Once apon a time

The idea for Retrospecs had been kicking about in my mind for a few years – the concept being part preservation/part tribute to the sort of computer systems I lusted after whilst pouring over handed down copies of Byte magazine as a lad. However, I didn't get around to implementing anything concrete until early February '14 when I roughed out some vague proof of concept algorithms.

At the time I was re-skilling between jobs (the goal being to transition between web and native app development), so I abandoned the other bits I was experimenting with and started focusing full time on the app proper. After several weeks intensive graft, the first conversion engine (the "attribute" engine, created specifically with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum in mind) was limping along natively on my trusty iPhone 4.

Fast forwarding a bit, over the following three months I threw myself into expanding the available conversion engines, added a basic user interface and by Saturday the 7th of June 2014 I'd finally submitted the first build to the Apple App Store.

Shortly after that, I was back in full time work and so Retrospecs became a strictly weekend affair - adding new engines and emulations and building out the UI until it was roughly how I initially envisaged it. (Apart from a layer of output filters including phosphor and raster effects - they're still to come. Oh, and video. And all that other stuff lurking on the to-do.)

Fast forward three and a half years (and thirty-five updates to the 1.x app) and work began on version 2 - the focus being to provide support for video processing. (Although being realistic, this was only going to be feasible on more modern devices.) After a few months working on the app, the initial release of the 2.x series was on the 13th of March, 2018.

At little over fifteen months (and ten updates to the 2.x series) later, version 2.10 of the app – complete with a new character set and palette editor was launched in the App Store on the 13th of July 2019.

On top of that, I've also spent many snatched hours of an evening completely failing to attract much of a following for the app, usually by failing to convince people to accept a promo code on Twitter. (Sorry about that.)

As I recently phrased it:

"I think my attempts at marketing are, on a good day, perhaps best described as the distraught thrashings of a drowning man."