By the early 90s, the ZX Spectrum appeared hopelessly outdated. The Commodore Amiga and Atari ST were appreciably better computer alternatives, while those with a pure penchant for video games would shortly be able to get their hands on a Super Nintendo Entertainment System, if they hadn't already invested in a Sega Mega Drive. In terms of graphics and sound, all of them were ridiculously better than the Sinclair machine. I wasn't really playing on my 128k +2 Speccy much as I looked on enviously at Mega Drive screenshots of Strider and Golden Axe; but what I was still doing was consistently reading Your Sinclair each month, often to the scorn of friends and family. "Why are you still reading that?!" they would clamour. "Because," I'd reply with a tone of calculated indifference, "It's funny."
Your Sinclair began life as Your Spectrum, and it wasn't just the name that was different - practically everything inside was, too. "It was a long time ago, and Dennis Publishing was a very different company - actually called Bunch Books at the time," says Roger Munford, launch editor of Your Spectrum back in 1984. As with its peer, Sinclair User, Your Spectrum focused on many of the serious aspects of computing, with gaming taking its place among features on programming, hardware and the business uses of the Sinclair microcomputer. The aforementioned rival, not to mention Newsfield's Crash, helped instigate the change to the magazine ZX Spectrum fans know and love today. "The Spectrum was no longer the focus of all that Sinclair were doing," continues Munford. "They had launched the QL, and also that silly electric car. The title change was more hoping that Sinclair was going to be like Apple, and also to pit the magazine more clearly against EMAP, which had the clear winner in the field."
Issue One of Your Sinclair hit newsstands at the end of 1985, sporting a gritty Commando cover and a cassette on its cover, containing a demo of the isometric puzzle game, Rasputin. With Munford having departed the magazine to help launch MacUser, Kevin Cox took over the reins, and he oversaw a tense period as the material graduated towards games and entertainment, relegating much of the technical and business-like content to a handful of pages at the back. Already at Dennis publishing since the days of Your Spectrum, Teresa Maughan, nicknamed T'zer, was deputy editor on this shining new publication that was determined to evoke youth magazines of the time rather than its fellow computer games monthlies.