ZX Spectrum +3

The ZX Spectrum +3 of 1987 was the final and most advanced model in the long Spectrum story, and the only one to feature a built-in disk drive, using the same compact three-inch discs Amstrad favoured across its CPC range. After years of waiting for cassettes to load, that was a genuine luxury.

Disk storage brought welcome speed and convenience, and built-in support for a business operating system hinted at more serious ambitions than the Spectrum had ever held before. This was the rubber-keyed people's machine reaching, at the last, for a touch of professionalism.

A few older games needed tweaks to run on the revised hardware, a small price for everything else it offered. As a send-off it was a fitting one: the most capable incarnation of one of the most important computers Britain ever made, bowing out not with a whimper but as the best Spectrum there had ever been.