Spectrum Computing

I have two Futures and they both work great! They work flawlessly with every Speccy I own (48k, +2, Toastrack, +3). I can totally recommend them.

Morkin wrote: ↑Fri Jul 23, 2021 9:07 am I guess that's something that'd be fairly obvious to most but I didn't think of it..

I wouldn't say it was that obvious, I only noticed it for the first time when I was doing an Amiga 1200 because I knew the keycaps were meant to be pearly white and they were on the inside.

I've composite modded several Speccies to then connect to modern LCDs and I've always been a little disappointed with the results TBH. Smeary colours, very visible dot crawl, jail bars (even with the jailbar mod). I picked up a small 14" CRT portable TV for £0 on Facebook Marketplace yesterday....

I was a bit worried about over-lightening it because I couldn't quite remember what colour a Dragon 32 SHOULD be. Photos of 80s computers seem to vary in colour saturation on the internet, so I'm not going to do any more with the colour (it's probably a bit yellower to the eye compared to my photo)...

The audio is badly distorted on a lot of earlier +3s due to a design flaw, so long as your not too ham-fisted with a soldering iron it’s pretty easy to resolve. Details of the mod can be found at: https://spectrumforeveryone.com/technical/fixing-audio-distortion-spectrum-3/ In fact there a few +3 mo...

I believe so, but I think the Next will be limited to 3.5mhz mode only.

Joulespercolomb covered this in a YouTube video for the +2 a few years ago, might be possible to do similar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUIv-A_DOc0

This is the about the same timing I'm using, except I'm manually scaling 4x horisontally instead of using the built in 320x240-stuff. I only care about capturing and my capture card has some issues with chroma subsampling so I have to have sub-pixel control. Are you using Generic 4:3 scaling? I'm n...

This is the about the same timing I'm using, except I'm manually scaling 4x horisontally instead of using the built in 320x240-stuff. I only care about capturing and my capture card has some issues with chroma subsampling so I have to have sub-pixel control. Looks awesome, even after YouTube compre...

So my previous settings might have looked good, but were actually pretty much garbage and were never going to get properly to a pixel perfect display with any amount of fiddling. After starting again (again) these are the settings for a 1:1 pixel perfect display with an OSSC tested with a Toastrack,...

I've had an OSSC for a few months now and haven't really messed with it a great deal. The OSSC doesn't seem to get a great deal of discussion with Speccies, and so far, I've found it impossible to find a single source of information on how to configure what is a reasonably complex device to get the ...

Are there any other 'new' replacement ULA's out there similar to the NEBULA? There is also the vLA82, which you can get from Retro Revival in the UK (currently out of stock though). It's more compact than the Nebula, but a little more costly and less readily available. I have both and they both wor...

Great app, I really love the clean interface and also that it keeps the phone awake! I haven’t tried it with a real Speccy yet, just my Next but it loaded flawlessly. I think this just saved me getting a tzxduino.

PeterJ wrote: ↑Sun Mar 07, 2021 8:13 pm Is not cased

There is a design for a 3D printed case on GitHub, but I suspect it might then only allow the Smart card to physically plug into a 48k.

https://github.com/SM7I/SmartCardv2

Have a I missed anything? It's also an absolute steal for what he charges, there are a couple of other features you didn't mention: It has a joystick port You can load alternative ROMs into it and swap them with a switch on the back (I switch between ZX Diagnostics and the built-in diags) Quite pos...

Sparky wrote: ↑Sun Mar 07, 2021 8:09 pm Well, people aren't going to be inside using their retro computers all the time, they'll want to travel, go to clubs, whatever the youngsters do these days.

Travelling to retro computer clubs and meetups.

MrClump wrote: ↑Mon Feb 22, 2021 6:06 pm But, when PIN17 is outputting the correct signal it is also not steady, shaking up and down. I have swapped out the LM1889 but it's the same.

Could this jittering be there because I have a modern Murata switching voltage regulator fitted rather than a 7805?

I've now got the colour correct, the trimmers were waaaaaay out of whack! Someone has clearly been fiddling. My xmas pressie (oscilloscope) that I'm still learning how to use made it super easy. Still got to fiddle with the dot crawl though, which I think I just have to do by eye.

There is another way to do the spider modification (adding TR6). Some photos of the ‘spider’ on one of my issue two boards here . Mark Thanks for the link, very useful! I've completed the spider mod using that as a guide, much tidier than having it straddling the CPU, my diag cartridge confirms the...

PeterJ wrote: ↑Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:07 pm You could try this @MrClump
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/1 ... m/DTP_Pack

I wonder if you could get that running as a Wordpress plugin.

About the electrolytic capacitors, I am going to buy from a well known online seller (in Japan), from the brand Vishay. My list includes the following set (basically for a whole recap): 3 x 1uf 63v 1 x 4.7uf 63v 7 x 22uf 25v 2 x 100uf 25v You could save yourself some work and postage and just buy a...

The 1kΩ resistor near the Z80 that goes between the +5V line and pin 32 on the ULA is R73 on later board issues. It is part of the Z80 clock circuitry. It’s a modification detailed in the service manual (see section 4.1). It’s fitted to improve the clock signal and therefore improve the system reli...

As much as I love the speccy, sadly I don't think it would be possible to get any *real* work done with it. Imagine the keyboard membrane giving out, or R Tape Loading errors on the tape with your precious data, or the speccy spontaneously resetting due to a wobbly interface connection, et al. No, ...

Tasword +3, I did most of my GCSE work with it after a letter from my mum promising that she would check I had the spell check turned off.

It looks like you need to adjust the trimmers, there is a good guide on Spectrum for Everyone:

https://spectrumforeveryone.com/technic ... reen-tint/