In 2017, a Kickstarter campaign was started to design and build an updated and enhanced version of the ZX Spectrum totally compatible with the original, featuring the major hardware developments of the past many years packed inside a simple design by the original designer, Rick Dickinson.

The project didn't quite make its original planned delivery date (2018), but made good on the promise in the end: the first machine was delivered on February 6 of this year.

The Spectrum Next contains a Z80 processor on an FPGA, 1MB of RAM expandable to 2MB, hardware sprites, 256 colours, RGB/VGA/HDMI video output, and three AY-3-8912 audio chips. A Raspberry Pi Zero can be added as an expansion board. The computer can emulate any of the original Spectrum variants, but it also supports add-ons that have been designed by the Spectrum community over the years, such as games loaded onto SD cards, better processors and more memory, and improved graphics.