esolang. It's got some serious drawbacks-- you write circuits as PNGs and simulate them with a Python interface. It's slow to run and slow to experiment with. And it is certainly difficult to use for people with any kind of color blindness. But despite that, I hope this can still be a fun toy!
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 8
Hey all! I've been using this stack personally for a while now and decided to automate it a bit by turning it into a template I can reuse. Hope others might find it helpful!
2025 · bhvr.dev · its alternatives →
- 9
Hi HN, in my last vacation, I built desktopcolors.com as a place to collect iconic solid background colors. Let me know what you think.
Aug 2026 · desktopcolors.com · its alternatives →
- 10
Since this is a major new release (three and a half years in development), I think this should be ok for Show HN. This release has lots of new material, fixes, and updates across the three books in this series. All three books are online and free, with accompanying code available from GitHub. Enjoy!
2024 · raytracing.github.io · its alternatives →
- 11
Dibulo▲83Hi HN community! Proud to have recently become a founder myself and now to submit a "Show HN". We are Dibulo, a young startup which is on a mission to redefine coloring sessions for kids! We have built our first worlds, sold our first coloring books and now we want to let the world know about us :) So far we have been praised by parents, and also got pretty good feedback from institutions like daycares and elementary school teachers. What sets our coloring experience apart? Not only do we bring vibrant templates on paper to life on screens, but we also introduce a captivating group activity.…
2023 · dibulo.com · its alternatives →
- 12
A simple text-based adventure game. Contribute to skx/lighthouse-of-doom development by creating an account on GitHub.
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 13
The Evolution of the ZX Spectrum Computer.
2020 · kickstarter.com · its alternatives →
- 14AC
This weekend is the ABC Classic FM countdown, which prompted me to dust off an old un-published data visualisation of rankings from previous years. I've considered adding a search function, but I also kind of like that it requires a bit of exploration in the current form. Some of the code is a bit clunky and I wouldn't mind refactoring it. I'm also not sure about browser compatibility - I've only got access to a couple of devices to test it on.
Jun 2026 · classic100.gotski.workers.dev · its alternatives →
- 15NP
Since it appears to be retrocomputing day on HN, I thought I'd post my pet project. It's a collection of modern peripherals for retrocomputers. I started collecting a list of upgrades for my ideal dream Mac SE/30 and grew from there. The site is currently mostly focused on Apple II and Mac stuff since that's what I grew up with.
Aug 2026 · newold.computer · its alternatives →
- 16
An updated and enhanced version of the ZX Spectrum
2017 · specnext.com · its alternatives →
- 17FT
Hi All. I made this as an fun intro to help people who have zero IBM mainframe experience and no access to a modern IBM mainframe (at least, not access to do whatever you want with it). I appreciate tips, suggestions and anything that might improve the experience for someone who has no idea of how those machines operate(d).
Jan 2026 · rbanffy.github.io · its alternatives →
- 18
A simple javascript web radio visualizer. Contribute to victorqribeiro/radio development by creating an account on GitHub.
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 19E
Hello everyone, A couple of months ago I was introduced to Excalidraw and fell in love with it instantly. The only thing I didn't like was that I couldn't easily save my whiteboards and had to put everything in one whiteboard which started to lag my PC after a while. So I made ExcaliHub. It's exactly as it sounds: a hub for Excalidraw. It's free, open source, and I aim to keep it that way. Thanks in advance for any feedback!
2024 · excalihub.dev · its alternatives →
- 20
Just wanted to make my first post about something interesting I've been working on for some time. Any ideas/suggestions for new hardware or software I should try out are welcome, though I will only have time for a major overhaul in a month or two where I want to redo and document everything a bit better than how it is currently. Hope this can inspire someone to start their own homelab or give some ideas to already existing ones!
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 21YA
I must say I was encouraged to post my project here when I saw the positive response to this post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3780731 Before you make any comments, please keep in mind that the project is written for fun. I'm not forcing anyone to use it. In fact, nobody should use the current unstable version in a serious project. Here is the link: http://github.com/bsg/libserv Please share your thoughts. All criticisms are welcome, even the harsh ones. p.s. The project is still a work-in-progress.
2012 · its alternatives →
- 22
Saw the remotion claude skills launch earlier, and honestly even though I was surprised how decent some of the results turned out to be I ended up never trying it out with claude code because I knew I'd have to setup remotion, bundler etc and if I was already doing it once I thought I might as well turn it into a site where anyone could just write messages and get a video without any prerequisites. I also know Claude Code is not something everyone has and setting up remotion is a pain. And one of the biggest lessons I learned from this whole experience is that Opus is actually not that good…
Feb 2026 · framecall.com · its alternatives →
- 23AF
Another Sunday afternoon project: add some pizzaz to your boring bare metal or virtual machine consoles! Written as a single Go binary; no dependencies. https://github.com/Fusion/modernfbv As usual, feedback please!
2022 · its alternatives →
- 24IM
Try it at: ssh krnl.duetbrowser.com No sign up, totally free - no download. Let me know what you think. Prior art exists (brow.sh) but I wasn't satisfied with their graphical take. I wanted the raw, old skool terminal days of the early internet - BBS, and old green phosphor library comptuers - but running the modern web, with all the bells and jingle jangle whistles (JavaScript, etc). No funding, no VC, just 100% raw terminal fun. Not sure how long the demo will last, but try it out.
Jul 2026 · its alternatives →
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- ESP32S3 ZXSpectrum alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →