Who still uses original hardware

For experts to discuss very technical stuff and newbies to ask why the Spectrum they bought off ebay doesn't work.
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cha05e90
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by cha05e90 »

Here a ZX Spectrum+ 128K and a ZX Spectrum Next Acc. are fully operational and on stand-by. Maybe I'm a little bit strange, but using a ZX Spectrum emulator is not really convenient:

1. Clean up the desk
2. Roll over to the cupboard, where my Windows 10 laptop collects dust
3. Carry it over to the desk, connect it to the mains
4. Boot into Windows 10 (dumdidum)
5. Start Fuse/Spectaculator/...

It's way faster to just switch on the ZXs. :-)

But - of course - I use emulation for my Z80-C-experiments using Microsofts VSCode and z88dk.
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akeley
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by akeley »

[mention]PeterJ[/mention] , [mention]Juan F. Ramirez[/mention] Sorry, it's actually called "Spectra". It's a bit pricey (~70GBP) but far as I know the only way to get RGB out of the humble Rubber One. It also has some other functions but they are way over my head.

http://www.fruitcake.plus.com/Sinclair/ ... erface.htm
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ianace
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by ianace »

I still use a lot, a rubber key, +3 and and grey+2 at home. As well as a vega 1 and the recreated ZX Spectrum . At work in my classroom at have a black +2 Spectrum (for after school clubs)and a ZX81 hooked up to a Timed 2040 printer to print name labels on! Much to the amazement of my pupils!
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Morkin
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by Morkin »

Nice..! :D

I'm guessing you didn't go for a ZX Printer in case it set the fire alarms off.. ;)
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Hedge1970
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by Hedge1970 »

akeley wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 8:47 am @PeterJ , @Juan F. Ramirez Sorry, it's actually called "Spectra". It's a bit pricey (~70GBP) but far as I know the only way to get RGB out of the humble Rubber One. It also has some other functions but they are way over my head.

http://www.fruitcake.plus.com/Sinclair/ ... erface.htm
I use this as well the colours are rock solid plus it does a whole lot more than just output Scart. Its a Reset Switch, Kempston Joystick, Serial Port, ROM drive and Expansion port all in a nice 3D printed case. There are full and solid instructions and it just works :)
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Hedge1970
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by Hedge1970 »

ianace wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:37 am..Timex 2040 printer...
A couple of years ago I wrote a game in Basic and used my Timex extensively to print out and debug the code. I felt like the kid I was never able to be as we did not have a printer. It was great fun though.
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1024MAK
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by 1024MAK »

Yes, I do (far more often than an emulator).

Hint:
Image

A ZX Spectrum+ gets the most use (with a 6A issue board). Although it competes with a Next, an Acorn Electron, an Acorn Master 128, an Acorn Master Compact and an Atari STE for my time. Leaving aside my non-Sinclair computers, I also have a ZX80, more than one ZX81, multiple ZX Spectrum rubber keys (both 16K and 48K), multiple ZX Spectrum+ machines, a +2 grey, a +2A, a +2B, some +3 machines (including a +3B), a Next, some QLs and some Z88 ‘laptops’. I also have some ‘clones’ and compatibles of ZX81s and a Harlequin.

I also have a ZX Spectrum 128 toastrack but that is still awaiting for me to repair it (when I find it again, it’s in storage).

At the moment only the ZX Spectrum+, Acorn Master 128, and Acorn Master Compact are “permanently” set-up.

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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by PeterJ »

Apologies if I've told this story before, but when I was a computer technician in the early 90s in an FE College, we ripped out our BBC Econet network. There must have been over 300 BBCs that all went into the skip! We did the same with a huge number of Commodore Pets.
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777
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by 777 »

i used to have a +2a with a 32 gb hdd (an 8 bit +3e interface which i built myself). and numerous spectrums. also a sam coupe. also an atari 130xl, a c16 (64k) and a c64. ive just bought a texas ti99
Last edited by 777 on Wed Oct 21, 2020 1:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
i started programming the spectrum when i was 8 :-

1 plot rnd*255,rnd*175
2 goto 1
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by uglifruit »

PeterJ wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 1:05 pm Apologies if I've told this story before, but when I was a computer technician in the early 90s in an FE College, we ripped out our BBC Econet network. There must have been over 300 BBCs that all went into the skip! We did the same with a huge number of Commodore Pets.
That makes me so sad.
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777
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by 777 »

uglifruit wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 1:20 pm
PeterJ wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 1:05 pm Apologies if I've told this story before, but when I was a computer technician in the early 90s in an FE College, we ripped out our BBC Econet network. There must have been over 300 BBCs that all went into the skip! We did the same with a huge number of Commodore Pets.
That makes me so sad.
i bet someone pillaged a few. i also threw away a sam coupe 20 years ago, which is probably punishable by death in this forum
i started programming the spectrum when i was 8 :-

1 plot rnd*255,rnd*175
2 goto 1
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1024MAK
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by 1024MAK »

777 wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 1:21 pm I also threw away a sam coupe 20 years ago, which is probably punishable by death in this forum
A quick death would be far too lenient...

Mark
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ianace
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by ianace »

Morkin wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 9:58 am Nice..! :D

I'm guessing you didn't go for a ZX Printer in case it set the fire alarms off.. ;)
Very true, they did smell great, bit like old model railways
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flatduckrecords
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by flatduckrecords »

I think I lost my +2 in a house move long ago, or perhaps lent it to a friend and forgot, but I spent the last 20 or so years sure it would turn up eventually so I held off buying a replacement. Thankfully I'd kept my modest collection of games and accessories in the intevening years, and I was I finally able to enjoy them again when I gave in around February this year and picked up a +2B on eBay. I used it almost every day until realising what I really wanted was a Toastrack!

Since then, it's been wonderful catching up on 20 years of hardware innovations like Spectranet and DivMMC, as well as old hardware like the venerable Alphacom printer, and even re-created hardware such as the ProjectSPECCY Multiface clone, and the Harlequin.

Maybe it's just nostalgia (it's definitely just nostalgia) but I get a lot of enjoyment from coaxing those old cassettes and players into working. I've learned so much about azimuths and pinch-rollers and the importance of IPA these last few months! Sure, I can instantly load practically any Spectrum game ever realeased from an SD card (or TNFS server!) and I do so when I acutally want to play a game; but discovering a long-lost BASIC type-in (that I had known nothing about) saved by the previous owner of a tape I've now had in my posession for 30 years really felt like re-connecting with my childhood. Pure magic!

I'm also really enjoying going through covertapes (although they seem to be particulary finicky in comparison to commercial tapes). I never had access to the magazines as a kid, but reading Jon North's gossip column in Practical Pokes certainly gives a "flavour" of those times! And yeah, the TZXs are available online, but if it wasn't for the real cassette tapes, I'd never have found Rodney's letters to Tiff about school exams and Nottingham bus station that were recorded onto side B of this particular copy of Play For Your Life!

Fortunately I've got enough space to have my +2B hooked up to a 14" CRT TV set, while the Toastrack has pride of place under the Big Telly (via ZX-HD). I'd been using a WH Smith CPD-8300 to load games, but it's not working reliably now so I recently aquired a Sony TCM-818 which is faring very well. I also have a 48K that I like to think of as my travel Spectrum that I bundle with ZX-HD and DivMMC, you know, for on-the-go microcomputing :D .
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777
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by 777 »

1024MAK wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 2:08 pm
777 wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 1:21 pm I also threw away a sam coupe 20 years ago, which is probably punishable by death in this forum
A quick death would be far too lenient...

Mark
actually more like 15 years ago
i started programming the spectrum when i was 8 :-

1 plot rnd*255,rnd*175
2 goto 1
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Ast A. Moore
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by Ast A. Moore »

1024MAK wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 12:24 pm I also have a ZX Spectrum 128 toastrack but that is still awaiting for me to repair it (when I find it again, it’s in storage).
Oh, I looked in there and didn’t find it. You must have moved it elsewhere. Gosh, is that the time? I must be going now. Bye. :D
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PeterJ
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by PeterJ »

777 wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 1:21 pm [I bet someone pillaged a few.
No, no-one was interested back then. Not sure if it's still a thing, but they went to a company who removed the gold from the PCBs.
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by clebin »

I recently rescued my old grey +2 from my parents' garage and hooked it up to the living room TV with a SCART adapter. The PSU was shot so I got a new switching power supply. The clicking/crunching noise of the tape recorder has got worse since I last used it, although it doesn't seem to affect loading. I should sort it out though.

I had quite a good collection of tapes already but I've added quite a lot more in the past year or so and a wish list that never seems to get smaller. I definitely think there's something special about the experience of loading games from cassette. The forced change in pace and the ritual aspect of it - it's like a Japanese tea ceremony. I've got a Spectrum Next in my spare room/home office, and I'm finding myself using a tape deck more and more with that too.
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by akeley »

clebin wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 7:56 pm I definitely think there's something special about the experience of loading games from cassette. The forced change in pace and the ritual aspect of it - it's like a Japanese tea ceremony.
Right on. It sounds silly, and before I had got into it I thought I will never bother, but it really is fun. The thing about ZX tape loading is that it just ticks so many right boxes: the <5 min timing is perfect, just enough to do a small chore or a cup of tea, the scr$ art is amazing or crap; which is also amazing, you get the funky sounds and bars, and then there's that little "but will it load?" gambling angle.
It also provides a mix of anticipation/appreciation for the game itself I don't get from the insta-DIV loading.

Other micros' tape loading is rather dull compared to ours, and I'm not into it, even though I have some CPC/C64 tapes.
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PeterJ
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by PeterJ »

[mention]clebin[/mention] and [mention]akeley[/mention]. Do you think loading a game from tape and waiting, makes you think more about which game you choose to load and how long you play it for?

I don't own many tapes, but do the same thing via .wav files.
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patters
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

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I had kept my childhood 16K but after fiddling about with it trying to get it to load games via an iPod in 2006 its ULA fried I think. This failure had been on the cards since about 1987 since it often used to fail to load from tape after it had been on a while. I sent it, with another donor Spectrum+ from eBay to some guy from WoS who offered to repair it, but he stopped responding to my PMs and kept the computers.*cough, spit*

Luckily, since the 16K had been in perfect cosmetic condition (pretty rare) I had had the sense to only send him the bare motherboard. I kept that shell safe and didn't really think about Spectrums until January last year. I always knew I'd have to pry the metal keyboard faceplate off to change the broken membrane, but I didn't rate my chances of doing that without wrecking it. Though of course you can buy replacements, I know from repairing the odd mobile phone that reproduction parts are never as good. I happened to spot that Retroleum occasionally sells re-capped, composite modded, and tested bare motherboards for very reasonable rates. I think it was £35. After a nerve-wracking time with a guitar pick and a hairdryer (and some tin foil to protect the rubber keys) I was able to replace the knackered keyboard membrane without bending the original faceplate. My pristine Issue 2 was reborn, but now as a 48K issue 2.

This got me interested in the scene again and of course I had to get a DivMMC. Then I wrote a game I'd abandoned 25 years earlier, and then I got curious about getting a Toastrack, which I had started to scout for back in 2006. So much classier than the childhood +2 I had after the 16K. I recall that Toastracks seldom appeared on eBay in 2006. Many auctions went by in 2019 and I saw they generally fetch in the region of £200, even in battered or 'untested' condition. Then in the run-up to Christmas 2019 I spotted that a guy on eBay jet5y refurbs toastrack machines: re-cap, jailbar fix, audio levels, deep clean. He takes beautiful close-up shots of them that are brochure quality, and the restored machine is pretty much mint. He charged £250 and I was able to use an eBay 10% promotional code to bring that down further. So I paid more or less the same amount for a perfect restored machine as many people pay for 'barn-find' style wrecks, and no mucking around needed. As a piece of design I think it's incredible - it looks modern to this day: pure retrofuturism.

Since then I've bought a TZXduino to occasionally enjoy the ritual pace of tape loading (or at least the sounds), as [mention]clebin[/mention] described it. I have also experimented with trying to find a decent joypad. I never liked joysticks, even back in the day. So far a Megadrive pad wins out over a Master System one (too many accidental diagonals). I think R-Type is the best test of that.

This was the main eBay shot of my Toastrack - I thoroughly recommend the seller, I hope he restores more machines. I've seen him list at least three, all to this same high quality:
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fimbulvetr
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by fimbulvetr »

I only use original hardware. No fun for me in emulation. But, I usually use modern storage on my old computers (grey +2, 48k, Atari 800, Tandy CoCo 3, ti99, Apple IIc, Mac SE/30) as old tapes and disks just aren’t that reliable anymore. I still use old storage media occasionally for nostalgia’s sake. Playing with, upgrading, and fixing old hardware is my favourite part of this hobby. The only machine I’ve had since new is the ti99, the rest I’ve picked up here and there over the last 25 years.
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

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PeterJ wrote: Wed Oct 21, 2020 10:05 pm @clebin and @akeley. Do you think loading a game from tape and waiting, makes you think more about which game you choose to load and how long you play it for?

I don't own many tapes, but do the same thing via .wav files.
Oh yeah, definitely. Especially if it's a 128k game - after waiting that long there's no way I'm switching it off after 5 minutes! Take Little Computer People - takes an age to load, even longer for the guy to decide to move in, and after all that you become so attached to the little guy that you're loathe to reset the computer and lose him.

Choice is great, but we have so much choice at our fingertips that we're literally rewiring our brains to cope with it all. Clicking through endless YouTube videos or social media feeds, snippets of music from Spotify or Apple Music, you get that instant gratification but in the modern world there's almost an epidemic of anxiety as every thing becomes a distraction from something else. Anything that forces you to slow down, be patient and even be a bit bored sometimes is good for your mental health.

In fact, let's re-market cassette loading for the wellness industry. "Mindfulness and Spectrum games" - we'll make a fortune! :D
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Morkin
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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by Morkin »

I find that most 48k games really don't take that long to load, if you've got time to make a cuppa then sorry, you haven't brewed your tea properly and it probably tastes horrible ;)

I went through an eBay tape buying frenzy when I started Speccy collecting, so haven't actually played all my games yet. :oops: One thing I like to do when a game is loading is read through the tape's inlay card.

I've had the occasional 'mini-surprise', like my copy of Escape, which contained the original receipt in the box:

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Re: Who still uses original hardware

Post by catmeows »

I wonder, how you replay tape files ? Is anyone using cassette player or rather mp3 player/phone ?
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