Retroleum Smart Card V3

[PeterJ]

Not sure how we missed this, but the excellent Smart Card now supports 128K games.

It's currently out of stock, but you can email to be added to the waiting list.

https://www.retroleum.co.uk/spectrum-peripherals

Peter

[hatman72]

Love my Smart Card v2 and am debating whether to get the v3 version due to its new capability - although having only recently bought a 128K Spectrum I have yet to really try out any 128K games on it so don't know how many I would play.

[oO cozy Oo]

Just got my Retroleum SMART card V3.1. WOW for the price this is a good SD card game loader(.tap & .sna) and Diagnostic Card rom loader(two in one)
Thers is a 2 way switch on the back one for normal loading and two for the diagnostic rom loader or any other roms you want to directly load.
Cost me £39.50p with postage UK

here is some pictures:-

[hellraiseruk]

Argh! I need to send mine back to Phil to get it upgraded to 3.1. They are awesome though, the diagnostics themselves are worth the money if you have a Speccy to fix never mind the other features!

One thing I've noticed from your pictures, you have one of those metal- cased scart to hdmi adapters? If so, I highly recommend you pop the lid and fit a couple of heatsinks to the ICs in there as they tend to run hot and die....

JD

[oO cozy Oo]

Thanks for the advise

[oO cozy Oo]

Argh! I need to send mine back to Phil to get it upgraded to 3.1. They are awesome though, the diagnostics themselves are worth the money if you have a Speccy to fix never mind the other features!

One thing I've noticed from your pictures, you have one of those metal- cased scart to hdmi adapters? If so, I highly recommend you pop the lid and fit a couple of heatsinks to the ICs in there as they tend to run hot and die....

JD

I`ll have a look now cheers for the advise I was looking to see if you can see the black box but the image on my monitor with the 1080 Scart gives it away lol

[hellraiseruk]

Yep, the screen overlay is a dead giveaway Apparently the main chip in there is effectively the brains of a TV, which makes sense, but the design specs call for a heatsink; obviously the Chinese manufacturers of these boxes think heatsinks are a luxury that costs too much

Did mine a couple of years ago and had no issues - previously I used to get image breakups and other weird issues, which were obviously due to over heating - aside from that, and the less than optimal latency issues they are good boxes, and the cheapest way of getting RGB scart up an hdmi socket!

JD

[oO cozy Oo]

I`ve been looking at adding some 16k .bin roms to the free spaces has anyone got any ideas , I`ve just downloaded the Arcade Game Designer ROM so Im going to try and add that, not to bothered about games.
Also I`ve just found out that if you press the break key it takes you to the zx spectrum boot screen, then you can press the nmi button and insert a .tap image and then type load"" and the game then loads also you can then insert tape 2 or 3 ect... As Aticatac requires 48k mode(if you have a 128k model) It also has a tape counter and rewind option very clever.

[8BitSC]

Managed to snag one of these from the Retroleum website earlier in the week.

I’ve had a shortcut link in my favourites for ages, periodically checking for stock. I accidentally clicked it and to my surprise, it was showing one in stock, so there was no hesitation.

Mine came with v1.60 of the Retroleum diagnostic ROM onboard, but I’ve no idea what has changed over the currently available to download v1.59 ROM.

For what it does, I think it’s a brilliant alternative to the DIVMMC Future, if you don’t need ESXDOS.

I appreciate the clean, simple layout of the file browser and the icons showing the file-types.

Would be fantastic if the file browser supported the joystick’s secondary fire button to go back to the parent folder like the Bob Fossil browser does on the DIVMMC devices. The Kempston interface on the Smart card clearly supports 2 buttons, as the diagnostic ROM allows you to test for both.

Would also be good to get some suggestions for additional ROMs to load into the free slots.

[kolbeck]

@oO cozy Oo - try holding space while powering up, should get you into the manager section where you can preload one of the ROM slots with a 16k bin

[8BitSC]

Holding Space while booting doesn’t appear to do anything.

However, holding 0 (zero) brings me to the ROM Manager.

[kolbeck]

You are right, it's zero - not space, brings up the ROM list - brings up the ROM menu

[oO cozy Oo]

@oO cozy Oo - try holding space( EDIT( Its zero)) while powering up, should get you into the manager section where you can preload one of the ROM slots with a 16k bin

Thanks for the info ! are there any 16k roms worth filling up the spaces.........

[kolbeck]

Thanks for the info ! are there any 16k roms worth filling up the spaces.........

I used to have custom / bug fixed version of the ROM

[1024MAK]

There are some alternative versions of BASIC. I can point you to details if you are interested.

Have you visited the http://www.fruitcake.plus.com/ site? The available games and some other software is listed there.

Mark

[hellraiseruk]

Hmm, would it be possible to load the interface 2 cartridge games into the ROM banks on the Smart card?

JD

[8BitSC]

Yes. It is indeed.

The first ROM I tried was the Sinclair Jet Pac ROM.

In bank J, (obviously).

Works like a charm.

[hellraiseruk]

Excellent, guess what I'll be doing today....

JD

[oO cozy Oo]

Yes. It is indeed.

The first ROM I tried was the Sinclair Jet Pac ROM.

In bank J, (obviously).

Works like a charm.

Also you can make it boot direct to that rom so when you turn your speccy on with the Smart card in it boots to jetpac like a cartridge

[oO cozy Oo]

I`ve put the zx81 and zx80 enumlator roms into my blank banks of the smart card and can now boot to a zx81 or zx80
Is there any other 16k roms that I can use ? I dont want to use games (or test roms) as they can be loaded from the SD card......

[PeterJ]

@oO cozy Oo,

I have not tried it myself, but there is OpenSE BASIC from Simon Owen:

https://zxdesign.itch.io/opense

[oO cozy Oo]

@oO cozy Oo,

I have not tried it myself, but there is OpenSE BASIC from Simon Owen:

https://zxdesign.itch.io/opense

Thanks PeterJ just loaded into a spare bank and all ok I think, well it boots to " (c) 181 Nine Tiles Network Ltd " another bank filled .. any more??
EDIT:-
Just added Arcade Game Designer

[1024MAK]

Gosh Wonderful BASIC ROM - https://web.archive.org/web/20150602175 ... mon.co.uk/

Mark

[oO cozy Oo]

https://www.retroleum.co.uk/smart-card

4 Instock be quick (13/12/23)

[oO cozy Oo]

Just 3D printed a case for this fab card











download from
https://www.printables.com/model/79185- ... atible-wit

by Dan Andersen

I`ve tryed it on the 128k toastrack and a +3 models all ok