am on the lookout for zx spectrums

[Vincent]

NoFastMem wrote:
I was a Speccy kid for a time, mostly had +2As. I think they're unfairly maligned. So the Amstrads weren't as pretty as the Sinclair models, but the built-in tape was handy, and at least they had proper keyboards!

Yeah, but the amount of times the Azimuth Head Alignment had to be fixed on the +2s was unbelievable, especially on the Amstrad versions.

The keyboard was tops though :-D

[Vincent]

Got a fetish? :-P

[Vincent]

A microdrive was completely different, it was basically a very miniature tape system.

The +3 had a 3" disk drive.  The same disks that Amstrad used in their PCW systems.

I've still got my 2 48k's and 3 +2's in a box under my bed along with 2 more boxes of just Speccy games :-D

[Vincent]

Yup :-D

Speaking of eating a lot...

Siouxsie was out on Tuesday afternoon with uni buddies and there's one guy, Cam, that takes the mickey out of her (just like I do).  They decided to have an eating contest to see who could eat the most.

Siouxsie won because Cam couldn't finish his fruit salad at the end.  He couldn't bend over either :lol:

Siouxsie's prize?  Winning and being able to rub it in to Cam that he's a loser.  As well as having the luxury of not having to eat on Wednesday!

Back OT again... kinda.

Apparently Sir Clive was on Celebrity Poker on ftn tonight.

[Vincent]

The +3s are usually rarer (not R@RE as eBay would have it, proper rare) than the rest of the Speccys so the price is usually higher for them.  I've seen them go for £30 to £100+ (£100 is usually boxed in mint condition).

NoFastMem wrote:
It was marketed for the Speccy as an Interface 1 add-on but by the time the +3 came along it had already proven itself horribly unreliable.

A week after they were released for the 48k they proved unreliable :-P

They have to be the most awkward, clunky and slow tape devices ever devised.  They got chewed up a lot aswell.  No, not by the dog :-P

[Vincent]

PMC wrote:
There was a device called the +D (I think!) for the 128K speccys which allowed the fitting of a 3.5" disk drive.  A friend had one for his +2, which made loading games a breeze.

Good memory!

Info page

Advert

Loads a 48k speccy game in 3.5 seconds apparently :-D

I always wanted this though.

@tpg
:lol: I did think about making the homework joke.

[Vincent]

InTheSand wrote:
Me too!!! But IIRC, it required a small loader program to be loaded in from tape before the CD's stuff could be accessed!!!

I didn't know that.  Kinda defeats the purpose then really.

Anyone remember LOAD *"m";1;"program" and other such nice commands??!

I couldn't remember it when I last posted, but I do now!  Kinda simple really when you think about it.

*"m" means microdrive
;1; means the first drive in the chain (that chain can be up to 14 IIRC)
"program" is the prog you want to load and it *must* be specified unlike just Load "" from tape.

@PMC
You might want to take out the "[quote]Vincent wrote:" line in your last post ;-)

And at least the Speccy+, +2 and +3 had Tape Loader where you just pressed enter then started the tape.  Or in 48k/128k mode it'd be Load "".  You didn't need to type the program name at all.  It just loaded the first basic header it could.

There were a few games that used Load "" CODE.  Androids being one of them, no not Android One, just Androids).  Still one of my favourite games to this day.  All in 16k!

[Vincent]

InTheSand wrote:
Sorry to be picky, but this was on the 128, +2 and +3 - the original + didn't have it as this was basically a standard 48K machine in a new case but with the same old ROM.

Whoops, my mistake.  I should've realised that.  There's no point in having a menu on the 48k+ with "48k mode" and "tape loader".  To be picky myself - didn't the +3 just have "loader" as it had the floppy instead?

[Vincent]

InTheSand wrote:

Vincent wrote:
To be picky myself - didn't the +3 just have "loader" as it had the floppy instead?

Yep, you're right! The +3 and +2A/2B both just have "Loader"...

What I meant was the +2a/b has "Tape Loader", but as the +3 has a floppy drive does that have "Disk Loader" or just "Loader"?

Other than that, the menus are identical.

[Vincent]

Ever so slightly off topic...

If you're still nostalgic about Spectrum games, I'd strongly suggest you pick up a copy of The ZX Spectrum Book - 1982 to 199x.

A 256 page book featuring information on 230 Speccy games.  Including a single page of information about each year in general.  It's the size of a 48k and about the same weight aswell.

There's a pdf sample on the page itself for an idea of what it's like.

Oh yeah, the foreword to the book was done by Sir Clive himself!

I've got the book myself and it's just brilliant.  If you can afford the £17.99 + P&P it's well worth it.

Oh, and it was all done by one person, with the exception of getting it printed - that was done professionally.

Only 1000 copies were printed.

Anyways, enough of that advert now...

[Vincent]

I hope the speccy works fine with the modified membrane.  And I hope you get the volume just right when loading the tapes ;-)

I doubt Lemmings was rare on the Speccy.  It was out when there was still a lot of publicity about it on the other formats.

The fact that it was faithfull to the 16 bit versions just with crappier sound and graphics was a major selling point and all the magazines went overboard with getting the message out to the public that it was a great game.

My games (Speccy and everything else).

[Vincent]

ZXAM used to work brilliantly on my A1200 030/25mhz.

Just a pity it doesn't do 128k games though.  Well, it didn't the last time I tried it.