
Sinclair ZX Spectrum Prototype - guiambros
http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/51620/Sinclair-ZX-Spectrum-Prototype/
======
techbubble
All the Spectrum computers were awesome computers that somehow crammed a lot
into a very compact package. The Sinclair ZX Spectrum+ was my first computer
and I recently snagged one on eBay. With the right transformer and HDMI
converter, I had it hooked to the living room TV in no time.

It took less than 30 mins for my 11-year-old daughter to figure out how to
draw basic rectangles and circles in various colors on the screen. She was
hooked. And I was transported back to my childhood. I saw the same joy I
experienced as she discovered new ways to have the computer do her bidding.

Today’s computers can do amazing things, but they sort of miss out on the
whole human user experience bit. Maybe they need to go back to basic ;-)

~~~
jtanworth
Do you have a link to the HDMI converter you were using? I still have a 128k
+2 which would love to try and test out again sometime.

~~~
Zardoz84
Same! I try a composite video to VGA (works like a charm with a Play Station
2), but can't sync with the Spectrum +2 video

~~~
balabaster
Are both devices from the UK? The reason I asked is because I moved from the
UK to Canada before HDMI became a thing and we had to deal with PAL and NTSC
signals - my DVD player wouldn't work in Canada until I got a PAL to NTSC
converter to connect it to the TV.

Is your Play Station 2 PAL (UK) or NTSC (American)? The Spectrum +2 is (I
would assume) PAL.

I'm reaching, but if your PS2 is American and thus already NTSC and works,
then your converter may be expecting an NTSC input. If you convert the PAL to
NTSC before feeding it into the HDMI converter, it should in theory work.

~~~
Zardoz84
Everything PAL. I live on Spain, and got both on Spain.

Think that analogue signals have a lot of tolerance. The Spectrum PAL signal
was very far from followiing 100% the PAL standard.

~~~
balabaster
Back then, a lot of the TVs had frequency and vertical and horizontal hold
dials. There was a fair amount of leeway in tuning the device to display the
picture consistently.

I would assume nothing needed to be exact because you could fine tune on the
fly. I remember when you tuned our 3 TV stations in the UK by dialing the
frequency dial to the correct radio frequency. It's been a long time that I
don't recall the radio frequencies by perhaps I recall ITV being 68 MHz(?)

~~~
benj111
"perhaps I recall ITV being 68 MHz" that would vary from transmitter to
transmitter, or else they would clash.

~~~
balabaster
Maybe, but our TV's had analogue frequency dials instead of buttons, so we had
to tune them manually.

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mmjaa
I'm an avid retro-enthusiast and have an extensive collection of computers,
going back to the 70's. I've also kept every computer I've ever owned
personally.

This year I'll be doing a retro-exhibit at the MQ in Vienna, putting the
machines up and getting them running for folks to interact with and explore.
The idea is to show people that, in fact - old computers never die, their
users do!

The key thing is that, even if you don't have a use for that old computer -
there are a hundred million other human beings out there that might, and to
some of them it'll be just as useful as it was the day it was taken out of the
box and turned on for the first time. Consumerism requires participation in
the fallacy that 'old things have no use' \- but as we can see from the
resurgence in interest around the retro- scene, this is just a lie.

One of the things that has made this so interesting to me is the experience of
having to set up each machine, again, with all its requisite tools. As a
developer, to me this of course means having assemblers, editors, compilers,
and so on - and it is _quite_ a challenge. But once its up and running, there
is no greater joy than hacking on an old machine, with no Internet and only
the tools in front of me. It has been one of the coping mechanisms I use to
get over the pain, suffering and misery of modern software development, where
it seems every month some kid has re-invented the tools we old folks discarded
years ago, and for it to become fashionable such that there is no choice, to
be current, than to keep up with the rat race of compilers and libraries and
editors and frameworks, oh my ..

If you've still got an old machine somewhere, do yourself a favour and get it
set up again. It can really help with developer funk.

------
moomin
I realise the ZX Spectrum might not be the most important computer in the
history of computing, but it is 100% the most important computer to me. That
thing changed my life.

~~~
andymurd
The Spectrum (and ZX81) had a big effect on a whole generation of Brits. I
know my folks could not have afforded a C64 or BBC Micro but they did manage
fifty quid in Currys to start my lifetime of coding.

~~~
darrenf
Likewise. At the time my folks could just about stretch to a ZX81 plus 16k RAM
Pack[0], but not a wobble stopper[1] - so we fashioned one out of corrugated
cardboard and gaffer tape. A few years later I scored an upgrade to the ZX
Spectrum+ which was an absolute revelation - what with stuff like _colour_ and
_sound_.

I learnt BASIC through typing out listings from ZX Computing Monthly, Sinclair
User, Your Sinclair, and others, borrowed from the local library. I forget the
name of the magazines which had multi-platform listings, for the Electron and
Vic-20 and MSX and others.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_pack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAM_pack)
[1]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20110614170203/http://www.sincus...](https://web.archive.org/web/20110614170203/http://www.sincuser.f9.co.uk/018/hardwre.htm)

~~~
stevekemp
Since it was my first computer, and the reason I started programming, I dug
out one of the old badges I earned by submitting POKEs to the magazine:

[https://i.imgur.com/FT97X2H.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/FT97X2H.jpg)

------
christkv
Brilliant just finished watching micromen and loved it even though I was in
the commodore camp myself. The spectrum next project is really cool for a 8bit
remake computer. I hope to get one for the kids when it’s generally available.

~~~
codeulike
The end credits/epilogue of MicroMen is a lovely bit of visual poetry
[https://youtu.be/XXBxV6-zamM?t=4900](https://youtu.be/XXBxV6-zamM?t=4900)

~~~
C1sc0cat
And so sad :-(

Really ought to have a HN meet up in the pub where the famous fight between
Sinclair and Curry Happened.

~~~
timthorn
A few years ago, the Centre for Computing History (as per the article) hosted
the pair. No fisticuffs... :)

------
unfunco
Steve Vickers taught first year Java (and more) at the University of
Birmingham and I was lucky enough to be taught by him, he was a great teacher,
we'd learn Java by implementing parts of his larger Turtles application
(similar to LOGO).

I remember there was a semester long competition that he held wherein you
would have to write a turtles program to generate an interesting output, I
thought my tesseract was quite good, and then a student who spent most of time
in lectures playing LocoRoco had animated an entire movie, of a turtle
enrolling at the university, I realised then that I was a very average
programmer.

------
mysterydip
For those like me looking for a bit of retro nostalgia but with some modern
conveniences, I discovered a laptop version of the spectrum being made now
with new parts: [https://retroradionics.co.uk/omni-128-hq-
laptop.html](https://retroradionics.co.uk/omni-128-hq-laptop.html)

review here: [http://markfixesstuff.co.uk/review/zx-spectrum-omni-
laptop-r...](http://markfixesstuff.co.uk/review/zx-spectrum-omni-laptop-
review-and-hands-on-test-a-brand-new-portable-sinclair-spectrum-made-from-
scratch/)

~~~
reaperducer
That's very cool. I wish there was a Commodore 64 version. Running an emulator
on a laptop isn't quite right because of keyboard differences. Plus there's
the whole joystick port thing.

~~~
blue1
The mega 65, when it will be ready, should do

~~~
reaperducer
The laptop form factor is really the key for me.

------
Theodores
I am surprised at how many sub-contractors Sinclair used for his products.

He had quite a media profile at the time and one imagined that everything came
out of a Sinclair building with all the magic happening inside that building,
with Sir Clive very much hands on with his minions.

In reality though the product was as much about managing suppliers and
contractors as much as it was about design.

The thing is that I would have thought that in those days writing your own ROM
(all 8Kb of it) was core functionality and not something outsourced. Sinclair
wasn't as 'vertically integrated' as I imagined.

Does anyone know if they outsourced the ULA design and even the printed
circuit board layout?

------
userbinator
The custom gate array it uses was reverse-engineered and is described in
detail in this book:

[http://www.zxdesign.info/book/](http://www.zxdesign.info/book/)

(Incidentally, it's GFDL so you can also find a legal PDF of it, but only
buying a physical copy will support the author.)

~~~
garganzol
Great book. The author should strongly consider to sell the PDF version of it.

------
beardyw
The Complete Spectrum ROM Disassembly is a great book which I have had since
those days. It is incredible how much they packed into that thing, and reading
through for each function your reaction is going to be "is that it?".
Available as a PDF with a quick Google. I have referred to it often to see the
most economical way to do stuff.

------
JoeDaDude
Great article! I wonder why the "Related Items" list does not include the
Timex 2068 Color Computer [1]? Is this because the Museum does not have one?

I cut my teeth on the 2068 and only just gave it up on eBay a year or so ago.
I would have been glad to donate it to this museum had I known about it. Maybe
a Wanted Items list could be posted?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_2068](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_2068)

~~~
memsom
Mainly because it was never available in the UK. There was a euro variant in
Portugal and Poland, but it was incompatible with the UK Spectrum (both
hardware and software), so didn't really have much point in the UK - where the
Speccy was ubiquitous and easy to find software and peripherals for.

------
kashyapc
Speaking of ZX Spectrum ... you might want to check out the QEMU Advent
Calendar disk image[1] for it from 2016. The blurb:

"ZX Spectrum was one of most successful 8-bit machines of all time -- with
still an active community! Relive the experience with a selection of homebrew
games, using the Free Unix Spectrum Emulator."

[1] [https://www.qemu-advent-calendar.org/2016/#day-23](https://www.qemu-
advent-calendar.org/2016/#day-23)

------
drej
I can recommend this recent podcast episode on coding for the ZX Spectrum - in
this instance commissioned by the authors of Black Mirror.
[https://hanselminutes.com/670/coding-for-the-zx-spectrum-
and...](https://hanselminutes.com/670/coding-for-the-zx-spectrum-and-
netflixblack-mirrors-bandersnach-with-matt-westcott)

------
justatdotin
I was gifted a discarded zx81 - cos some of the keys didnt work. a kid in my
class rewired it with touch-phone buttons :) fun times ..

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Angostura
For anyone feeling a little nostalgic: Hey, hey 16K
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts96J7HhO28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts96J7HhO28)

------
stewbrew
It's a pity Sinclair tended to make at least one bad design choice per device.
Eg the Z88 was about the most amazing device of its time if only it had had
something else than eproms for storage.

