Old ZX Spectrums anyone?

[kegnkiwi]

Does anyone possess any old original Zx spectrums cira 1982 and still play about with them, I've got the 48k rubber keyed one and the plus 2. I got my son to buy me a new keyboard membrane for the rubber 48k last christmas. I made a tv lead for it and used my bench power supply. It booted up and all was working so I decided to buy a dedicated power supply. I bought one and it was 3amp. Spectrum's original ones were 2amp. After a few minutes, it blew the speccy. Anyway since Christmas i have been trying to fix it and I found out there is quite a community out there still making games and keeping the speccy alive. Anyway, i recapped the board, changed a number of transisitors and eventually changed the lower ram. It's booting now but now doing much. I have more to try but I'm not giving up yet. Anyway having seen the community still going I decided to buy a clone of the new spectrum next. I should have it next week. Those orginal spectrums nexts are going for anywhere up to £800.00 on ebay.

I'm just wondering if anyone else has tried to recover theirs.

 

[Trabbs]

No longer have one but remember them fondly. I remember waiting hours for Hobbit to load, having to adjust head on cassette player to avoid syntax error. Also remember Manic Miner which kept me amused for hours. Good luck getting it up and running again.

 

[kegnkiwi]

Well now it's all now change games can be loaded onto sd card and you have the choice of going old school and waiting for it to load or instant load. They have diagnostics boards as well that you plug into the expansion slot at the back that check everything is ok. This new one i have coming is a completely different beast.

 

[Purity]

Yes, I still have a 48k, and various other old computers and consoles that I play around with

I still have my original Dragon 32 from when I was a kid, bought in 1983 ish and still works fine

 

[kegnkiwi]

Yes, I still have a 48k, and various other old computers and consoles that I play around with

I still have my original Dragon 32 from when I was a kid, bought in 1983 ish and still works fine

Mine is 1982 or 1983 and they had been kept in the garage ever since. I powered them up at Christmas and they worked. I bought a 3amp supply and it blew both my 48k and 128 +2. I've done a lot of work on the 48k but it's not there yet, and the 128K if I put my rom board in it boots to pages.

 

[Purity]

yea man my father bought the Dragon instead of the 48k which all my mates had. I ended up buying a 48k several years later, so probably around 85/86. Not repaired a 48k before, but have done the mod on it to play it on modern tv's

 

[kegnkiwi]

yea man my father bought the Dragon instead of the 48k which all my mates had. I ended up buying a 48k several years later, so probably around 85/86. Not repaired a 48k before, but have done the mod on it to play it on modern tv's

I did the composite mod as well, also changed all the Vishay caps around the board, change TR4 and TR5 and took out the lower ram chips and socketed them, and put new 4116 chips in, but it did not work so I put a replacement ram board in it. I also changed ic 3 and ic4. It boots but does nothing else so i am a bit stumped at the moment. The ula the big chip in the middle might be the next stage but they get expensive at around £20-25 pounds.

 

[spud1966]

Had the ZX81 and 16k ram pack , used to get the magazine and spend hours typing out the code and saving it to tape

The good old days

 

[Purity]

I did the composite mod as well, also changed all the Vishay caps around the board, change TR4 and TR5 and took out the lower ram chips and socketed them, and put new 4116 chips in, but it did not work so I put a replacement ram board in it. I also changed ic 3 and ic4. It boots but does nothing else so i am a bit stumped at the moment. The ula the big chip in the middle might be the next stage but they get expensive at around £20-25 pounds.

So it boots, but you can't type anything? Quite likely the interface chip is dead. I'll have a look if I have one. Got a ton of spare chips but don't know if I have one of those

 

[kegnkiwi]

Had the ZX81 and 16k ram pack , used to get the magazine and spend hours typing out the code and saving it to tape

The good old days

For christmas i got my son to buy me a keyboard membrane for the 48k speccy. He also bought me the coding book. That is why i have messed around with the 48k one trying to get it fixed. The new spectrum n-go has shipped today from spain so i may get it tomorrow.

 

[kegnkiwi]

So it boots, but you can't type anything? Quite likely the interface chip is dead. I'll have a look if I have one. Got a ton of spare chips but don't know if I have one of those

It boots up and the rom tester is saying the upper and lower ram chips are ok but the screen i doubling up.

 

[Purity]

That looks like a failed logic chip somewhere, like a counter or something like that

 

[kegnkiwi]

That looks like a failed logic chip somewhere, like a counter or something like that

I've just sent a quick email off to phil @ retroleum where you can get the spare parts from to ask him if he has any ideas.

 

[kegnkiwi]

my new speccy arrived today in matt black.

 

[topchippyles]

This brings back a few memories but i have better things to do than play with 40 year old computers, fair play to you guys

 

[Kryton]

but i have better things to do than play with 40 year old computers.

I would class it more as a hobby than playing.

 

[kegnkiwi]

Since I pulled the spectrum out of the cupboard at Christmas I have been surprised that they are still making games. This n-go is a clone of the spectrum next. Take a look on eBay and see how much they are selling for. This machine can run as any of the spectrums ever released. It also allows you to increase the speed of the original games to make them more competitive. This one also takes a pi zero. New games just for the next are also releases with far more advanced graphics. Once I play with it I'll post more.

 

[kegnkiwi]

Here is a YouTube vid of the graphics on one game

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I know is not ps5 but hey.

 

[Kryton]

my new speccy arrived today in matt black.

Call me thick... but i can only find the N-GO board, did you have to purchase the case seperate?

 

[kegnkiwi]

Here you go for for anyone interested.
N-GO complete case + keyboard. - ManuFerHi