STRICTLY FOR AMATEURS

Another new add-on keyboard for the Spectrum is the K-Board from Kelwood Computer Cases. It has been designed as a direct replacement for the old 'dead flesh' original and fits onto the existing case.

Fitting the K-Board requires major surgery to the Spectrum keyboard. Once the two halves of the Spectrum have been separated the metal cover, which has the E-mode legends on it, is removed. The difficulty of that will depend on your Spectrum. After early complaints by owners of the glue holding the cover in place melting because of the heat, Sinclair used a more powerful glue from Issue 3 onwards.

Then the rubber mat and matrix are slipped out and the new PCB containing 40 moving key switches is put in its place. Onto this is placed a plastic housing and over the complete assembly goes the metal cover.

For each of the keys you are supplied with a new key cap. Each cap is hot-foil printed in two colours, gold and red, with the key legends. Unfortunately, as the original keys were smaller there is a small gap at the sides of all keys and the caps overhang and shadow the legends on the metal cover. It is doubtful whether the printing on the keys will wear well.

At £28.50 the K-Board is the cheapest replacement keyboard for the Spectrum on the market and is worth considering if you can not afford anything else.

For your money you get a keyboard that will, however, probably invalidate your guarantee and which retains the same, cramped, layout and does not include a full size space-bar. The keys used have negligible movement, and are not, as the advertisements claim, 'beautifully printed'. Neither is the replacement keyboard 'professional' in any sense of the word.

For further details of the K-Board contact Kelwood Computer Cases, Downs Row, Moorgate, Rotherham S60 2HD.

HARDWARE WORLD

With ever-increasing amounts of peripherals available for Sinclair computers, users are finding it more and more difficult to know what to buy. We present a buyer's guide to joysticks, keyboard and printers and review the best of the rest from the 1984 add-on market.

A common complaint levelled at the Spectrum is the dead flesh feel of the keyboard. That has encouraged a large number of companies to produce full-sized add-on keyboards for it. We look at seven of the most popular keyboards on the market ranging from a simple replacement board to models of a professional standard.

In each case we fitted a Spectrum and Interface One to the keyboard to see how difficult that operation was and also attempted to fit the power supply according to the instructions or inside if there was room. The ease of fitting other add-ons was also considered and a Kempston printer interface was used to test that. Generally, any full-sized keyboard is a vast improvement over the original and of the seven all but the first can be recommended.

Two of the keyboards connect to the user port; the other five require you to open the Spectrum to fit them, and that will invalidate your warranty. It is possible that Sinclair will not notice that the case has been tampered with. We have yet to hear of anyone who has been refused a warranty claim.

Once the top of the keyboard has been removed the two ribbon cables connecting the old keyboard to the Spectrum are removed from their sockets and those from the new keyboard inserted. It is impossible to damage the Spectrum by fitting those the wrong way round, but care should be taken not to touch the circuit board unnecessarily. As with any piece of electrical equipment the power should not be connected while you are working on it.

The feel and size of a keyboard are important - after all, they are the reasons for buying a new one. The sizes are given in the table but the feel is more difficult to measure. The Saga and Lo>>Profile keyboards use keys which press down onto a membrane and have a small plastic dome to provide the spring, all the others use traditional switches. We suggest you try a keyboard before buying to make sure that it feels right for you.

K-BOARD

The first keyboard we looked at was the K-Board from Kelwood Computer Cases. That fits into the existing Spectrum case in place of the membrane keyboard. Fitting it requires major surgery to the Spectrum. Once the two halves of the Spectrum have been separated the metal cover, which has the E-mode legends on it, has to be removed. The difficulty of that will depend on your Spectrum. After early complaints from Spectrum owners of the glue holding the cover in place melting due to the heat, Sinclair Research used a more powerful glue from issue 3 onwards.

Next the old rubber mat and matrix are slipped out and the new PCB containing 40 moving key switches is put in its place. Onto that is placed a plastic housing, and over the top of everything goes the metal cover.

For each of the keys you are supplied with a new key cap, and each is hot foil printed in two colours, gold and red. Unfortunately, as the original keys were different in size there is a small gap at the side of all keys and the caps also overhang and shadow the legends on the metal cover. The method of printing the caps does not seem too durable as the legends could be removed by heavy scratching which tends to suggest that they would not wear well.

At £28.50 the K-Board is the cheapest replacement keyboard for the Spectrum on the market and as such is worth considering if you can not afford anything else. However, for your money you will get a keyboard that will probably invalidate your warranty as it would be difficult to restore the Spectrum to its original state, and which retains the same, cramped, layout and does not include a full-sized space-bar. Its only advantage is that as it retains the original case there is no problem fitting add-ans.

MAPSOFT

The Maplin keyboard, marketed under the name Mapsoft, is supplied in either kit form or assembled. It has an extender PCB that fits to the Spectrum and ribbon cable to the keyboard. The Spectrum remains outside the keyboard and so add-ons can be fitted with ease.

In all there are 47 keys, the normal 40 plus Delete, Graphs Lock, Shift Lock, Caps Lock, single key E Mode and two space keys. There is also one extra key that you can wire up to your own requirements.

Assembling the kit is straightforward provided you are experienced at soldering. None of the chips is socketed and special care has to be taken with them.

Once assembled the board is then fitted into the thin plastic moulded case, the top of which is held in place by pieces of Velcro. That top has the colour legends for keys 1 to 7 and 0 printed on it. The legends for the keys are three-colour cards that fit under clear plastic tops.

The keyboard offers a number of useful facilities at a reasonable price but it will always look like a DIY kit rather than a professional keyboard. The kit is priced at £44.95 inc.

DK'TRONICS

One of the best-known names for add-on keyboards is dk'tronics. Although its keyboard design has remained largely unchanged the company has made improvements to it. Those are the inclusion of a full-sized space bar, the addition of single key entry Delete and Full Stop and extra holes in the back of the case to allow the fitting of an Interface One.

The company estimates that 10 percent of all Spectrum users own one of its keyboards, a very sizable share of the market and to celebrate that dk'tronics has been offering four software tapes, worth £25.00, free to purchasers, during the last quarter of 1984.

The keyboard has the usual forty keys plus a separate numeric pad, which also incorporates the Delete and Full Stop keys. The three-colour legends on the keys have to be stuck on by the user but provided care is taken they will last a long time.

To fit the Spectrum into the keyboard it must be taken completely out of its case and screwed to the new base; if you have an Interface One then that is fitted first and the Spectrum PCB is slotted into it and then screwed down. As the PCB is fitted in the back right-hand corner there is an extender PCB for the microdrive lead which connects to Interface One by the solid connector supplied with the microdrive. The lead is taken out of the case through a small slot in the left hand side. An extra long lead can be supplied if required.

On the left-hand side are three pillars on which you can mount the power supply. To do that the power supply must be taken out of its case and should therefore only be fitted by people who have some electrical knowledge. There are a number of problems concerning the fitting of the power supply; the Sinclair power supply has gone through a number of design changes, and if it is marked 'Made in Portugal' then it will probably not fit onto the pillars.

The design of the pillars is such that they will either need cutting to size and the power supply screwed down using oversized washers or it will have to be wedged in by use of a piece of foam, both methods slightly unsatisfactory. The mains side of the power supply is lead out of the case under, and very close to, the extender PCB. It would have been far simpler to put the Spectrum PCB on the left hand side in the first place and so avoid having leads crossing inside.

The Kempston interface will not fit unless you are using Interface One or are prepared to remove the cable's strain relief bar. It is possible to trim the case.

Despite those problems the keyboard is very popular. It has a nice feel to it and on the whole can be recommended. It costs £45.00 plus £1.25 p&p.

LO>>PROFILE

The Lo>>Profile keyboard from Advanced Memory Systems Ltd is one of the newer keyboards on the market and looks very attractive. It is also very large, the largest of the keyboards reviewed, and that could be a problem if you are short of space.

As well as the standard Spectrum keys it has a separate numeric keypad, with extra Caps Shift and Full Stop keys, and there is an extra Caps Lock key included with the main keys, but those last two are not single key entry. It has a full-sized space bar. All the keys are sculptured and printed in three colours.

The Spectrum PCB has to be removed from its case and there are four bolts sticking up from the base of the keyboard on which it fits. In the review model they did not line up correctly and had to be moved by enlarging the mounting holes slightly. There are plastic washers on those bolts to protect the PCB.

While the base seems flimsy, when everything is bolted together it is held securely. Metal inserts in the top where the base is bolted through add to the solidity.

When fitting Interface 1 the two long screws are removed and the interface then sits underneath the keyboard. That raises the keyboard to a better working angle. The bolts which secure the Spectrum PCB to the base are also passed through the interface. On the review model the size of the case meant that the normal microdrive lead was not long enough to clear it and so the drive had to be angled out backwards from the case.

As with most full-sized keyboards the Kempston interface was a problem to fit due to the increased height of the keyboard at the back. The best remedy for that would be to purchase a flexible connector which fits the user port.

Priced at £49.95 plus £2.50 p&p, the keyboards good looks and positive feel will attract many users; its lack of any single key functions may, however, prove a drawback.

EMPEROR

The Emperor keyboard from Saga Systems is similar to the Lo>>Profile keyboard in that the keys use the same method of operation and it looks very good. What sets it apart is its remarkable 67 separate keys.

As well as the usual 40 keys there are 21 of the most commonly used functions on separate keys plus an extra three Symbol Shift and one Caps Shift keys. Those are arranged so that the functions are adjacent to a shift key. In that way just one finger can be used to hit both keys, a system that works remarkably well. Those extra functions are the mathematical - plus, minus, multiply, divide and equals, punctuation - full stop, comma, semi-colon and colon; plus hash and dollar - all operated by a symbol shift. Delete, Edit, Graphics, Caps Lock and the four cursor keys are Operated by a Caps Shift. Two of the Shift keys are together for Extended mode. For good measure there are also two adjacent Enter keys, extra Run, Save and 0 keys and a full size Space Bar with a levelling device.

To fit the keyboard you remove the top half of the Spectrum and the bottom half, containing the PCB, is bolted under the base of the keyboard. The board with the actual keys is screwed to that and the top then screws to the base.

The whole process only takes about five minutes, as claimed in the advertisements, though you then have to stick the three-colour labels onto the keys which takes considerably longer. Provided care is taken, fitting the labels is not a problem and they stand up well to some heavy use. As the original Spectrum base is now the base of the new keyboard, add-ons such as Interface 1 connect without difficulty but the usual problems with the Kempston interface will be encountered.

The price of £54.45, plus £1.15 p&p, is slightly above average but the multitude of keys ensures value for money.

STONECHIP

The Stonechip Electronics keyboard is one of the few keyboards where the Spectrum does not have to be opened to be fitted. For good measure it also incorporates a beep amplifier, Load/ Save switch and a reset facility.

Fitting the keyboard is simple; the top half, which houses the keys and amplifier, is connected by a ribbon cable to a long, thin PCB. That has the aerial, MIC and EAR plugs on one side and sockets on the other. That is plugged into the back of the Spectrum and the keyboard screwed together, with the Spectrum inside.

The keyboard has 44 keys printed in three colours, the usual 40 including a full-sized 145mm, space bar plus a single key entry Delete and E mode. In addition there are two Reset keys which when pressed at the same time will reset the computer - particularly useful when with many games the only way to do that is to pull the plug which eventually leads to it becoming loose. You have to be careful as resetting will clear out the memory and as one reset key is placed next to the Caps Shift and the other next to the 0 you must get into the habit of using the Delete key rather than the normal method of using those keys, otherwise you may delete more than you intend.

At the top of the keyboard is the Load/Save switch which in its middle position acts as the beep amplifier. There are both tone and volume controls and a good clear sound can be obtained. If you are not using the amplifier then it is best to put the switch to one of the other positions as otherwise it picks up hum from the computer. Also on top there is an LED to show you that the power is on.

For some reason best known to Stonechip the company has re-positioned the MIC and power sockets. The MIC socket is 5mm nearer the user port and the power socket placed between the two. That small change means that a number of add-ons will not fit. Interface 1, however, will fit with a slight struggle as will the Kempston interface.

Priced at £59.95 the keyboard is one of the more expensive ones available but the ease of fitting and the facilities it offers make it a good buy.

TRANSFORM

The last of the keyboards reviewed is that from Transform. It is aimed at professional users as it is the only keyboard reviewed with a metal case and also one of the few with three-colour printed key caps.

There are 60 keys, including a numeric pad that has an extra Caps Shift and single key entry Full Stop plus a full size space bar. The other extra keys are Symbol Shift, Edit, Delete, E Mode, Colon, Semi Colon, Comma and another Full Stop - all single key entry.

Fitting is straightforward; the base of the Spectrum is retained as an insulator and bolted through to the base of the keyboard. If Interface 1 is used the two long mounting screws have to be removed and the bolts then go through it and the Spectrum. There is provision to put the power supply inside the case and special connectors are used to wire an on/off switch and a LED. That is relatively easy and you need not worry about the leads shorting out as everything is well insulated, although Transform do recommend fitting an extra earth wire for safety.

The keyboard has a solid feel to it and is certainly the best of the keyboards reviewed. The only problem that may be experienced is that with some issue 3 Spectrums the ULA chip, if not marked with the word Ferranti, is working to the limits of its specification which may make the computer rather temperamental when used with the keyboard. Transform sell a buffer, at £6.95 inc, which cures that problem.

The price of £69.95 reflects the sort of use to which this keyboard will be put but it is certainly the best keyboard of the moment.

Kelwood Computer Cases, Downs Row, Moorgate, Rotherham S60 2HD.

Maplin Electronic Supplies, PO Box 3, Rayleigh, Essex SS6 8LR.

dk'tronics, Unit 6, Shire Hill Industrial Estate, Saffron Walden, Essex CB11 2AQ. Tel: (0799) 26350.

Advanced Memory Systems Ltd, Green Lane, Appleton, Warrington WA4 5NG.

Saga Systems Ltd, Woodham Road, Woking, Surrey.

Stonechip Electronics, Brook Trading Estate, Deadbrook Lane, Aldershot, Hampshire GU12 4XB. Tel: (0252) 333361.

Transform, 41 Keats House, Porchester Mead, Beckenham, Kent. Tel: 01-658 6350.