The Story of the ZX Spectrum in Pixels is heading back into print in a new Gold Edition, with Chris Wilkins returning to Kickstarter more than a decade after the original book first appeared. Spectrum owners have not exactly needed much persuasion: the new campaign has already raised more than four times its £6,000 target.
Launched on 26th August 2026, the campaign had reached more than £24,000 from over 550 backers at the time of writing. Funding remains open until 8th September, so the Gold Edition is already comfortably secured with more than a week still on the clock.
Chris Wilkins has described the ZX Spectrum as a computer close to his heart, and the original The Story of the ZX Spectrum in Pixels grew from that connection. Rather than approaching Sinclair’s machine as a dry hardware history, the books put the games and the people who made them at the centre.
A Spectrum book with its own history
The first volume dates back to 2014, when Chris Wilkins used Kickstarter to fund a visual trip through the Spectrum’s gaming years. That campaign eventually raised £19,468 against a £15,000 goal, with the finished book covering the machine’s software from 1982 into the early 1990s.
The original Volume 1 runs to 236 pages and combines large game imagery with commentary on Spectrum releases. Chris Wilkins also spoke to developers, artists and musicians involved with the machine, giving the book a perspective that went beyond screenshots and release dates.
It did not stop at one volume. A second Kickstarter followed, raising £21,205 from 520 backers, and the Spectrum series eventually expanded to three books. Chris Wilkins has also gone on to document companies and developers including Ocean Software, U.S. Gold, Graftgold and the Oliver Twins.
That makes the Gold Edition less of a resurrection of a forgotten project and more of a return to one of Fusion Retro Books’ established Spectrum titles. The original edition has been around for more than a decade, while the new campaign shows there is still a sizeable audience interested in putting another Spectrum book on the shelf.
For a book about a computer launched in 1982, the rubber-keyed machine continues to be surprisingly good at convincing people to open their wallets.
The Gold Edition Kickstarter campaign runs until 8th September 2026. The original first volume can also be found through Fusion Retro Books.
