Introduce yourself!

[Nige]

Welcome @Nige,

What was the name of your PD library?

Best Before Software PD and later just Best B4 Software PD.



Me with my Checkmate Amiga A1200 and fellow Amiga enthusiasts at one of the Norwich Amiga Group meetings, last year

Found some screenshots of bb4pd

[markusr]

Hi all,

I had a rubber key 48k spectrum back in the day which I sold in 1985, thereby unwittingly missing out on 32 years of spectrum computing. I came to my senses in 2017 when I bought a spectrum 128k toastrack and have since acquired a few more spectrums/clones, including an OMNI HQ, a self built harlequin 128k and most recently, a battered and slightly broken issue 3 rubber key 48k spectrum. It was the arrival of the latter though that really re-ignited my interest in the spectrum and inspired me to do some coding (which I’ll post about in a separate thread).

[zx_if1]

Hi to all!
I am Francisco Leon from Peru
I have my things put in Jose Manuel's El Trastero del Spectrum https://trastero.speccy.org/
my section is Los sistemas operativos de disco
https://trastero.speccy.org/cosas/FLeon/Fleon.htm

[Midlife crisis]

Hello from Somerset.

After 30 odd years of last owning a speccy ( plus 2a ) I have finally bought a speccy plus 2 from ebay. As soon as the loading screen started up, I was transported back to when I was ten. I look forward to reading through these threads and replaying old classics.

Regards

John

Post edited by PJ.

[drdivago]

Hello from Cambridge!

I bought a ZX81 1K back in the early '80s, and I remember using it to plot a distribution function for a Statistics exam at the university, but soon after I sold it (big mistake, but money was tight) to get a ZX Spectrum 16K, which I still own. As soon as I got enough money I travelled to Florence to buy the memory expansion chips, which I then installed myself. While strongly attracted by the QL, it proved to be way too expensive for me at the time. After the military service I quickly moved on to IBM PCs, and only a few years ago I started getting interested in my old machines again.

I currently volunteer at the Center for Computing History here in Cambridge, upgrading and fixing their faulty ZX Spectrum donations.

Ciao
Leo

[PeterJ]

Welcome @drdivago!

[geg81]

Hello everyone,
I decided, after a long debate, to indulge my retro-nostalgia and buy back the machines I've had or played with in my youth. I am not the social kind of guy but nevertheless I hope to make new friends here and to give back something to the community.

Bye!
Dino

[alchresearch]

Hi All,

Andy "Alchemist Research" Davis here. I still tinker with the Spectrum via emulators. I'm just in the process of imaging all the old Alchemist PD disks, I've uploaded a few already, along with some CP/M disk images for use with an emulator or for writing back to real floppy disks with REALSPEC.

One project I've had on the go but never got round to is putting a Pi Zero in a Recreated ZX Spectrum. Does anyone have the build instructions anywhere?

Thanks!

Andy

[R-Tape]

I decided, after a long debate, to indulge my retro-nostalgia and buy back the machines I've had or played with in my youth. I am not the social kind of guy but nevertheless I hope to make new friends here and to give back something to the community.

Welcome geg. I wish I had a long debate about 25 years ago, on whether to keep my original ZX Spectrum, and whether to buy more for £5 from car boot sales!

[R-Tape]

Andy "Alchemist Research" Davis here. I still tinker with the Spectrum via emulators. I'm just in the process of imaging all the old Alchemist PD disks, I've uploaded a few already, along with some CP/M disk images for use with an emulator or for writing back to real floppy disks with REALSPEC.

Welcome Andy. Great to see you here. You still have two weeks to release issue 39 of AlchNews, and then release issue 40 on the Speccy's 40th birthday on the 23rd April

[PeterJ]

I wish I had a long debate about 25 years ago, on whether to keep my original ZX Spectrum, and whether to buy more for £5 from car boot sales!

Those glorious days before eBay. I remember picking up a boxed ZX80 for £3 at a car boot sale in Chichester.

[alchresearch]

Welcome Andy. Great to see you here. You still have two weeks to release issue 39 of AlchNews, and then release issue 40 on the Speccy's 40th birthday on the 23rd April

Oddly enough I still have half of issue 39 completed! The plan was to do a release for the Next, but just never got around to it

Issue 39 was going to be a Garry Lancaster special - according to my notes he'd just released the +3e ROM!

[MoreFunMakingIt]

Hi!

Owned my first Spectrum (16k!) Christmas 1983 as an innocent 12yo. It replaced my ZX81 which was dearly loved.

The Spectrum served me well for many years and remains my favourite micro.

At the start of last year I decided to rebuild my entire history of computers and games consoles, most of which I had sold through the years. The Spectrum was the first on the list and I ended up with two at that time. Fast forward to now and I've completed my collection, as well as expanding into other 8 and 16 bit systems of the time. Along the way I've learned to repair some of these broken systems and have made some videos about my experiences with them.

I recently was sent a broken ZX Spectrum, after a conversation with a twitter follower, which is the most broken and shocking repair attempt I have ever heard of, let alone seen.

Hoping to be able to share that here at some point!

[R-Tape]

The Spectrum served me well for many years and remains my favourite micro.

Splendid fellow!

I recently was sent a broken ZX Spectrum, after a conversation with a twitter follower, which is the most broken and shocking repair attempt I have ever heard of, let alone seen.

Hoping to be able to share that here at some point!

Please do - the mind boggles. After over ten years back at this, I still haven't got to grips with hardware beyond replacing a keyboard ribbon.

[MoreFunMakingIt]

Please do - the mind boggles. After over ten years back at this, I still haven't got to grips with hardware beyond replacing a keyboard ribbon.

I didn't want to just jump in with a HERE I AM youtube promotion post. That would be plain rude!
But if you twist my arm where would be the best place to put that?

Edit:
Oh wait. I see the description of this section kinda covers that!
Ok then!
https://youtu.be/ppkoJKGU0NQ

[ANDREWRYALS]

Old ZX user from early 1980's, still active on the scene!

[helpcomputer0]

Hi, I'm a pixel artist from the UK. I love using the Speccy limitations and I hope to share some of my stuff here. Cheers!

[MikeCornflake]

G'day from WA,

Just been on a visit back to the UK, and picked up my first Sinclair - a grey spectrum+2. No idea if it works, want to open it up and check internals before turning it on. But excited Although I've never had a Sinclair, my cousin taught me the joys of programming on his ZX80. He recently passed away (which is why I was in the UK), and as this +2 is the nearest I have to his ZX80, I want to do some programming on this +2 as a tribute.

Don't suppose anyone can point me to technical documentation/schematics for the +2?

Cheers

Mike

[PeterJ]

Welcome @MikeCornflake,

Sorry for your loss.

Is the Spectrum+2 grey or black?

This may help you:

https://worldofspectrum.net/documentation/#manuals

[iijavix]

From Madrid greetings to all.

As for many others, my story with the Spectrum began when my parents decided to spend a lot of money on a gadget that nobody knew very well what it was for, not even me. That was around 1983, I was about 15 years old.

That Spectrum 48K is still working, and with the sad news of the death of Sir Clive Sinclair and the 40th anniversary, I decided to take it out of the box and try to recover as much as possible of the tapes that I keep.

I have been very very surprised of the huge community that exists in UK and Spain around the recovery of material from those years, but what is incredible and fantastic is that new programs and games are still being developed, great!!!

I hope to be able to contribute a small grain of sand in this little world, we will get to know each other, greetings to all!

[makinavaja]

Hi to everybody

Here I am, makinavaja, from Barcelona. Mainly my 8bit computer, the one i adore, its the MSX, but of course I like to have and use a lot of different machines like c=64, cpc, atari and, of course, zx spectrum machines.
Also, Im member of the AAMSX, an association that organizes MSX users meetings in Barcelona every 6 months.

More info at http://www.aamsx.com

[Refrenz]

Hi all. I've been a long term member on the original WoS forums, although mostly lurked there for the past dozen or so years before visits dropped off. I decided to pop onto the ZX Computing forums for a look around and I like it lots!

I originally had a ZX Spectrum 48k in 1984 (rubber key, followed by the '+' keyboard upgrade pack) and a grey +2 late 1986, then I discovered eBay in 2000 and in more recent years modern clones (I have an original Vega and was one of the unfortunate backers of the Vega+, and a JustSpeccy128 and laptop ZX Omni) and now find myself with around 20-ish Speccys in various forms, with the latest one being a Next which sits proudly on my desk next to my PC. I just got a Steam Deck and will be investigating Speccy emulation on that in the near future - previously, my portable Speccy action has been handled via a Nintendo DS and more recently an Anbernic RG351V and Miyoo Mini. (We didn't need the Vega+ After all!)

Anyway, as you can probably tell, I'm rather fond of the Speccy - it was my 'first love' computer and I will always get a warm fuzzy feeling playing Speccy games, be it on original hardware, clones or emulators!

[R-Tape]

...and now find myself with around 20-ish Speccys in various forms, with the latest one being a Next which sits proudly on my desk next to my PC...

Welcome! You have an appointment with this thread!

[KWF]

Hi All,

I have been back to 8-bits for a few year as mainly reader on other Speccy forums. I am not a Facebook fan, so I don't know what is going on there in retro-world. When I was a teenager my parents bought me Timex Computer 2048 and I played games and wrote a few BASIC programs back then. Then I ruined TC2048 with soldering gun as I wanted to expand 48K to 80K ... well it was expected because of no knowledge, no skills, little brain and a lot of hopes. Now my original TC2048 is back to the glory and works well.

I have joined this forum for knowledge gathering and learning more about forgotten interfaces like ROMBO Vidi-ZX if possible.

If anyone intrested in my hardware works, please visit: https://github.com/McKlaud76

Cheers,

[lostretrotapes]

Hi all,

I have loved the Speccy all my life, starting when I was 8 getting one for Christmas and playing Thru the Wall until I got Manic Miner, and I've been trying to complete it ever since. Credit the Spectrum with my whole career, and love reading my collection of Crashes taking back to a fun time.

Collect all sorts of old computers and consoles but the Spectrum is the focus of my collection, own everything now bar the ZX80 which I hope to get sometime next year. Also have a mint boxed, unused Spectrum that was given away with Renault 5s as the pride of the collection.

Also started restoring old broken Spectrums which when it's not cricket season keeps me entertained at the weekend and it's my latest I am stuck with that got me here, need to post in the hardware section to see if anyone clever has ever seen anything like it, I certainly haven't!