Hi everyone -- a couple points: In all my original testing, I powered the Spectrum off my linear bench power supply. All my issues with it were identical whether I used the bench supply or my new switching PSU. The phone I was using (a Moto G) has no EQ on the audio output nor does it have a Google account that generates any notification sounds. It's a dedicated phone for loading programs onto old micros like this... I made a stereo to mono cable to plugging into the back of the Spectrum. There are different volume settings: in the app, the phone and the amp itself. I tried adjusting all of those to various levels but nothing was working reliably. The audio amp was then powered off my bench supply during that testing and it sounded just fine listening to audio with headphones. (Which is why I tested it first.)
Is the phone's volume at max? I wonder if that is sending too hot of a signal into the headphone amp? I would try 80-90% output. Also maybe try using just the left side or the right side of the output?
Though it shouldn't make much difference, but have you tried using only left or right channel into the computer? Maybe the amp is having trouble connecting the channels?
@@telluridecolorado8918 Maybe a external PC speaker on 1 channel and the ZX on the other, and maybe you can hear a difference between different programs.
Could you burn the audio to a CD-R and use a CD player with a real line output, just to make absolutely sure that the phone/headphone amp signal chain is not a problem?
" I spent 45 minutes trying to load a game on the Spectrum" - congratulations, the initiation ceremony is complete, you are now a fully fledged member of the Spectrum community.
You beat me to it :) It was all about getting an original copy (meaning the first copy of an original game) and your friend's relatively expensive tape deck. I think this chap is having trouble with either the tape files themselves or the speaker/tape audio loading circuit, or a combination of both; but I am far from an expert. (My 48k is languishing on a shelf with an unidentified fault way beyond me, although I assume it is something to do with overheating, of course.)
@@eithan that's certainly my recollection, hours and hours. had a nice cottage industry copying games on my tape to tape stereo, volume set to approx 7.5 :)
Yes, that is an old BS1363 plug; modern ones do have "shrouded pins" - never occurred to me that it might be in case of dropping something behind and shorting live to neutral (unlikely, as the earth pin is always at the top, though I suppose it could happen); I thought it was so you were less likely to touch live pins when removing or inserting the plug! And yes, no way it should have had a 13A BS1362 fuse (sad, I know the British standard numbers!); that - the highest available - would allow 3kW, such as a kettle or electric fire (heater)! [Well, 3kW when we had 240V; we're gradually (it has taken decades so far) moving to 220V, same as the rest of western Europe.] Unfortunately, people (including the people who sell the plugs) tend to put a 13A (brown) in so it'll work with anything. I've seen BS1362 fuses in 1, 3, 5, 10, and 13A, but most shops only carry the 13, 5 (black) and 3 (red). For virtually all eletronic devices, you should have a 3A fuse. I've heard it said that's just to protect the cable (what we call a mains lead and you call a line cord), and the _equipment_ should have its own, lower rating, fuse; that's quite plausible, as even 3A is 660-720 watts! I grew up in Germany, with Schuko plugs (though I never heard them called that while there), so I _do_ tend to think BS1363 plugs are a bit on the large side - but I suppose when the standard was designed, a lot more domestic equipment was kettles, heaters, washing machines, etc., and if they wanted to make one single standard plug, they had to. (Previously, we had "round pin" plugs - basically, much the same design other than the pin shape and they did _not_ have the fuse in them - but they came in three different sizes - 5A, 10A, and 15A. (Plus a 2A one mainly used for lighting that didn't have an earth pin.) One shortcoming of the BS1363 - and of its three-pin predecessors - is that, due to its side cable entry, its default rest position is on its back with its pins up. So what, you may say? Well, just wait until you tread on one with bare feet … (-:
@@G6JPG It's not just that you're worrying about something slipping behind when you go to plug it in, but to keep kids from electrocuting themselves. My brother and I learned our respect for electricity the hard way when we were kids.
@@BlackEpyon If you read to the end of the sentence, you'd have seen I said exactly that! (Granted, you have to click "Read more" to see all the words, but even without, you should have been able to see "I thought …" (-: (Someone else further down the thread also made the same point [specifically that children have smaller fingers].)
@@G6JPG I don't know why, but half the time the "Read More" doesn't show up. Maybe it's just FireFox, or maybe TH-cam borked something up the last time they redid the interface.
Being a kid that grew up in the 80’s in the UK, and owning a Spectrum.. I can assure you games being temperamental and not loading is perfectly normal.. even when they were new 😁
Yep, this is absolutely true. I bought one as soon as it came out, getting the 16K version and upgrading the memory with a kit to 48K. I even bought the microdrive when that finally appeared. I loved it, but man was it trash :)
True, but this is an app that takes pure data files and converts them to sound, so it should be highly consistent. When the volume is set right (and in full airplane mode) it should work pretty much consistently. Not sure, but I suspect his issues may be to do with the use of a 7v supply. Does it need 9v to properly amplify the audio signal in? Another solution is to use a phone with a louder 3.5 jack out, I have noticed when using bigger high importance cans that not all phones produced the same max volume levels. And when maxed out some phones could distort the sound.
Some nerd analog audio :) The digital replaying is exactly consistant, but the program's volume is a variable to whom transferred/captured it to file, and the volume on the source tape. Just like when someone does LP/cassette to wav/mp3; the cassette player volume level, sound card record volume level, and even tape wear fade does cause complete volume inconsistantcies from 'program' to 'program'. I doubt anybody ran a normalization pass conforming to a certain db level on each captured program recording. Imagine a collection of xeroxes, made via a myriad of different copiers across the country. Contrast levels would be all over the place, page to page. Same happens even between album to album with CD's (sometimes even track to track on an CD album), but thats another story alltogether.
@@andrewnorris5415 Because we would copy games back in the eighties on a double cassette hifi, sometimes we had to lower the volume at the point it was crashing, to get it to load. Those files are copies and not an original cassette.
@@andrewnorris5415 Audio distorts badly on mobile phones when at max. I know this because I test it regulary and the audio when amped is awful. I go with what you say, low voltage and maxxed phone volume = bad.
Late to this party, but delighted to see an American praise the UK plug. Most often I hear comments like "why the freak is it so big?". I now live in Canada and really miss the reliable and positive connection and the local replaceable fuse. I don't miss occasionally standing on them when someone leaves them dangling across the floor of a dark room. Obligatory "I had one" - I started my computing career with the ZX80, then ZX81, then several Spectra (and an Amiga 500) before graduating to BBC MIcros, Masters, Archimedes, dreadful PCs and finally my beloved Macs. Remember the Spectrum as a fun platform for noddy games, but the Amiga/BBC Micros were when my teenaged self realized that computers were going to be my life. Thanks for bringing so many of these machines back to life over the years.
Was gonna comment just that. The same is true for any audio output device. Even running my old 160gig ipod through the cars tape deck via a cassette adapter. Would always get far clearer sound when turning down the preamp from the ipod and using the car stereo amp to do the volume boosting. Around the 70 to 80% range on the ipod headphone output would yield good results. The same has applied to any smart phone I've owned.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing, the phone is still too hot for the amp, so back it down. Also might make sure there isn't any EQ being applied to the signal via any phone audio effects settings like bass boost or a audio profile.
I'm with Eggman, had a Speccy when I was 12 years old back in the day. Tape loading was a fine art sometimes. Later on games came on tapes with speed loading which made things even harder, you could hear the difference in the loading sounds as more data was being pushed across it was kind of like the tape was sped up. I remember having an old cassette tape player that reliably loaded games but you had to fiddle with the volume to get the games to load and sometimes they would just fail. It was hard to love the Speccy but I did spend many hours playing classic games like Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy.
In my head, when I see the lines, I can actually hear the noises the Spectrum made. Thank you for sharing this and me reminiscing on how many hours were wasted because the game failed to load. Great memories now, frustrating back when you're a kid.
The person in the Master Bedroom who turns Willy away is Maria, the housekeeper. She will not let him rest before he has collected all the flashing objects from the entire mansion.
Jet Set Willy is more like an existential interactive philosophical magnus opus than a game. It's not necessarily supposed to be fun... Is what I take away from it. I've only played Chuckie Egg though.
Willy got drunk and caused a huge enough mess for Maria to get angry with him, hence why he wakes up in the bathroom at the start. The only chance he has to calm Maria down is to sort out the mess he made. She doesn't take crap from him! :D
Goodbye Sir Clive, may you rest in peace - and thank you so much for giving people like myself the ability to get into computing in a very real fashion.
what an absolute joy it is to watch someone play Jet Set Willy for the first time. Incidentally the Banyan Tree level could not be completed due to bug on first release and the developer released a patch (poke) which essentially meant users had to pirate their own game in order to apply it.
Right, we cannot leave it like that! :) I'll send you some other gadgets to get you a gaming experience. The speccy likes it's original psu. The input voltage is also routed to the edge connector.
@@jaycee1980 Vdrop 2.0 @ 1.0A 25C so he should be good, I suspect his voltage at the plug on the back of the Speccy is better than in his test setup (lots of dodgy test lead losses lol). Does the speccy actually run close to 1A without add-ons?
Maybe backing off the phone volume slightly and then making up for it on the headphone amp? At least with the tape loading errors you got the full authentic experience!
Dear Sir, Thank you for giving this machine so much TLC. I'm currently cleaning and testing my dad's stuff. ZX, QL's and such. I know now why he always came down (from the attic) drunk, mumbling: "it was the volume..."or "I'll get it right next time" =) It is an addictive thing to get it to just... to work. As a kid I tended to neglect him/it. Now I see that, then, it was not plug and play, not plug and pray but; RTFM and don't give up. Highest regards, Mac (And Albert... my dad)
Back when that Spectrum was first used, electrical devices in the UK didn't come with plugs attached. The first job was with anything electrical was to attach a plug, which was usually "borrowed" from something else, because nobody would remember to buy a plug at the same time as the equipment that needed it. So it's possible the Spectrum would've worked with a lower amp fuse, but whatever donated its plug needed 13 amp fuse, and it wasn't swapped.
Not a question of it possibly working. It will work. Your average UK consumer has no idea what the differences are between voltage and current. So much so that I once returned a faulty clock/radio to a shop only to be informed that I had put the wrong 1A fuse in the plug (perfectly adequate for the device since its current draw was ~250mA) instead of what they considered to be the correct 13A fuse. Needless to say I got a replacement once I pointed out to them that the 1A fuse was correct and what is the actual purpose of a fuse. A 3A fuse would be the one to use for a ZX Spectrum. I always added a 1A fuse on the DC side as well for added protection or maybe a bit more if I was plugging in extras to the add-ons port. On another note, the ignorance about electrical safety becomes a real worry when you open a UK plug and find tin foil wrapped around a blown fuse.
When you bought a plug it would have a 13A fuse in it, you had to buy say a 3A fuse separately. Lots of people would not know to buy a lower rates fuse.
Hey Adrain --I started programing and repairing computers about 1979. Christmas 1982, Santa brought me a Timex Sinclair 1000. Though i had been already working on computers for a few years, the TS-1000 seemed like a fun new computer to learn. Quickly at 15 years old, I realized how bad it really was compared to it's rivals of the time. But, It's what my parents could afford, and only 2 other kids in my class had a computer at home. The Sinclair was pretty special to me, it was my first computer. Wish I still had that machine today. Thanks for posting the video.
Loading was always hard-work, even on brand new tapes. Needed a lot of tweaking volume, etc. You get the feel of it eventually. In later games, they used proprietary load mechanism to try to prevent copying, which was really sensitive to get right. Well done Adrian. Loved seeing this again!
I grew up in a time in the UK where wiring plugs was taught at school. This is because the law that requires appliances to be functional out of the box is relatively new. Back in the time, we were taught explicitly about the fuses that go in them and to match them to the requirements of the appliance in question. Of course, no-one ever went and read the packaging/instructions before buying a new fuse, usually because it was lost or thrown away, so they always picked out the one that wouldn't blow up the moment it was installed - the 13A. Also, the British plug is a work of art.
I once had a cheap unshielded headphone jack cable hooked up to a powered speaker that was picking up a random radio station. You threw away the yellow video cable because of the interference you saw on the monitor.. but you never swapped out your unshielded/spliced audio cables from your phone & amplifier while having all your tape loading problems... it’s the same issue, and I’m surprised you stopped short while troubleshooting the problem.
At least you could easily get the Speccy's cable, the BBC one was a total nightmare as you needed a specific one plus a tape machine that had a DIN on it for output, the Atari 400/800 you had to buy their tape machine which was hugely expensive and not very good either.
@@osgeld Correct. And while it would have caused interference, it wasnt subject to the same frequency resonance as the video so the bitrate would have remained unaffected at those frequencies.
I have been watching these videos for an hour and a half now thanks to TH-cam suggestions. I have never heard of anything repaired on this channel but I can't help but love the videos. The music fits the theme perfect and Adrian's just out here in his basement having a great time with some retro tech. You go, Adrian!
I agree with Mr Messy. I pleased someone else appreciates the British plug as much as I do. When I've been abroad I always shake my head at the plugs I come across! The plastic shields on the live and natural pins are to help prevent small fingers touching the prongs when plugging in/out I believe. Great videos Adrian, well done.
When I was remodeling a room in my house a few years ago there was a small open space in a wall that I was enclosing so I put an old iMac in there and dry walled over it. Some day in the future the new owner of the house will rip that wall out and find an ancient computer. :)
Lovely video! Keep up the good work! My thoughts / recommendations: 1.) You should really grab a small Bluetooth module / amp and embed it in the speccy... 2.) For the loading errors -- Check your 7805 and make sure you're actually getting 5v; if you're only getting 4.8, it could exasperate the interference issues... (going lower than 7.5v could cause that!) Also, maybe some shielding on the amp could help? Otherwise the noisy power supply could be to blame... 3.) Not the complaint you were expecting with the power supply, but, I would have put a counterweight in there (sometimes you can find them in wireless mice), just to give it a little more heft. This has a functional benefit, in that, the power supply will stay where you put it, and not be dragged around by the cable.
Thank you very much for this three part video wayback machine to the eighties. It was so amusing remembering those times. I was teenager then and ZX Spectrum turned over my life. I still have it and it was perfectly working last time I tried it out. Other than programmng, I learned to service it too, and earn some pocket money by doing it. All problems you stumbled on are common (shorting out keyboard strips, adding heatsing, reducing power supply voltage, replaceing memory chips...). All those issues were detected and fixed as routine. The very first thing one had to do with the ZX Spectrum was to open power supply and unwind some wire from transformer secondary coil, to lower it's output voltage. As you noticed it vastly reduced heating and minimizes malfunctions later (and XZ Spectrum was capable of working non-stop for days). I understand you had to ditch original power supply as it was not matching primary voltage. About loading programs, you have to hit exact volume level. It must not be too low or too high. But by some use you learn to set it right just by ear. You were lucky to avoid having to deal with adjusting angle of the head in tape player. That was the game! :) I knew some people who deliberately recorded programs with oddly set head just to make it harder to copy. You can do one more customization on your ZX Spectrum - add reset key. That was also very common and considered must to do, to reduce stress on power connectors, cable and electronics. Instead of plugging power off and on to reset computer, you can simply press reset button added to the rear on the case. It makes ZX Spectrum live much longer. There were also mechanical keyboards available for ZX Spectrum, so we used them to avoid gummy keyboard. But gummy keyboard was not hard to use. Mechanical keyboards was more a fashion thing :) And about your remarks comparing C64 and Sinclair ZX Spectrum - C64 was always just an gaming machine. If you wanted to do some serious programming, especially when you get advanced and switch to programming in assembler, Z80 was way more cool to work with :) Actually all people I knew than owned C64 were using then for nothing else but gaming. They knew nothing more than to stick in joysticks and use tape recorder. Machine did not push them to get advanced. Programming documentation was quite lousy. People with ZX Spectrums were doing cool stuff in programming and electronics too :)
Ahh my childhood. I had spectrum 16s 48s and the plus . Funnily enough, having being brought up with the spectrum and playing the Com 64 after, I feel there is a gulf, but the opposite to you. Of course, I was using a tape player and original tapes and later on a microdrive (essentially a high speed tape machine) not variable quality recordings but the speed of the load meant so much back in the day. Thank you for bringing back some good memories :)
Speccy owner here. When I started programming I've found the cursor types and key combinations very handy, in fact, when later I managed to get a 128k model that includes a type-by-letter more traditional prompt, I strongly preferred the 48k mode, because it allowed me to program quickly and with less typos.
When you bought electronics in the UK back then, you didn't get supplied with the plug, so you went out and bought one at the hardware store. Fuses typically came pre-fitted, with 13A as the most common (works with everything, right?!). People either didn't seek out a plug fitted with the correct fuse, bother to swap it, or simply didn't know. Also because you didn't get a plug, it was very common to keep them when you disposed of an old appliance, so often an old one was pulled out of a kitchen drawer and re-used, meaning those older un-sleeved live and neutral pin plugs remaining in use well after the standard changed in 1984. Later (Early 90's?) it became law to have the plug (and so correct fuse) pre-installed on new appliances.
Of course the prime reason one was not supplied with the plug was that some houses STILL had round pin plugs. You can still buy round pin plugs and sockets! However their use is supposed to only be for fixed low current appliances, like lamps. So I'm told. Not sure where this is stated in writing, I guess someone can go look it up ... :D Round pin plugs were unfused. The fuses were brought in to avoid an appliance fault dragging down the entire ring. Yes in the UK plugs were - and still are - wired in a ring, rather than a string like other countries do. This was to save on copper after the war. You could run thinner copper for the same number of sockets in a ring versus a string (or, radial...) circuit. Because you have 2 parallel current paths I guess. Where's bigclivedotcom to explain this better when you need him? ;)
It was so fun to watch someone play Jet Set Willy for the first time. It's a game every 80's Spectrum owner knew so well. My 1980s seemed to be filled with "R Tape Loading Error" - the Spectrum was super finicky. Lots of messing around with the cassette volume control. But I never had to put anything into Airplane mode to fix it!
Back in the day we used cheap mono tape players with an 8ohm output from the earphone socket, so it was natrally a much louder signal into the computer, but i've heard folks say using stereo can can cause load errors
You are correct about the plug and it's fuse. Newer BS1363 plugs have to have the sleeving on the pins, this is mostly so that you cannot touch live contacts on a partially inserted plug. The fuse should also have been a 3A fuse - but until quite recently, UK plugs came with a 13A fuse included as standard, and many people simply didn't bother to put the correct fuse in!
Glad to see (via the comments) that you're going to give it another go with a cassette deck. One thing that comes to mind having using a similar amp connected to various portable audio devices was that the headphone cable leading into the amp picked up a lot of interference from lighting drivers, motors, and power supplies in the same building. Without anything playing and the amp volume over about half, I could hear tons of buzzing and squealing in my headphones. I ended up finding a shielded headphone cable in my spaghetti bin and it made a huge difference.
I remember spending five minutes waiting for a game to load only for it to crap out. I also remember the horrible noise of a cassette player chewing up a tape. I had several tape players, but the one that was the best at loading from also had a bad habit of chewing tapes now and then. You also learned to play with the tape head azimuth. Some programs I had bought came on tapes that had been recorded with very strange azimuth, so I tended to keep a jeweler's screwdriver with the tape decks, adjusting the head anytime a tape sounded muffled. Unfortunately there's not much you can do about that loading from an app like you do. I'm a bit confused about the sound levels though. Listening to the stream through that little speaker was how I adjusted the volume and if necessary the azimuth. In your video that is hardly audible. I'm not sure if that's because the volume is low or if it's a problem with the input on the machine. Could also be that I've simply forgotten what sound level to expect. It's been a long time since I had the Speccy up and running. I think I know where it is though. And I think I have something like four boxes of printer paper for the ZX printer...
ahaha... tuning the azimuth based on the tone of the program loading... oh the memories that brings! lol... having fun took effort in the good ol' days gosh darn it! ;)
I was born in the UK and my first computer was a ZX Spectrum. My memories of the spectrum came flooding back when watching your video. Yes the tape loading was very, very tempramental. We had 3 or 4 nice tape machines in our house but the spectrum would only load from a horrible cheap cassette recorder set to 3/4 volume. It didn't have any tone or other controls and the sound quality was really naff, but this was the one the spectrum loved..... My brother had a very nice Sony tape deck with equaliser and VU meters and untold extra buttons......Nope! Not a thing would load from that. My Dad's stereo had a super tape deck with all sorts of extra settings and dolby noise reduction.......No! The cheap unbranded mono tape recorder worked great! Nothing else would work.
Interferences aside, those are all audio files and I suppose most of them are direct rips from audio cassettes, this means they are affected by volume levels when recorded and tape deck quality Edit: oh I didn't see the end yet, ok that can be something wrong on the zx
Crazy watching someone play Jet Set Willy for the first time...! 36 years after I first played it... You have very good taste and bravo for persevering with it... It's a very temporamental machine but an absolute classic 👍🏻
It certainly was; my worst experience was with a cover tape from a magazine which had an adventure game on it (my favorite kind of game) but when i tried to load it in, the troubles began. It turned out that I had to adjust the azimuth ever so slightly between loading the tape header and loading the actual data block. It genuinely took me an entire night to get all the bits loaded in, but when i finally succeeded, I quickly saved the game to my +3's disk drive. When I finally got to play the game it only had nine locations! Bit of a disappointment that was. ;)
@@BertGrink Oh yes I remember them magazine tapes, you had to hope the shop hadn't stacked 'em near a telephone or drinks fridge cos them tapes were wiped clean, I once did a game for one of the mags a simple 3d maze type thingy, you had to type it in from the magazine as it was too crappy for the cover tape lol
Many moons since my spectrum days but I do recall writing volume levels in my game tape cases as they were so pedantic loading. One of the great frustrations of the 80’s youth!
I BET KNOW WHATS WRONG!! Somewhere around the basement there’s a C64 running without an RF shield interfering with the audio and video. Sorry couldn’t resist!
Ahh, the days of R-Tape Loading Errors occurring when my Mum used to walk into my room when loading a game on my old speccy. Kids just don't realise how easy things are today! ;)
I actually remember the Fine Bros having a KIDS REACT TO TEH OLD GHEYMES video featuring the rather British Maisie Williams... and the old games was a NES. I actually thought "Wouldn't loading games from tape onto a ZX Spectrum have been more authentic for Arya "This Bitch *CAN* Get The Cap OFF" Stark?"
Its obvious. Blue is cold so brown is hot. The stupid US colours are what are confusing. Black is negative/ground for DC so it should not be used as live/hot for mains AC.
The loading of games is an art more than a science. I can remember spending many an hour trying to get software to load. In the end I used a portable music system that had an equalizer and I got very proficient at being able to play with the different levels of the equalizer, so much so that I could "hear" the playback and know if it would load or not before I tried. I usually managed to get the games to load first time. If I remember correctly I found 3.5kHz was the main level I had to play with to get the best results. So many fond memories.
I had this years back when it didn't matter what medium I used to load, it error'd all the time and I found it was a dirty connection on the Spectrum side of the input jack, think it was a dry joint but enough to create interference that caused a tape error on load. Also there is little EM and RF protection in that little box, when my mum had her tumble dryer on downstairs it made the telly go funny and crash the Speccy (early eighties when shielded sources was unheard of). Lets be honest though, the squishboard Spectrum was like its older brothers, a bloody unreliable machine fraught with many issues, I cut my teeth on the ancient ZX80 bought in kit form before it became a big thing and man that thing would burn the carpet, melt the ram packs plastic and once blew the fusebox out when the power supply shorted, the ZX81 was massively better and in its turn the Spectrum better still but the best were the +3's with the floppy drives built in and super reliable as strides had been made in power delivery and electronic manufacturing.
The loading issues you had is representative of what it was like back in day, . Waiting 5 mins + for something to load and then for it to fail is part of the fun. LOL
Man, I really miss being a computer enthusiast during the 8 bit days. Computers seemed so fun back then. Everything was a learning experience and every year technology seemed to absolutely leap forward. Loved this series on your ZX Spectrum.
I still use Cassette Tapes on occasion, the Tone has a big effect on loading, not just the volume, also elecrtrical things interfere with Speccys, hoovers, microwaves and the like.
You are right about the tone control; in my experience it's best to put it in the position with the most amount of treble so as to let the high frequencies pass through without any attenuation.
Yeah my mum had in the late 70's a tumble dryer and ye gods it pumped out tons of dirty signal that made the telly go funny and good luck trying to play on your Sinclair, surprisingly it didn't affect the Atari 400 we had which had an all metal chassis inside the plastic. Old telephones were dirty emitters, putting a tape cassette next to an old dialler fone would erase it quicker than anything, fridge motors too were a pain in the rear too come to think of it.
Ian Watson I put my iPad on a pile of Commodore 64 disks the other day, and put my very good wireless headphones on top...... and promptly erased them. They make it all the way to 2020 intact, and a seasoned C=64 owner from the 80’s erases them with an iPad 7 21st century tech that is essentially a computer in a slab of glass to watch a tutorial on how to copy disks to SD Card using a Final Cartridge I just bought and have wanted since I was like 7. At 43, I’m going to have the computer of my dreams dammit, note to self... Data used to be stored magnetically in plastic sheets, not 1” square wafers of silicon.
I restored my Issue 2 Spectrum in much the same way as you did and also had the same game loading issues. The "R Tape Loading Error" messages were common back in the 1980s especially when trying to load copied tapes, so I am glad that you got to experience some of this nostalgia for yourself!! The way that I finally got reliable loading was to use a rooted Samsung Galaxy S5 and I may or may not have made an Android system config change to allow the volume to be boosted (I don't remember). The volume is turned up to max. I also use a stereo cable and in PlayZX I've enabled Stereo, plus "Invert one stereo channel".
I used to fix these when I was a nipper (15/16 years old, part time in a computer shop). Worst case was one some kid had plugged a generic power supply into the mic socket. Burnt a hole through the ULA and the board. His dad casually mentioned blue smoke coming out of it. One cat's cradle of wire later, and I got that thing back up and running! The membranes were always a pain - they used to get stress fractures across the tracks. Great job with bringing it back to a really nice condition.
Most people in the US say "Zed-ex Spectrum" too; but having seen it only in writing growing up, and being a phonetic reader, I still say "ZX Spectrum" ("Zee-ecks Spectrum") sometimes. Hate me if you want, but it's how I think of it.
I suspect you've got a ground loop between the ground of the amplifier and the spectrum due to the crappy switching supplies powering both of them floating relative to mains earth. Put a simple $3 ground loop isolation transformer between them and the interference will be gone.
The interference might go away for more than one reason then, limited frequency response of a crappy phone/audio isolation transformer is of advantage.
@@BrainSlugs83 except Bluetooth is the most interference inducing wireless protocol on the planet, it cuts through everything. Average tx power over time is low but it's mostly a lot of waiting and then powerful chirps at changing frequencies. It's vicious when used near RF sensitive equipment.
When you bought a plug in the UK (and you had to - because appliances didn't come with a plug on as standard), it would invariably come with a 13A fuse, because they didn't know what would be run through it. You were meant to swap it out for a lower ampage fuse, but of course no one ever did.
This is exactly the experience I remember in my friend Robs house trying to load games. Each game had notes about what volume to have the TV set to and so on. Most times it would crap out and only load on the 3rd or 4th attempt. Ah the memories.
but what on earth is with the over sided pins. they are thicker than the cable its self. to me its just overly huge for no reason. i like the idea of the fuse and plastic covering the pins.. but that dosent resovle the share size of the plug that isnt needed.
@@writer8706 That's because of the way UK power systems were designed, In their system, the plug has a fuse in it that is intended to set the safety limit for the device it is attached to. The same plug has to be able to handle all the way up to 13 amps at 240 volts - which is double the wattage a US "two prong" plug can be expected to carry. Since the fuse is in the plug side of the circuit, the prongs and conductors in the plug and socket have to be large enough to handle all that current even if the fuse is a measly 1 amp fuse. It's OK to have too-large conductors (you could use car jumper cables to connect a 2302 battery to a memory-backup circuit if you wanted!) but you have too-small conductors (no using CAT-5 to jump start your car!)
@@RickTheGeek This was a hack in the first place because of the stupid ring main idea designed to save copper during the war. I don't know why everyone loves the ridiculously oversized UK plug so much. It's really not that great.
mrb5217 I never said I liked it! Lol! (And I’m in the USA so I have sane sized electric plugs! Although I do like the uk system of having an on-off switch at each plug.) 😀
Glad to hear the first American to call it by its real name, ZED X instead of ZEE that most call it! Best thing to use is a tablet rather than a phone. Volume is far more clearer! I have the full collection of Spectrum computers and they all run fine this way!
When you buy a UK mains plug, it's automatically supplied with a 13a fuse. That's the highest amperage fuse you can get and good for around 3KW. A 3amp fuse would have a been choice.
US circuit breakers are rated for half that 1.8kW with appliances allowed up to 1.5kW. Usually each room has its own circuit/spur. Most homes are wired with 20A breakers over lower gauge wire but 20A appliances have a different plugs.
13A was about the tolerance from spikes and lightning strikes near power cables, sometimes the chaps balancing the power boards at the local power station did get it wrong and bang went the fuses in people's houses then tripped the breaker at the substation. Back then you had two or three fuses in your fusebox, one for plugs, one for lights and one for cooker if you had electric cooker and none of this RCD as you had to have a torch to find the fusewire, then the screwdriver, then yank the fuse, cursing profusely all the way.
I enjoyed these Speccy videos more than I should have. It takes me back to when I was a kid messing with different cassette players trying to get games to work. There was nothing better than getting a C90 cassette tape off a mate and having no idea what game were on there. Good days.
I think your problems originate from the 'noisy' switching supply you have made. I suggest you try to listen to the tape output from the spectrum to see if there is some noise on the audio side.
I’m like dude, you have a sweet oscilloscope right there! Plug it in and have a look to see if the phone is clipping the audio, and if you are just amplifying they clipping. Lower the phone audio and pump up the amp. Look at it on the scope. You could also try dedicated playback devices like actual tapes.
I was thinking that, I've had lots of video / audio trouble with cheap Chinese switching power supplies on various consoles, I learnt to use old linear PSUs all the time
During the 1960s (maybe earlier) to the 1990s, most appliances in the UK were sold without a plug attached - just the bare wires. The customer was expected to install the plug themselves - and select the appropriate size of fuse. We used to get taught how to do that in high school. But the previous owner of that Spectrum obviously followed the fairly common practice of always just using the biggest fuse available. Suffice to say electrical fires decreased dramatically after appliances started being sold with molded plugs installed from the factory. P.S. I'm late to the show, but loving it.
Both computers were ICONS of my generation. I did have a C64 and a VIC-20, but some friends had the SPECTRUM and always it was a pleasure to try other games in different platforms.
A good power supply I have found to work well is a 9v label printer power supply. Makes sure it's centre negative but most label printer ones are. Dymo label printers use these supplies. Found easily on Amazon
Was my first computer circa 1986 in...Argentina. Here, there weren't the original ZX Spectrum but we have a licensed version from Sinclair named "CZ Spectrum" made by a local company. It was the same machine as the ZX but (I believe) with local components. They worked pretty well at that time. However, the Commodore 64 entered in the market quite fast at that time and eclipsed the CZ Spectrums too fast. Nevertheless, I kept a lot of memories and good moments from that beauty. Great videos Adrian!! Thank you! (and thumbs up to Peter for sending you the membrane, the case and the keyboard panel!)
Exactly. DivIDE/divMMC will make loading anything a much better experience... provided your speccy plays with it. I have two and only one works with it... sometimes.
Wow, good timing. I’ve only been watching your videos for a few days and I really love your approach to making these videos. Down to earth, clarity, enthusiasm, patience - so much better than much of the content on here these days. After just finishing the previous Spectrum video from 11 months ago I’m now here within a couple of hours of your new one. Anyway, pleas keep up the good work. I’m living my skilled computer hardware enthusiasts dream vicariously through you. Thanks! P.S. I’m a 46 year old Brit who played with these the first time around. If you want some wow factor try running Elite on one of those BBC Micros you picked up in London.
@@Pico_Farad Blue is neutral. The neutral is connected to earth/ground(in a single phase residential install). In a good installation neutral and earth have the same electrical potential. The only time the neutral is 'hot' is when some idiot installs it wrong.
Just because you have a 3D printer doesn't mean you should waste filament on every little project that comes your way. The cable tie is a simple and elegant solution here. Well done.
@@DxDeksor I know, the C64 RF shields were a bit pf paper with tinfoil on them (neither use nor ornament) and the Deladly Serious comment.. well, y'know, I was being flippant.
@@GeoNeilUK I have a NTSC Spectrum and it does have top and bottom shielding (as well as an extra coil, different ULA, different crystal and Ch2/Ch3 switch) beta.collectorsbridge.com/collections/sinclair-computers-and-clones/article/sinclair-zx-spectrum-ntsc
I love watching these video's. The fact your doing international computers (especially the UK ones)rather than just US ones, is great to see :) Especially love the enthusiasm of if it does not work, try again. Never owned a Speccy though, could never master the iffy keys/shortcuts on my friends machine. Nearly 2 years out of date watching this, but slowly catching up.
As someone who grew up here in the UK in the eighties, I can tell you the best fix for a ZX Spectrum is to pick it up carefully, walk over to the corner of your room and drop it in the bin.
I have something called a Timex Sinclair 1000 that looks pretty similar (read-shoddy) - I've been trying to get it going with limited success. Perhaps I shall adopt your ZX Spectrum method.
Ex Pro A/V designer/installer here. We never used pre-terminated RCA cables for anything, instead we terminated RG6 shielded cables for any analogue video we ran regardless of length. We used either compression RCA connectors, or sometimes BNC connectors. This side stepped so many analogue video issues. So I am not surprised at all that the crappy unshielded cable gave you so much noise on display.
Hi. I am a child of the Spectrum era. I found using a graphic equalizer to take all the bass frequencies down and boost the treble made loading a lot less problematic. The spectrum loading is an art form regardless of machine types. Love your restoration of such an iconic computer.
Adrian, it's great to see you've had a real taste of using the ZX Spectrum with all that entails in terms of games not loading. I had a ZX Spectrum in the 80's and I spent a lot of time fiddling with the cassette tape head position trying to get games to load. Very frustrating, but a brilliant little computer for it's time. Loved the ZX Spectrum series, keep up the great videos.
Back when the Spectrum was for sale, it was common for electrical equipment in the UK to not be supplied with a fitted plug, so people would fit them themselves. Plugs were typically sold with the maximum fuse rating, which was 13A. I used to work for a shop helping delivery electrical equipment such as TVs and video recorders back then, and we would always have to fit a plug, with the correctly rated fuse of course.
Yes the usability does require a lot more effort and patience but when these arrived on the market they and the earlier ZX81 were all I could afford. These things made computing accessible to the us struggling working class kids.
Hi everyone -- a couple points: In all my original testing, I powered the Spectrum off my linear bench power supply. All my issues with it were identical whether I used the bench supply or my new switching PSU. The phone I was using (a Moto G) has no EQ on the audio output nor does it have a Google account that generates any notification sounds. It's a dedicated phone for loading programs onto old micros like this... I made a stereo to mono cable to plugging into the back of the Spectrum. There are different volume settings: in the app, the phone and the amp itself. I tried adjusting all of those to various levels but nothing was working reliably. The audio amp was then powered off my bench supply during that testing and it sounded just fine listening to audio with headphones. (Which is why I tested it first.)
Have you tried shielding the audio cable from the phone to the Speccy?
Is the phone's volume at max? I wonder if that is sending too hot of a signal into the headphone amp? I would try 80-90% output. Also maybe try using just the left side or the right side of the output?
Though it shouldn't make much difference, but have you tried using only left or right channel into the computer? Maybe the amp is having trouble connecting the channels?
@@telluridecolorado8918 Maybe a external PC speaker on 1 channel and the ZX on the other, and maybe you can hear a difference between different programs.
Could you burn the audio to a CD-R and use a CD player with a real line output, just to make absolutely sure that the phone/headphone amp signal chain is not a problem?
" I spent 45 minutes trying to load a game on the Spectrum" - congratulations, the initiation ceremony is complete, you are now a fully fledged member of the Spectrum community.
lol. i remember we used to tweak the volume and the tone on the cassette player for hours just to load a single game, bring such great memories :)
You beat me to it :) It was all about getting an original copy (meaning the first copy of an original game) and your friend's relatively expensive tape deck. I think this chap is having trouble with either the tape files themselves or the speaker/tape audio loading circuit, or a combination of both; but I am far from an expert. (My 48k is languishing on a shelf with an unidentified fault way beyond me, although I assume it is something to do with overheating, of course.)
@@eithan that's certainly my recollection, hours and hours.
had a nice cottage industry copying games on my tape to tape stereo, volume set to approx 7.5 :)
it would probably still give load errors if you hooked it up to a cd player instead of a tape deck. :P
Oh you lucky lucky bastard. Oh bugger, just had a ZX81 RAM pack wobble flash back. *shiver*
The digital basement drinking game. Take a shot whenever the deoxit comes out.
Instructions unclear. Had to contact poison control.
What about underage people?
I don’t like the taste.
Hahahaha, drunk in 4 minutes...
@@stefanpn Pozdrav, balkancu :D
Yay, an American who appreciates the glory of the British plug instead of just complaining that it's too big!
I've watched enough of Big Clive's videos to appreciate the thought that went into the UK plug.
Yes, that is an old BS1363 plug; modern ones do have "shrouded pins" - never occurred to me that it might be in case of dropping something behind and shorting live to neutral (unlikely, as the earth pin is always at the top, though I suppose it could happen); I thought it was so you were less likely to touch live pins when removing or inserting the plug!
And yes, no way it should have had a 13A BS1362 fuse (sad, I know the British standard numbers!); that - the highest available - would allow 3kW, such as a kettle or electric fire (heater)! [Well, 3kW when we had 240V; we're gradually (it has taken decades so far) moving to 220V, same as the rest of western Europe.] Unfortunately, people (including the people who sell the plugs) tend to put a 13A (brown) in so it'll work with anything. I've seen BS1362 fuses in 1, 3, 5, 10, and 13A, but most shops only carry the 13, 5 (black) and 3 (red). For virtually all eletronic devices, you should have a 3A fuse. I've heard it said that's just to protect the cable (what we call a mains lead and you call a line cord), and the _equipment_ should have its own, lower rating, fuse; that's quite plausible, as even 3A is 660-720 watts!
I grew up in Germany, with Schuko plugs (though I never heard them called that while there), so I _do_ tend to think BS1363 plugs are a bit on the large side - but I suppose when the standard was designed, a lot more domestic equipment was kettles, heaters, washing machines, etc., and if they wanted to make one single standard plug, they had to. (Previously, we had "round pin" plugs - basically, much the same design other than the pin shape and they did _not_ have the fuse in them - but they came in three different sizes - 5A, 10A, and 15A. (Plus a 2A one mainly used for lighting that didn't have an earth pin.)
One shortcoming of the BS1363 - and of its three-pin predecessors - is that, due to its side cable entry, its default rest position is on its back with its pins up. So what, you may say? Well, just wait until you tread on one with bare feet … (-:
@@G6JPG It's not just that you're worrying about something slipping behind when you go to plug it in, but to keep kids from electrocuting themselves. My brother and I learned our respect for electricity the hard way when we were kids.
@@BlackEpyon If you read to the end of the sentence, you'd have seen I said exactly that! (Granted, you have to click "Read more" to see all the words, but even without, you should have been able to see "I thought …" (-:
(Someone else further down the thread also made the same point [specifically that children have smaller fingers].)
@@G6JPG I don't know why, but half the time the "Read More" doesn't show up. Maybe it's just FireFox, or maybe TH-cam borked something up the last time they redid the interface.
Being a kid that grew up in the 80’s in the UK, and owning a Spectrum.. I can assure you games being temperamental and not loading is perfectly normal.. even when they were new 😁
Same said for the c64 lol 20 mins getting hypnotised then nothing lol. Still love the sound of fax machines it reminds me of the good old days.
True
Yep, this is absolutely true. I bought one as soon as it came out, getting the 16K version and upgrading the memory with a kit to 48K. I even bought the microdrive when that finally appeared. I loved it, but man was it trash :)
That’s not complete true, most of them are produced in Portugal timex
I remember having notes on my tapes that said "Volume 3" or "Volume 6" etc. I think that is just authentic per-game experience!
True, but this is an app that takes pure data files and converts them to sound, so it should be highly consistent. When the volume is set right (and in full airplane mode) it should work pretty much consistently. Not sure, but I suspect his issues may be to do with the use of a 7v supply. Does it need 9v to properly amplify the audio signal in? Another solution is to use a phone with a louder 3.5 jack out, I have noticed when using bigger high importance cans that not all phones produced the same max volume levels. And when maxed out some phones could distort the sound.
Had same on my bbc cassette. Needs full volume . Set volume to 3.5 etc
Some nerd analog audio :)
The digital replaying is exactly consistant, but the program's volume is a variable to whom transferred/captured it to file, and the volume on the source tape. Just like when someone does LP/cassette to wav/mp3; the cassette player volume level, sound card record volume level, and even tape wear fade does cause complete volume inconsistantcies from 'program' to 'program'. I doubt anybody ran a normalization pass conforming to a certain db level on each captured program recording.
Imagine a collection of xeroxes, made via a myriad of different copiers across the country. Contrast levels would be all over the place, page to page.
Same happens even between album to album with CD's (sometimes even track to track on an CD album), but thats another story alltogether.
@@andrewnorris5415 Because we would copy games back in the eighties on a double cassette hifi, sometimes we had to lower the volume at the point it was crashing, to get it to load. Those files are copies and not an original cassette.
@@andrewnorris5415 Audio distorts badly on mobile phones when at max. I know this because I test it regulary and the audio when amped is awful.
I go with what you say, low voltage and maxxed phone volume = bad.
Late to this party, but delighted to see an American praise the UK plug. Most often I hear comments like "why the freak is it so big?". I now live in Canada and really miss the reliable and positive connection and the local replaceable fuse. I don't miss occasionally standing on them when someone leaves them dangling across the floor of a dark room.
Obligatory "I had one" - I started my computing career with the ZX80, then ZX81, then several Spectra (and an Amiga 500) before graduating to BBC MIcros, Masters, Archimedes, dreadful PCs and finally my beloved Macs. Remember the Spectrum as a fun platform for noddy games, but the Amiga/BBC Micros were when my teenaged self realized that computers were going to be my life. Thanks for bringing so many of these machines back to life over the years.
Backoff on the phone volume and compensate using the amp...It was a skilled art back in the day ..uk specy owner here..
Was gonna comment just that. The same is true for any audio output device. Even running my old 160gig ipod through the cars tape deck via a cassette adapter. Would always get far clearer sound when turning down the preamp from the ipod and using the car stereo amp to do the volume boosting. Around the 70 to 80% range on the ipod headphone output would yield good results. The same has applied to any smart phone I've owned.
Yeah I was thinking the same thing, the phone is still too hot for the amp, so back it down. Also might make sure there isn't any EQ being applied to the signal via any phone audio effects settings like bass boost or a audio profile.
Especially when the tape was a copy.
I'm with Eggman, had a Speccy when I was 12 years old back in the day. Tape loading was a fine art sometimes. Later on games came on tapes with speed loading which made things even harder, you could hear the difference in the loading sounds as more data was being pushed across it was kind of like the tape was sped up. I remember having an old cassette tape player that reliably loaded games but you had to fiddle with the volume to get the games to load and sometimes they would just fail. It was hard to love the Speccy but I did spend many hours playing classic games like Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy.
@@savvygadgetz agreed you learned/knew the pitch of the sound you was listening for..
In my head, when I see the lines, I can actually hear the noises the Spectrum made. Thank you for sharing this and me reminiscing on how many hours were wasted because the game failed to load. Great memories now, frustrating back when you're a kid.
This is quickly becoming one of my favorite channels.
Can't tell you how much I'm smiling seeing a speccy being enjoyed over in the US. Keep up the great work
The person in the Master Bedroom who turns Willy away is Maria, the housekeeper. She will not let him rest before he has collected all the flashing objects from the entire mansion.
Jet Set Willy is more like an existential interactive philosophical magnus opus than a game. It's not necessarily supposed to be fun... Is what I take away from it. I've only played Chuckie Egg though.
Willy got drunk and caused a huge enough mess for Maria to get angry with him, hence why he wakes up in the bathroom at the start. The only chance he has to calm Maria down is to sort out the mess he made. She doesn't take crap from him! :D
Doh! Now you tell me..
Goodbye Sir Clive, may you rest in peace - and thank you so much for giving people like myself the ability to get into computing in a very real fashion.
what an absolute joy it is to watch someone play Jet Set Willy for the first time.
Incidentally the Banyan Tree level could not be completed due to bug on first release and the developer released a patch (poke) which essentially meant users had to pirate their own game in order to apply it.
I new it!!! DWTF . . . %(&£^(£$^*)£$*^)$£!!!!!
Lightening! Should be in there too, cant find it on the keyboard!
Wasn't that the Attic Bug?
Right, we cannot leave it like that! :) I'll send you some other gadgets to get you a gaming experience. The speccy likes it's original psu. The input voltage is also routed to the edge connector.
I suspect 7.5v is a bit low too, thats right on the edge of the dropout voltage for the 7805.
@@jaycee1980 Vdrop 2.0 @ 1.0A 25C so he should be good, I suspect his voltage at the plug on the back of the Speccy is better than in his test setup (lots of dodgy test lead losses lol). Does the speccy actually run close to 1A without add-ons?
What were you going to send him? Can I have them too? :P
Can't you swap out the regulator to a modern one and then you don't even need the heat-sink and the whole machine runs a lot cooler/better?
You're certainly having the authentic '80s experience.
Indeed. Smartphones were all the rage back then.
Maybe backing off the phone volume slightly and then making up for it on the headphone amp? At least with the tape loading errors you got the full authentic experience!
This
Clicked like as soon as the video started because the ZX Spectrum is my favourite 8-Bit computer.
I used to play Daley Thompson's Decathlon on my speccy back in the day and bent the metal keyboard cover around the 'Z' and 'X' buttons!
GAWD I remember that!
150+ meters javelin throws gave good points iirc :)
Dear Sir,
Thank you for giving this machine so much TLC.
I'm currently cleaning and testing my dad's stuff. ZX, QL's and such.
I know now why he always came down (from the attic) drunk, mumbling: "it was the volume..."or "I'll get it right next time" =)
It is an addictive thing to get it to just... to work.
As a kid I tended to neglect him/it. Now I see that, then, it was not plug and play, not plug and pray but; RTFM and don't give up.
Highest regards, Mac (And Albert... my dad)
Back when that Spectrum was first used, electrical devices in the UK didn't come with plugs attached.
The first job was with anything electrical was to attach a plug, which was usually "borrowed" from something else, because nobody would remember to buy a plug at the same time as the equipment that needed it. So it's possible the Spectrum would've worked with a lower amp fuse, but whatever donated its plug needed 13 amp fuse, and it wasn't swapped.
Not a question of it possibly working. It will work. Your average UK consumer has no idea what the differences are between voltage and current. So much so that I once returned a faulty clock/radio to a shop only to be informed that I had put the wrong 1A fuse in the plug (perfectly adequate for the device since its current draw was ~250mA) instead of what they considered to be the correct 13A fuse. Needless to say I got a replacement once I pointed out to them that the 1A fuse was correct and what is the actual purpose of a fuse. A 3A fuse would be the one to use for a ZX Spectrum. I always added a 1A fuse on the DC side as well for added protection or maybe a bit more if I was plugging in extras to the add-ons port.
On another note, the ignorance about electrical safety becomes a real worry when you open a UK plug and find tin foil wrapped around a blown fuse.
When you bought a plug it would have a 13A fuse in it, you had to buy say a 3A fuse separately. Lots of people would not know to buy a lower rates fuse.
Hey Adrain --I started programing and repairing computers about 1979. Christmas 1982, Santa brought me a Timex Sinclair 1000. Though i had been already working on computers for a few years, the TS-1000 seemed like a fun new computer to learn. Quickly at 15 years old, I realized how bad it really was compared to it's rivals of the time. But, It's what my parents could afford, and only 2 other kids in my class had a computer at home.
The Sinclair was pretty special to me, it was my first computer. Wish I still had that machine today. Thanks for posting the video.
Loading was always hard-work, even on brand new tapes. Needed a lot of tweaking volume, etc. You get the feel of it eventually. In later games, they used proprietary load mechanism to try to prevent copying, which was really sensitive to get right. Well done Adrian. Loved seeing this again!
I grew up in a time in the UK where wiring plugs was taught at school. This is because the law that requires appliances to be functional out of the box is relatively new. Back in the time, we were taught explicitly about the fuses that go in them and to match them to the requirements of the appliance in question.
Of course, no-one ever went and read the packaging/instructions before buying a new fuse, usually because it was lost or thrown away, so they always picked out the one that wouldn't blow up the moment it was installed - the 13A.
Also, the British plug is a work of art.
I once had a cheap unshielded headphone jack cable hooked up to a powered speaker that was picking up a random radio station. You threw away the yellow video cable because of the interference you saw on the monitor.. but you never swapped out your unshielded/spliced audio cables from your phone & amplifier while having all your tape loading problems... it’s the same issue, and I’m surprised you stopped short while troubleshooting the problem.
That was my exact thought re the game load issue!
At least you could easily get the Speccy's cable, the BBC one was a total nightmare as you needed a specific one plus a tape machine that had a DIN on it for output, the Atari 400/800 you had to buy their tape machine which was hugely expensive and not very good either.
yea but the audio isnt running in the megaherz bandwidth
@@osgeld Correct. And while it would have caused interference, it wasnt subject to the same frequency resonance as the video so the bitrate would have remained unaffected at those frequencies.
Hi from the UK , glad you like our plugs, a 13 amp fuse comes fitted as standard and we've all played jet set Willy
I have been watching these videos for an hour and a half now thanks to TH-cam suggestions. I have never heard of anything repaired on this channel but I can't help but love the videos. The music fits the theme perfect and Adrian's just out here in his basement having a great time with some retro tech. You go, Adrian!
I agree with Mr Messy. I pleased someone else appreciates the British plug as much as I do. When I've been abroad I always shake my head at the plugs I come across! The plastic shields on the live and natural pins are to help prevent small fingers touching the prongs when plugging in/out I believe. Great videos Adrian, well done.
When I was remodeling a room in my house a few years ago there was a small open space in a wall that I was enclosing so I put an old iMac in there and dry walled over it. Some day in the future the new owner of the house will rip that wall out and find an ancient computer. :)
Please provide exact address and wall coordinates? :D
I don't know how, but I feel grateful by the new face cover of ZX Spectrum
Lovely video! Keep up the good work! My thoughts / recommendations:
1.) You should really grab a small Bluetooth module / amp and embed it in the speccy...
2.) For the loading errors -- Check your 7805 and make sure you're actually getting 5v; if you're only getting 4.8, it could exasperate the interference issues... (going lower than 7.5v could cause that!) Also, maybe some shielding on the amp could help? Otherwise the noisy power supply could be to blame...
3.) Not the complaint you were expecting with the power supply, but, I would have put a counterweight in there (sometimes you can find them in wireless mice), just to give it a little more heft. This has a functional benefit, in that, the power supply will stay where you put it, and not be dragged around by the cable.
Thank you very much for this three part video wayback machine to the eighties. It was so amusing remembering those times.
I was teenager then and ZX Spectrum turned over my life. I still have it and it was perfectly working last time I tried it out.
Other than programmng, I learned to service it too, and earn some pocket money by doing it. All problems you stumbled on are common (shorting out keyboard strips, adding heatsing, reducing power supply voltage, replaceing memory chips...). All those issues were detected and fixed as routine.
The very first thing one had to do with the ZX Spectrum was to open power supply and unwind some wire from transformer secondary coil, to lower it's output voltage. As you noticed it vastly reduced heating and minimizes malfunctions later (and XZ Spectrum was capable of working non-stop for days). I understand you had to ditch original power supply as it was not matching primary voltage.
About loading programs, you have to hit exact volume level. It must not be too low or too high. But by some use you learn to set it right just by ear. You were lucky to avoid having to deal with adjusting angle of the head in tape player. That was the game! :) I knew some people who deliberately recorded programs with oddly set head just to make it harder to copy.
You can do one more customization on your ZX Spectrum - add reset key. That was also very common and considered must to do, to reduce stress on power connectors, cable and electronics. Instead of plugging power off and on to reset computer, you can simply press reset button added to the rear on the case. It makes ZX Spectrum live much longer.
There were also mechanical keyboards available for ZX Spectrum, so we used them to avoid gummy keyboard. But gummy keyboard was not hard to use. Mechanical keyboards was more a fashion thing :)
And about your remarks comparing C64 and Sinclair ZX Spectrum - C64 was always just an gaming machine. If you wanted to do some serious programming, especially when you get advanced and switch to programming in assembler, Z80 was way more cool to work with :) Actually all people I knew than owned C64 were using then for nothing else but gaming. They knew nothing more than to stick in joysticks and use tape recorder. Machine did not push them to get advanced. Programming documentation was quite lousy. People with ZX Spectrums were doing cool stuff in programming and electronics too :)
Ahh my childhood. I had spectrum 16s 48s and the plus . Funnily enough, having being brought up with the spectrum and playing the Com 64 after, I feel there is a gulf, but the opposite to you. Of course, I was using a tape player and original tapes and later on a microdrive (essentially a high speed tape machine) not variable quality recordings but the speed of the load meant so much back in the day. Thank you for bringing back some good memories :)
The C64 had great adventure games ...."Go North" erc....but The Hobbit on the speccy was the best. I got 97% once!
Speccy owner here. When I started programming I've found the cursor types and key combinations very handy, in fact, when later I managed to get a 128k model that includes a type-by-letter more traditional prompt, I strongly preferred the 48k mode, because it allowed me to program quickly and with less typos.
When you bought electronics in the UK back then, you didn't get supplied with the plug, so you went out and bought one at the hardware store. Fuses typically came pre-fitted, with 13A as the most common (works with everything, right?!). People either didn't seek out a plug fitted with the correct fuse, bother to swap it, or simply didn't know. Also because you didn't get a plug, it was very common to keep them when you disposed of an old appliance, so often an old one was pulled out of a kitchen drawer and re-used, meaning those older un-sleeved live and neutral pin plugs remaining in use well after the standard changed in 1984. Later (Early 90's?) it became law to have the plug (and so correct fuse) pre-installed on new appliances.
Takes me back having to pedal down the hardware store on my Raleigh Chopper with my saved pennies to buy a couple plugs for Xmas pressie toys to work.
@@dodgydruid Ah man, xmas pressies with no plugs (or batteries). So much disappoint.
Yup, my auntie used to stick bare wires in the plug holes and stuff them with match sticks.
Sirus Sounds safe. I bet she is living to a ripe old age... coz matches don’t create fire or anything...
Of course the prime reason one was not supplied with the plug was that some houses STILL had round pin plugs. You can still buy round pin plugs and sockets! However their use is supposed to only be for fixed low current appliances, like lamps. So I'm told. Not sure where this is stated in writing, I guess someone can go look it up ... :D
Round pin plugs were unfused. The fuses were brought in to avoid an appliance fault dragging down the entire ring. Yes in the UK plugs were - and still are - wired in a ring, rather than a string like other countries do. This was to save on copper after the war. You could run thinner copper for the same number of sockets in a ring versus a string (or, radial...) circuit. Because you have 2 parallel current paths I guess.
Where's bigclivedotcom to explain this better when you need him? ;)
It was so fun to watch someone play Jet Set Willy for the first time. It's a game every 80's Spectrum owner knew so well.
My 1980s seemed to be filled with "R Tape Loading Error" - the Spectrum was super finicky. Lots of messing around with the cassette volume control. But I never had to put anything into Airplane mode to fix it!
It's really great to see someone enjoying JSW for the first time! =)
Really is... it's like one of those "Teenagers react to" videos.
Back in the day we used cheap mono tape players with an 8ohm output from the earphone socket, so it was natrally a much louder signal into the computer, but i've heard folks say using stereo can can cause load errors
My hazy recollection was "the cheaper the better" when it came to tape players for Spectrums. And avoid systems with graphic equalizers!
Morning Adrian, thanks for another awesome video!!!
You are correct about the plug and it's fuse. Newer BS1363 plugs have to have the sleeving on the pins, this is mostly so that you cannot touch live contacts on a partially inserted plug. The fuse should also have been a 3A fuse - but until quite recently, UK plugs came with a 13A fuse included as standard, and many people simply didn't bother to put the correct fuse in!
ZXRenew is great, used him before. I love the address labels he puts on :)
Glad to see (via the comments) that you're going to give it another go with a cassette deck. One thing that comes to mind having using a similar amp connected to various portable audio devices was that the headphone cable leading into the amp picked up a lot of interference from lighting drivers, motors, and power supplies in the same building. Without anything playing and the amp volume over about half, I could hear tons of buzzing and squealing in my headphones. I ended up finding a shielded headphone cable in my spaghetti bin and it made a huge difference.
I remember spending five minutes waiting for a game to load only for it to crap out. I also remember the horrible noise of a cassette player chewing up a tape. I had several tape players, but the one that was the best at loading from also had a bad habit of chewing tapes now and then. You also learned to play with the tape head azimuth. Some programs I had bought came on tapes that had been recorded with very strange azimuth, so I tended to keep a jeweler's screwdriver with the tape decks, adjusting the head anytime a tape sounded muffled.
Unfortunately there's not much you can do about that loading from an app like you do. I'm a bit confused about the sound levels though. Listening to the stream through that little speaker was how I adjusted the volume and if necessary the azimuth. In your video that is hardly audible. I'm not sure if that's because the volume is low or if it's a problem with the input on the machine. Could also be that I've simply forgotten what sound level to expect. It's been a long time since I had the Speccy up and running. I think I know where it is though. And I think I have something like four boxes of printer paper for the ZX printer...
ahaha... tuning the azimuth based on the tone of the program loading... oh the memories that brings! lol... having fun took effort in the good ol' days gosh darn it! ;)
I was born in the UK and my first computer was a ZX Spectrum. My memories of the spectrum came flooding back when watching your video. Yes the tape loading was very, very tempramental. We had 3 or 4 nice tape machines in our house but the spectrum would only load from a horrible cheap cassette recorder set to 3/4 volume. It didn't have any tone or other controls and the sound quality was really naff, but this was the one the spectrum loved..... My brother had a very nice Sony tape deck with equaliser and VU meters and untold extra buttons......Nope! Not a thing would load from that. My Dad's stereo had a super tape deck with all sorts of extra settings and dolby noise reduction.......No! The cheap unbranded mono tape recorder worked great! Nothing else would work.
Interferences aside, those are all audio files and I suppose most of them are direct rips from audio cassettes, this means they are affected by volume levels when recorded and tape deck quality
Edit: oh I didn't see the end yet, ok that can be something wrong on the zx
Crazy watching someone play Jet Set Willy for the first time...! 36 years after I first played it... You have very good taste and bravo for persevering with it... It's a very temporamental machine but an absolute classic 👍🏻
It was a real skill loading tapes back in the day.
It certainly was; my worst experience was with a cover tape from a magazine which had an adventure game on it (my favorite kind of game) but when i tried to load it in, the troubles began. It turned out that I had to adjust the azimuth ever so slightly between loading the tape header and loading the actual data block. It genuinely took me an entire night to get all the bits loaded in, but when i finally succeeded, I quickly saved the game to my +3's disk drive. When I finally got to play the game it only had nine locations! Bit of a disappointment that was. ;)
@@BertGrink Oh yes I remember them magazine tapes, you had to hope the shop hadn't stacked 'em near a telephone or drinks fridge cos them tapes were wiped clean, I once did a game for one of the mags a simple 3d maze type thingy, you had to type it in from the magazine as it was too crappy for the cover tape lol
@@BertGrink yeah, screwdriver at the ready when loading tapes :)
Many moons since my spectrum days but I do recall writing volume levels in my game tape cases as they were so pedantic loading. One of the great frustrations of the 80’s youth!
Hello there, once again thanks for the informative and interesting video!
I love the red Merlin in your wall collection; one of my favorite toys as a kid.
I BET KNOW WHATS WRONG!!
Somewhere around the basement there’s a C64 running without an RF shield interfering with the audio and video.
Sorry couldn’t resist!
fiddling with the volume knob to get spectrum games to load accounts for most of my childhood.
Ahh, the days of R-Tape Loading Errors occurring when my Mum used to walk into my room when loading a game on my old speccy. Kids just don't realise how easy things are today! ;)
I actually remember the Fine Bros having a KIDS REACT TO TEH OLD GHEYMES video featuring the rather British Maisie Williams... and the old games was a NES. I actually thought "Wouldn't loading games from tape onto a ZX Spectrum have been more authentic for Arya "This Bitch *CAN* Get The Cap OFF" Stark?"
Never seen a spectrum in person I didn't realize they were so small...thanks for the videos as always!!!
You are getting the authentic speccy experience.
LOL!!
"It seems a little bit sensitive at loading"... my zx spectrum childhood!
How to remember, which is live wire, the blue or brown?
Well, one of them is the same color your pants will be when you touch it! :D
I was just thinking that!
Its obvious. Blue is cold so brown is hot. The stupid US colours are what are confusing. Black is negative/ground for DC so it should not be used as live/hot for mains AC.
I use the ‘BL’ method to remember... BL-ack for DC, BL-ue for AC.
@@simontay4851 I'll agree, our (the US) wiring color code doesn't make much sense
Don't rely on that in most of the eu. plugs can go in both ways so do you like to gamble? :)
The loading of games is an art more than a science. I can remember spending many an hour trying to get software to load. In the end I used a portable music system that had an equalizer and I got very proficient at being able to play with the different levels of the equalizer, so much so that I could "hear" the playback and know if it would load or not before I tried. I usually managed to get the games to load first time. If I remember correctly I found 3.5kHz was the main level I had to play with to get the best results. So many fond memories.
I had this years back when it didn't matter what medium I used to load, it error'd all the time and I found it was a dirty connection on the Spectrum side of the input jack, think it was a dry joint but enough to create interference that caused a tape error on load. Also there is little EM and RF protection in that little box, when my mum had her tumble dryer on downstairs it made the telly go funny and crash the Speccy (early eighties when shielded sources was unheard of). Lets be honest though, the squishboard Spectrum was like its older brothers, a bloody unreliable machine fraught with many issues, I cut my teeth on the ancient ZX80 bought in kit form before it became a big thing and man that thing would burn the carpet, melt the ram packs plastic and once blew the fusebox out when the power supply shorted, the ZX81 was massively better and in its turn the Spectrum better still but the best were the +3's with the floppy drives built in and super reliable as strides had been made in power delivery and electronic manufacturing.
The loading issues you had is representative of what it was like back in day, . Waiting 5 mins + for something to load and then for it to fail is part of the fun. LOL
looks beautiful adrian...... makes my english heart happy :D
Man, I really miss being a computer enthusiast during the 8 bit days. Computers seemed so fun back then. Everything was a learning experience and every year technology seemed to absolutely leap forward. Loved this series on your ZX Spectrum.
I still use Cassette Tapes on occasion, the Tone has a big effect on loading, not just the volume, also elecrtrical things interfere with Speccys, hoovers, microwaves and the like.
You are right about the tone control; in my experience it's best to put it in the position with the most amount of treble so as to let the high frequencies pass through without any attenuation.
Yeah my mum had in the late 70's a tumble dryer and ye gods it pumped out tons of dirty signal that made the telly go funny and good luck trying to play on your Sinclair, surprisingly it didn't affect the Atari 400 we had which had an all metal chassis inside the plastic. Old telephones were dirty emitters, putting a tape cassette next to an old dialler fone would erase it quicker than anything, fridge motors too were a pain in the rear too come to think of it.
Ian Watson I put my iPad on a pile of Commodore 64 disks the other day, and put my very good wireless headphones on top...... and promptly erased them. They make it all the way to 2020 intact, and a seasoned C=64 owner from the 80’s erases them with an iPad 7 21st century tech that is essentially a computer in a slab of glass to watch a tutorial on how to copy disks to SD Card using a Final Cartridge I just bought and have wanted since I was like 7.
At 43, I’m going to have the computer of my dreams dammit, note to self... Data used to be stored magnetically in plastic sheets, not 1” square wafers of silicon.
Correct! Volume 8 Tone 8 or Volume 8 Tone 2; if this didn''t work the recording was faulty
I restored my Issue 2 Spectrum in much the same way as you did and also had the same game loading issues. The "R Tape Loading Error" messages were common back in the 1980s especially when trying to load copied tapes, so I am glad that you got to experience some of this nostalgia for yourself!!
The way that I finally got reliable loading was to use a rooted Samsung Galaxy S5 and I may or may not have made an Android system config change to allow the volume to be boosted (I don't remember). The volume is turned up to max. I also use a stereo cable and in PlayZX I've enabled Stereo, plus "Invert one stereo channel".
Forget the tape drive and just go with a modern divMMC. Nice menu, instant load, all your games on a single SD card.
I used to fix these when I was a nipper (15/16 years old, part time in a computer shop). Worst case was one some kid had plugged a generic power supply into the mic socket. Burnt a hole through the ULA and the board. His dad casually mentioned blue smoke coming out of it. One cat's cradle of wire later, and I got that thing back up and running! The membranes were always a pain - they used to get stress fractures across the tracks. Great job with bringing it back to a really nice condition.
yeah always on J and P lol
big respect for managing to say zed-ex ;)
I think he's Canadian? In Canada they say "Zed" anyway.
I'm American and I say zed x in this case, I say zee otherwise
Most people in the US say "Zed-ex Spectrum" too; but having seen it only in writing growing up, and being a phonetic reader, I still say "ZX Spectrum" ("Zee-ecks Spectrum") sometimes. Hate me if you want, but it's how I think of it.
cool... ive just seen plenty of US videos where they call it a Zee-Ex... very irritating to a Brit :)
It’s “zee”
Glad to know I'm not the only American that pronounces the Spectrum as Zed Ex. :)
I suspect you've got a ground loop between the ground of the amplifier and the spectrum due to the crappy switching supplies powering both of them floating relative to mains earth. Put a simple $3 ground loop isolation transformer between them and the interference will be gone.
Agree, that's the next and cheapest thing to try.
The interference might go away for more than one reason then, limited frequency response of a crappy phone/audio isolation transformer is of advantage.
@@SianaGearz he could isolate the phone audio issue by using a Bluetooth module (no need for a patch cable, and the audio is transferred digitally).
@@BrainSlugs83 except Bluetooth is the most interference inducing wireless protocol on the planet, it cuts through everything. Average tx power over time is low but it's mostly a lot of waiting and then powerful chirps at changing frequencies. It's vicious when used near RF sensitive equipment.
@@SianaGearz /\/\ this! I despise Bluetooth for this any many similar reasons. Terrible...
When you bought a plug in the UK (and you had to - because appliances didn't come with a plug on as standard), it would invariably come with a 13A fuse, because they didn't know what would be run through it. You were meant to swap it out for a lower ampage fuse, but of course no one ever did.
RANDOMISE USR 0 to reset - save your power jack!
You can also solder a push button switch across C27
That requires you to be able to enter it, surely?
This is exactly the experience I remember in my friend Robs house trying to load games. Each game had notes about what volume to have the TV set to and so on. Most times it would crap out and only load on the 3rd or 4th attempt. Ah the memories.
UK power plugs are the best in the world apart from one thing, stepping on them in bare feet
And fitting them through small openings.
but what on earth is with the over sided pins. they are thicker than the cable its self. to me its just overly huge for no reason. i like the idea of the fuse and plastic covering the pins.. but that dosent resovle the share size of the plug that isnt needed.
@@writer8706 That's because of the way UK power systems were designed, In their system, the plug has a fuse in it that is intended to set the safety limit for the device it is attached to. The same plug has to be able to handle all the way up to 13 amps at 240 volts - which is double the wattage a US "two prong" plug can be expected to carry. Since the fuse is in the plug side of the circuit, the prongs and conductors in the plug and socket have to be large enough to handle all that current even if the fuse is a measly 1 amp fuse. It's OK to have too-large conductors (you could use car jumper cables to connect a 2302 battery to a memory-backup circuit if you wanted!) but you have too-small conductors (no using CAT-5 to jump start your car!)
@@RickTheGeek This was a hack in the first place because of the stupid ring main idea designed to save copper during the war. I don't know why everyone loves the ridiculously oversized UK plug so much. It's really not that great.
mrb5217 I never said I liked it! Lol! (And I’m in the USA so I have sane sized electric plugs! Although I do like the uk system of having an on-off switch at each plug.) 😀
Glad to hear the first American to call it by its real name, ZED X instead of ZEE that most call it! Best thing to use is a tablet rather than a phone. Volume is far more clearer! I have the full collection of Spectrum computers and they all run fine this way!
When you buy a UK mains plug, it's automatically supplied with a 13a fuse. That's the highest amperage fuse you can get and good for around 3KW. A 3amp fuse would have a been choice.
US circuit breakers are rated for half that 1.8kW with appliances allowed up to 1.5kW. Usually each room has its own circuit/spur. Most homes are wired with 20A breakers over lower gauge wire but 20A appliances have a different plugs.
13A was about the tolerance from spikes and lightning strikes near power cables, sometimes the chaps balancing the power boards at the local power station did get it wrong and bang went the fuses in people's houses then tripped the breaker at the substation. Back then you had two or three fuses in your fusebox, one for plugs, one for lights and one for cooker if you had electric cooker and none of this RCD as you had to have a torch to find the fusewire, then the screwdriver, then yank the fuse, cursing profusely all the way.
In the UK there is no such thing as amperage as we use the correct term, current.
@@SpeccyMan sultana
that plug is pretty old or cheap not having the insulated pins.
I enjoyed these Speccy videos more than I should have. It takes me back to when I was a kid messing with different cassette players trying to get games to work. There was nothing better than getting a C90 cassette tape off a mate and having no idea what game were on there. Good days.
I think your problems originate from the 'noisy' switching supply you have made. I suggest you try to listen to the tape output from the spectrum to see if there is some noise on the audio side.
I agree.
I’m like dude, you have a sweet oscilloscope right there! Plug it in and have a look to see if the phone is clipping the audio, and if you are just amplifying they clipping. Lower the phone audio and pump up the amp. Look at it on the scope. You could also try dedicated playback devices like actual tapes.
I was thinking that, I've had lots of video / audio trouble with cheap Chinese switching power supplies on various consoles, I learnt to use old linear PSUs all the time
When you put the new metal keyboard cover on, it was a spiritual moment :-) I had a Speccy 48k and subsequently a 128k +2....boy the memories
Maybe a RF shield would help with interference on loading games... I know you LOVE RF shields... lol
During the 1960s (maybe earlier) to the 1990s, most appliances in the UK were sold without a plug attached - just the bare wires. The customer was expected to install the plug themselves - and select the appropriate size of fuse. We used to get taught how to do that in high school. But the previous owner of that Spectrum obviously followed the fairly common practice of always just using the biggest fuse available. Suffice to say electrical fires decreased dramatically after appliances started being sold with molded plugs installed from the factory.
P.S. I'm late to the show, but loving it.
do not be to concerned as loading games back in the day with real hardware was hard and not reliable
Both computers were ICONS of my generation. I did have a C64 and a VIC-20, but some friends had the SPECTRUM and always it was a pleasure to try other games in different platforms.
DivMMC Future from The Future was 8bit. Seriously.
He'll need the correct power supply to run that.
A good power supply I have found to work well is a 9v label printer power supply. Makes sure it's centre negative but most label printer ones are. Dymo label printers use these supplies. Found easily on Amazon
@@Flamelily-IT The link I posted above sells replacement ZX-Spectrum power supplies as well as other items.
I have a Dymo label printer. I rewired the 9V DC input for centre positive. I can still use the batteries.
Was my first computer circa 1986 in...Argentina. Here, there weren't the original ZX Spectrum but we have a licensed version from Sinclair named "CZ Spectrum" made by a local company. It was the same machine as the ZX but (I believe) with local components. They worked pretty well at that time. However, the Commodore 64 entered in the market quite fast at that time and eclipsed the CZ Spectrums too fast. Nevertheless, I kept a lot of memories and good moments from that beauty. Great videos Adrian!! Thank you! (and thumbs up to Peter for sending you the membrane, the case and the keyboard panel!)
You need a divMMC a lot easier to load games !!
Exactly. DivIDE/divMMC will make loading anything a much better experience... provided your speccy plays with it. I have two and only one works with it... sometimes.
Wow, good timing. I’ve only been watching your videos for a few days and I really love your approach to making these videos. Down to earth, clarity, enthusiasm, patience - so much better than much of the content on here these days.
After just finishing the previous Spectrum video from 11 months ago I’m now here within a couple of hours of your new one.
Anyway, pleas keep up the good work. I’m living my skilled computer hardware enthusiasts dream vicariously through you. Thanks!
P.S. I’m a 46 year old Brit who played with these the first time around. If you want some wow factor try running Elite on one of those BBC Micros you picked up in London.
The easiest way to remember Brown = Live/hot is its the colour your your pants will be when you touch it.
He's wrong, both blue and brown are "hot".
The Johnny Poo Poo pants song comes to mind.
@@Pico_Farad Blue is neutral. The neutral is connected to earth/ground(in a single phase residential install). In a good installation neutral and earth have the same electrical potential. The only time the neutral is 'hot' is when some idiot installs it wrong.
@@SuperCloneRanger it's very safe to assume that electric wiring at the premises was done by an idiot and might only be accidentally correct.
@@SianaGearz lol, accidentally correct. That's brilliant.
Just because you have a 3D printer doesn't mean you should waste filament on every little project that comes your way. The cable tie is a simple and elegant solution here. Well done.
So you remove RF shields from most of your computers and now you complain about having interferences ? Hmmm
Ok I'm just kidding x)
I don't think the Spectrum had RF shields!
And I'm deadly serious -_-
I never said the opposite !
@@DxDeksor I know, the C64 RF shields were a bit pf paper with tinfoil on them (neither use nor ornament) and the Deladly Serious comment.. well, y'know, I was being flippant.
No, it never did have but maybe it should have.
@@GeoNeilUK I have a NTSC Spectrum and it does have top and bottom shielding (as well as an extra coil, different ULA, different crystal and Ch2/Ch3 switch)
beta.collectorsbridge.com/collections/sinclair-computers-and-clones/article/sinclair-zx-spectrum-ntsc
I love watching these video's. The fact your doing international computers (especially the UK ones)rather than just US ones, is great to see :)
Especially love the enthusiasm of if it does not work, try again.
Never owned a Speccy though, could never master the iffy keys/shortcuts on my friends machine. Nearly 2 years out of date watching this, but slowly catching up.
As someone who grew up here in the UK in the eighties, I can tell you the best fix for a ZX Spectrum is to pick it up carefully, walk over to the corner of your room and drop it in the bin.
I have something called a Timex Sinclair 1000 that looks pretty similar (read-shoddy) - I've been trying to get it going with limited success. Perhaps I shall adopt your ZX Spectrum method.
Ex Pro A/V designer/installer here. We never used pre-terminated RCA cables for anything, instead we terminated RG6 shielded cables for any analogue video we ran regardless of length. We used either compression RCA connectors, or sometimes BNC connectors. This side stepped so many analogue video issues. So I am not surprised at all that the crappy unshielded cable gave you so much noise on display.
Hi. I am a child of the Spectrum era. I found using a graphic equalizer to take all the bass frequencies down and boost the treble made loading a lot less problematic. The spectrum loading is an art form regardless of machine types. Love your restoration of such an iconic computer.
I had one of these back in the day. Loved watching your efforts to bring this unit back to life.
Adrian, it's great to see you've had a real taste of using the ZX Spectrum with all that entails in terms of games not loading. I had a ZX Spectrum in the 80's and I spent a lot of time fiddling with the cassette tape head position trying to get games to load. Very frustrating, but a brilliant little computer for it's time. Loved the ZX Spectrum series, keep up the great videos.
Back when the Spectrum was for sale, it was common for electrical equipment in the UK to not be supplied with a fitted plug, so people would fit them themselves. Plugs were typically sold with the maximum fuse rating, which was 13A. I used to work for a shop helping delivery electrical equipment such as TVs and video recorders back then, and we would always have to fit a plug, with the correctly rated fuse of course.
failing to load is the quite essential zx spectrum experiance. i have fond memories of my specy but was all to happy to get the amiga in the late 80s
Yes the usability does require a lot more effort and patience but when these arrived on the market they and the earlier ZX81 were all I could afford. These things made computing accessible to the us struggling working class kids.
You need a DivMMC Adrian, Yes, we all did it in the 80s but trying to load audio files in 2020 will eventually drive you insane!
Great video. An update on the ZX Spectrum is the video I have been really looking forward to.