REVIEWS COURTESY OF ZXSR

Sinclair Official Spectrum+ Upgrade
Sinclair Research Ltd
1984
Sinclair User Issue 39, Jun 1985   page(s) 48

KIT PLUS GUARANTEE

In order to answer some of its critics Sinclair has released the Spectrum Upgrade Kit, which will turn your rubber keyed Spectrum into a Spectrum Plus. What is more, the kit only costs £20.00 and will not invalidate your warranty when fitted. If you do not want to fit it yourself Sinclair offers an upgrade service, for £30.00.

The upgrade kit is largely the same as any other add-on keyboard but may require some soldering. As a bonus, however, you get a new Spectrum Plus manual and cassette. The manual merely demonstrates how good the old manual was.

Fitting is straightforward and helped considerably by the clear instruction sheet. A new heat sink is provided for Issues 1 and 2, which is slightly smaller than the original, to fit the new case.

Next is the reset switch, soldered into place. It can, it you are not used to soldering, be left out.

Now you can test the new keyboard. Not all Spectrums will work correctly at this point. The company tends to use the cheapest components which means that each Spectrum will vary slightly. To overcome that a resistor - provided - has to be soldered onto the circuit board, a very fiddly operation.

You now have a Spectrum Plus. If you cannot get it to work Sinclair offers a fixing service, for £10.00. Send them the bits and they return a working computer.

As an add-on keyboard it offers 58 keys - 12 of them single key functions - and a half-sized space bar. Most useful are the shifted cursor keys and the only surprise is the omission of a colon key.

The keyboard feels cramped in use and is actually 0.5cm smaller across the Q and P keys than the rubber Spectrum. The caps are printed all in white which makes finding shifted functions difficult.

At £20.00 it is a bargain and, unless you are prepared to spend more than twice that, very good.

Write to Sinclair Research Ltd, Upgrade Department, Stanhope Road, Camberley, Surrey GU15 3PS.


Transcript by Chris Bourne

ZX Computing Issue 20, Aug 1985   page(s) 30

ADDING THE PLUS

A.J. Carter looks at the upgrade kit for all those rubbery old Spectrums.

Why bother to add a keyboard to your 48K Spectrum? Well, anyone who has tried to use the standard rubber-keyed keyboard for serious touch typing or word processing will tell you what a sluggish response it has. Also, the plus keyboard has a number of extra keys that Sinclair has seen fit to add after criticism from both customer and the computer media, and what an improvement it is.

So, having decided to give your Spectrum the plus treatment, do you send it off to Sinclair to be converted or take the plunge and do it yourself? Well if you have a screwdriver handy and are competent with a soldering iron, then why not have a go yourself and spend the £10 you save on the latest software release.

Once you have received the kit from Uncle Clive, the first thing to do is to check that all the components are present. This has been made very simple because Sinclair have had the good sense to include an illustrated parts list in the instructions, so, if you're not comfortable talking about reset switches, resistors and heatsinks, you can always match the parts to the pictures. Just so you don't go wrong, comprehensive, illustrated instructions have been included in the leaflet and the conversion process has been broken down into six stages.

Stage 1 details how to dismantle your existing Spectrum keyboard. To do this you must turn the Spectrum upside down and unscrew all the screws on the bass and remove each of them from the holes. At this point it would be useful to have a jam jar lid or something similar to put the screws in because it is very easy to knock them off the surface you are working on and have to spend ages searching around on your hands and knees for the tiny black screws. Once the screws are out turn the Spectrum the correct way up and gently lift the front of the rubber keyed keyboard. You should now be able to see two thin translucent ribbon cables. These connect the computer printed circuit board to the keyboard. Gently remove these from their respective sockets. Try to pull the ribbons from the sockets perpendicularly to the p.c.b. because pulling them at an angle may result in the tracks painted on the ribbons being cracked or damaged rendering your old keyboard useless. After removing the top of the old case, find the single screw that holds the pcb to the bottom half of the case. I found a magnetic screwdriver very handy when removing this screw, as I was able to lift it straight off without dropping in onto the circuit board.

Stage 2 is only necessary if you have a model prior to issue 3, and if so you will need to change the heatsink. To do this you will need a small spanner or nutdriver, or if neither of these are available you could use a pair of narrow jaw pliers to loosen the nut. Once the nut has been removed you can replace the old heatsink with the one provided by reversing the above procedure.

Stage 3 is the fitting of the reset switch which involves soldering a lead to a capacitor on the circuit board. This capacitor will be labelled on the board as C27 but as the instructions show, the position of this varies in different issues of the machine. This is the hardest part of the procedure and a great deal of caution should be used to ensure that no blobs of solder are dropped on the circuit as this will damage the computer when the power is reconnected. It was at this point that I got into trouble. I quite naturally inverted the circuit board and soldered the lead to the correct position on the opposite side to the components, as is the normal practise, but when I came to reassemble the unit, I found that the lead on the reset switch was not long enough to allow it to reach its position in the left hand side of the case. So, I desoldered the lead and tried to solder it to the legs of the capacitor, and thankfully this gave the extra length required. When you come to this stage, check to see that the lead is long enough to reach its seating BEFORE you make the connection, otherwise you may end up with a mass of solder on one side that was not required at all.

Stage 4 is testing the keyboard. Once the reset switch is in position, attach the top half of the new keyboard, being careful not to twist the ribbons connecting the keyboard to the computer. Then, fix at least one screw into position to fasten the two halves together. This is because you are going to power up the computer. Remember MAINS VOLTAGE CAN KILL, it is important the case doesn't fall apart when the insides are alive. Test all the keys. If some don't work then switch off the power and check that the ribbon connectors are in position. I found that I had pushed one of the ribbons only half way which allowed some of the keys to function normally but not others. Having got the others working try the STOP command. If this does not work then stage 5 must be performed. However, if it does then you go straight on to stage 6.

Stage 5 If the STOP function did not work you have another modification to do. Find the resistor marked R68 and solder the resistor provided across it. Once again, you must be careful and avoid solder splashes across tracks on the circuit board. Having done this, reattach the two halves of the case and reconnect the power. If STOP does not work recheck the connections of the resistor. Disconnect the power and separate the two halves of the keyboard.

Stage 6 is assembling the bottom half of the case. Turn the bottom half upside down so you can read the word "UPGRADED" which is stamped onto the case. Attach the rubber feet in the large holes. Set the position of the circuit board so that the sockets line up with the corresponding holes in the back of the unit and then screw two of the 6.5mm screws into the two holes at the front of the board, and then press the reset switch into the slot on the left hand side of the base. The next thing to do is to fit the legs. Lift the base up, slide the legs into the slots in the base and place the base back on the work surface, folding the leg up. Lie the leg springs on top of them. Despite the fact they look loose and sloppy they do work when the top is attached honest! All that is left to do is re-insert the ribbons into the sockets and screwing the top half to the base.

All in all, the instructions are precise and well thought and out for £20 you get a keyboard that works with 99 % of all third party add-ons and the entire range of Sinclair add-ons, not to mention a very sleek looking computer. I would like to thank Sinclair for the upgrade kit, something that would be forgotten by many other manufacturers, and tell others how glad I am that I have had the plus added to my Spectrum.


REVIEW BY: A.J. Carter

Transcript by Chris Bourne

All information in this page is provided by ZXSR instead of ZXDB