(Simon N Goodwin owns the copyright to this review. Please visit http://simon.mooli.org.uk to find original articles and updates, much new material and his contact details.)

PRINTING WITH A PEDIGREE

Romantic Robot launched its Multiprint interface at the ZX Microfair in May. Its a Centronics parallel interface for all versions of the Spectrum except the +3, featuring a unique front panel which can be called up at any time, whatever program is running, to save or copy screens, change pinter settings, and apply POKEs. Similar controls are available from inside a BASIC program. The Multiprint comes in a typical black box which contains two 8K banks of ROM and RAM, as does the Multiface.

The RAM stores configuration information till you disconnect the power to the computer. Romantic Robot says the RAM can also hold utilities designed for the same company's Multiface, such as the Genie hacker/disassembler, the Gamester POKE-generator, and several forthcoming packages which will be reviewed in future columns. Early versions of Genie won't work, though, as Romantic Robot has reassigned the control ports. (The company will supply an upgrade for £1.95.)

Multiprint hooks itself up to device p, channel 3 in ZX BASIC, so it can be used in programs with normal LPRINT commands. Special REM statements can set margins and control the translation of BASIC tokens - a nice touch.

BUTTON OPTIONS

By pressing the red button on top of the Multiprint, you can call up the rest of the ROM software at any time. A temporary menu then appears on the bottom two lines of the screen, as with the Multiface. You can edit memory, adjust printer settings, print the display, and quit or restart the program.

The toolkit to edit memory lets you store data anywhere in RAM, typing the values in hex or decimal. A 16-line transient window can be opened to tabulate memory contents as text or in hex. Register values can be examined and changed.

PRINT OPTIONS

The printer-setting menu lets you impose margins and a line-width for text. You can print any group of consecutive lines from the display: by default the Multiprint outputs all 24 lines, rather than the top 22 printed by COPY.

Some Centronics printers require separate wind-paper and move-to-margin signals, known as line feed and carriage return. Others, like my ageing Epson MX-80, can make do with carriage return on its own, and wind the paper on twice if both signals are sent. One keypress turns off the Multiprint's line feed.

You can tell the interface to translate tokens - character codes greater than 127 - into Spectrum keywords, or to transmit them straight to the printer. The second option is useful when you want to send control modes.

SCREEN PRINTS

The last option on the printer-setting menu controls the effect of the PRINT option on the main menu.

The first setting gives a text COPY, which prints all the characters onscreen very quickly but ignores graphics. The code only recognises the Spectrum's 32-column ROM character set, so it's not much use with programs that use alternative fonts, like the majority of adventure games.

The second option gives a fast graphics printout. It takes about 40 seconds for my Epson MX-80 to produce a horizontally-stretched image: 110mm by 68mm for a full screen.

The third option, Large, uses the same scale as the COPY built into the Spectrum 128. The Multiprint is about ten per cent faster than the Sinclair routine, though, taking a little over two minutes to produce a well-proportioned 165mm-by-130mm pnntout. This option takes no account of colour. Every set point on the screen is printed in black, so lines plotted on a black background print out as black on white, unless you've got a coloured ribbon and black paper!

The Last and best option works to the same scale and speed, but uses shading to distinguish colours. The result looks like a rather grainy photo of a black-and- white TV screen.

These 'Polaroid' screen printouts are useful for almost everyone with a Spectrum and a printer. Whether you're running communications software, business programs, adventures or platform or strategy games, it's very useful to be able to print the screen at any time - when mapping, for instance.

The graphics options only work with Epson-compatible printers, so beware. I get letters every month from people whingeing that they bought a bargain printer and can't get any software to work with it. If you're buying a printer, or a printer interface, you must make sure it will work with the rest of your system before you part with any cash. Try it out, or get a guarantee.

ADDED VALUE

In theory, a simple routine loaded into the Multiprint's internal RAM would turn the unit into a tape-backup interface. This extra feature would make it better value, but Romantic Robot is unlikely to want the Multiprint cutting into the market for its Multiface - especially as the Multiprint, with its Centronics cable, has higher manufacturing costs than its predecessor.

Both should be able to run add-on packages such as Genie and The Gamester. The Multiprint scores on its Centronics port and COPY routines. But the Multiface has the advantages of a through-port at no extra cost, built-in copying software and a joystick port.

CROWDED MARKET

The Multiprint costs £40, or £45 with the unique option of an edge connector at the back for other peripherals. It works very well with both the Spectrum 128 and 48K model, and the magic button marks it out from the competition.

This interface has a good pedigree, coming from the makers of the Multiface and the designer of EuroElectronics's ZX LPRINT 3 and Kempston's E printer interfaces. Those old products have fewer functions at the same price as the Multiprint, but Romantic Robot may face stiff competition from RAM Electronics's £35 RamPrint interface, reviewed in CRASH issue 35, with its built in text editor and joystick port.

PRINTS OF DARKNESS

Multiprint is a printer interface from Romantic Robot, the replicants responsible for the notorious and beloved Multiface. As you might infer from the name, this latest beast is a cross between your average Centronics printer interface and that hacker dream machine.

It shows in appearance alone. Multiprint looks stunningly like Multiface. Red Button and all. It even allows you to run Multiface software, like the Genie Disassembler. The ribbon cable hanging out of the edge connector slot at the back and the changed labels (the back one still mentions Multiface) give the game away.

Multiiprint interfaces with Basic in time-honoured fashion. Special versions of old commands set things up and allow the normal printer commands (Lprint, Llist, Copy etc) to work with an Epson compatible Centronics/parallel printer. Non-Epsons will work, but you'll lose some features. Any Spectrum apart from the parallel equipped +3 will work with the interface.

The command which does all the hard work is Rem, followed by MP and some mnemonic instructions. For example. Rem MP, WD66, LM13 sets the width of the printed output to 66 columns with a left margin of 13. Similar magic works the line spacing, extra line feeds and page size.

Multiface can also manage four subtly different types of Copy. First, fastest and least flexible is Text Copy (Rem MP, CPT). This just copies all characters on the screen to the printer in roughly their correct positions. Fine for word processing or account stuff, but no graphics. For graphic fiends there are the other three Copys, Normal Size Hi-Res (CPN), Large Size Hi-Res (CPL) and Large Shaded (CPS), but that sounds like a myth. The first two do different sizes of pixel-based copy where any ink is black and all paper is white, and the last has a creditable attempt at representing your Spectrum's sixteen chromatic coruscations as shades of grey pattern. Once you've chosen the old Copy command does the deed.

The interface also knows about Spectrum graphics characters, and can print both the predefined and the user-defined variety with equal facility. You can also set up to six Print Driver strings, so that with a single Lprint Chr$. your printer can receive a stream of command bytes (up to four per PD string). This can be a useful way to change between (say) underlined and normal printing from Basic.

For those with a limited attention span. Rem MP by itself calls up a menu screen or two to help you set up all these tedious options So don't say Romantic don't bend over backwards to help you.

Ah yes, the Red Button. Again, the perceptive might guess that this is a Good Bit Press this while the Spectrum is doing something (and that includes running your fave game), and a menu appears on the screen. Once again, the Multiface ancestry is strong, with the traditional toolkit and other pokerama paraphernalia to hand. Most important, given what the thing is, is the capability to dump the screen in whatever mode you've set up. You can even set your own special Copy mode, providing it uses not more than four bytes of control sequence and you can work out what the interface is going to do...

The manual is short, useful and tells you exactly how to use the interface with various favourite word processors, disk drives and all that jazz. The sort of info people need, and usually write to Sinclair Surgery for. And the port addressing is identical to the Kempston interface, so lots of software should work with it.

I've had the interface now for about three weeks, and it all performs as advertised. It doesn't have the built-in word processor that the Ramprint interface has, but it does have a lot more hackery potential. And a Red Button. Who could resist? Not I.

Price: £39.95

RAGE HARD!

You wanna know what's hardest in hardware? Once again YS whips out the magic screwdriver in our first hardware round up of '88.

It's been ages since we did a really ripping hardware spread, so we thought it was about time. After a bit of barking at Phil Snout to get his screwdriver out and look at these beasts, we've pulled together a positive cornucopia of hoopy hardware and super software, to turn even the most soft-boiled trainspotter into a hard-boiled egghead.

The star of our show is Miles Gordon Technology's Plus D disk interface, the only real alternative for tape users to upgrade to a +3, from the designers of the Disciple. Check out the review further on.

Other contenders for the hardware crown are the Multiface family from Romantic Robot, the plastic pal who's fun to be with; a couple of wacky Multiplugs for those of you who work all your household appliances from one socket; an aerial switch so you can plug all your computers, game consoles and videos into your telly at the same time; and Computer Cupboard's nifty little Trojan Light Pen for you to scribble on your screen. Worra lorra lorra stuff.

As well as all this hardware, we've got a brain-boggling selection of the most fascinating hardware-based software. So, let's cut the babbling and launch into the reviews.

2. Multiprint
Romantic Robot
£34.95

This printing out of screens on proper printers is a trick favoured by the Multiprint interface, a dedicated printer box for all Spectrums to Epson compatible printers. As well as supporting all the usual Speccy syntax of LPRINT, LLIST, COPY etc, it also does a nifty line in various sized dumps, straight to printer. But more importantly, it is the only interface that allows you to reconfigure it while the computer is still running. That's to say you can print out a listing at one measure which turns out to be too wide, press the red button, change the width, line feeds, margins etc and return to print it out properly without having to reset the computer.

In summing up, it's nice to see so many good British products in this hardware lineup. There's not many computers you could say that of, and fewer that could match the quality and design of the peripherals represented here.