Share Tweet reddit Email

Henrique Olifiers has provided backers of the ZX Spectrum Next Kickstarter with an update on the project, unfortunately disclosing some frustrating news. The company that was going to produce the plastic keyboard casing for the Next has inexplicably dropped the project leaving the Next project team to source an alternate supplier.

Despite the setback, Olifiers confirmed that the team are already in the process of seeking new reliable production partners so that further delays to the delivery of the Next are minimised, Olifiers stated “Myself, Phil (Rick Dickinson’s partner) and the SMS team are going through diligence since last week to find a replacement plastics company that can hit the ground running, picking up from where we’ve been left. If all goes well, we’ll have someone working on the case soon after the Easter holidays. Failing that, we’ll turn East towards some friends who can speed up things and offset some of the delay we’re caused so far”.

Olifiers was also refreshingly transparent in his disappointment around the delays and promised to provide backers with more regular updates moving forward. “We’re turning the ship around to bring it back on course — and from this update onwards, we’ll keep you posted every two weeks with whatever news we have on the case production. We’ll get this done, and done well, fear not.” Olifiers commented.

On a more positive newsfront, Olifiers did confirm that the team would move ahead with the keyboard production and confirmed that it would feature a “a butterfly mechanism, with high bandwidth (ie. the ability to type fast, precisely), with good keypress feedback”.

Olifiers also revealed that the packaging box for the ZX Spectrum Next has been signed off and on the way to the printers.

Naturally, it is disappointing for backers to experience further delays around the ZX Spectrum Next but we all should be confident in that the team will ultimately deliver this project to backers and not let ourselves be to disheartened by the latest setback. There are a lot of positives around this project and we are all looking forward to playing our old Speccy games on the Next, along with the upcoming Next generation (pun intended) of games for the system.

Source: Kickstarter