ZXF05all.PDF

PRICE LIST (prices checked 30 March 2003)

New hardware:

PC-PSU with supply for 2 Floppies and MB02

36,00 €

MB02-Printerlead

13,00 €

Spectrum +2A, new and original package, complete

219,00 €

Proface AT Extern (Interface for connecting PC-Keyboards to Spectrum)

69,00 € KS

Proface AT Intern (internal interface)

62,00 € KS

Melodik AY-Soundbox (unboxed)

24,00 € KS

+2 Cassette recorder

36,00 €

Floppy Disc drive (1,86 with MB02, 720k with Opus, 780k with +D) Please specify

24,00 €

PSU for +2A/B and +3 or PSUl for +2 (also 48k and 128k) Please specify

29,00 €

FDD lead for 2 drives

4,00 €

Multiface 128 (works also on 48k Spectrums

26,00 €

Multiface +3

46,00 €

Dust Cover 48k+/128k

8,00 €

Plus 3 Tapelead

9,90 €

Normal Tapelead

3,00 €

Spectrum +2 Lightpen

36,00 €

Spectrum +3 Lightpen

27,00 €

Phaser Gun with Software (Tape or +3)

19,00 €

VGA-BOX (connect Spectrum 128/+2 to VGA monitor)

49,00 €

Used hardware:

Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128k, complete with all cables

129,00 €

Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2, complete with all cables

79,00 €

ZXIF

ZXCF

SZX

YABUS.ZX

ZXUSB

Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2A, complete with all cables

79,00 €

Sinclair ZX Spectrum +3, built in 3'' drive, complete with all cables

99,00 €

Sinclair Spectrum 48k (Gummy), complete with all cables + Introduction Tape

64,00 €

Sinclair Spectrum 48k +, complete with all cables + Introduction Tape

64,00 €

+3 Drive (tested)

29,00 €

Interface I

69,00 €

Microdrive

25,00 €

Wafadrive

39,00 €

Opus Discovery Diskinterface with 1 x 720k Drive (new ROM)

119,00 €

Plus D clone without case, 3.5'' floppy with PSU and cables

129,00 €

Joystick interface

1-Port 3,00 €

2-Port 11,00 €

Joystick (many different)

2,50 €

Sinclair SJS-Joystick (+2/+3)

6,00 €

Consumables:

Microdrive Cartridges (ex-software)

3,50 €

Wafadrive Cartridges

16K= 7,00 €,

32K= 7,50 €

+3 drive belt

2,00 €

Silver paper for ZX Printer

5,00 €

Keyboard membrane 48k

11,00 €

Keyboard membrane Spectrum +/128k, new quality, not aging

21,00 €

plus...

REALX exclusive

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ZXF05: 4

SUMMER/AUTUMN 2003 Issue 5

Contents

I am computer literate. It's a label

I'm comfortable with. I wouldn't

describe myself as a 'nerd' or a

'geek' - even if I used such terms,

which I don't - but I am reason-

ably competent with a computer.

I learnt to program BASIC on the

Spectrum (naturally), then on the

BBC for my A-Level in Computer

Science, then on the SAM Coupe

and finally on the PC (good old

QBASIC). I've dabbled with Visual

BASIC. I'm happy with DOS and

all flavours of Windows, and I have

some experience with MacOS and

RISCOS. I can get the hang of

most PC applications fairly rapidly

if I need to use them. People

come to me with their PC

problems and I can usually get

them sorted out. Which I am

happy to do.

Despite my skills, I still run into

things that stump me - as we all

do - from time to time. Things that

others find simple. Back in 1999, a

thing that stumped me for a while

was this 'newsgroup' thing called

comp.sys.sinclair. At this point in

time I was several months into the

experience of actually having an

Internet connection at home

(having previously only used it in

Cyber Cafes and the like). I had

learnt the basics of email and was

already on my way to completing

my first ever website for the school

I worked in; although I was a mere

fledgling, therefore, I had made

good use of my time. But how the

hell did one access a

'newsgroup'? I often came across

references to CSS on web pages,

but all of these seemed to assume

that the visitor new what a

newsgroup was and how to get to

it. Of course I worked it out

eventually, and now - in hindsight

- I wonder how on earth some-

thing so simple could have taken

me so long to work out.

Since 1999, of course, Internet

useage has exploded. The web is

now a 'mainstream' resource,

pushing computer literacy up the

ladder of respectability, and while

movie stars might still like to say

that they don't know how to turn

a computer on, less and less

paople now think that this is a

cool thing to for them to say. It's

all too easy for us to forget, admist

all of this enthusiasm, that

computers are actually still quite

hard things to get your head

around if you've not had a

considerable bit of experience

with them.

Which is why I become quite

upset when I read some of the

disparaging remarks made in CSS

to newcomers asking an honest,

but simple question (and usually

doing so very politely). For

example, "Hi there - can anyone

here tell me where I can find a

game called 'Manic Miner' that I

used to play?" Yes, we've seen

questions like this a hundred times

before, but do we have to be

quite so demeaning in our replies?

"Try reading the FAQ before you

post next time"; but does the visitor

necessarily know that there is an

FAQ and where it is. "Can't you

even manage a Google search?"

But does the visitor necessarily

know what Google is (I recently

discovered that a friend of mine,

immensley skilled in electronics

and logical systems had never

even heard of it)? If a car pulled

up next to you in your town and

the driver politely asked you the

way to the nearest supermarket,

would you stamp your feet like a

two-year-old and complain that

visitors never bother to consult the

information map in the town hall?

Why, then, should we treat visitors

to our online community any

differently?

We can choose to be annoyed

by these posts or we can choose

to be delighted that the commu-

nity is potentially about to be

enlarged. And it actually takes no

more time or effort to write an

encouraging message than a

rude one: "Hi there - welcome to

comp.sys.sinclair - you'll find the

answer to your question (and

many more besides) at

www.sinclairfaq.com. Enjoy!"

To put it another way:

You can give a man a fish and he

will eat for a day.

You can teach a man to fish and

he will eat for a lifetime.

But if you critisise the man for not

knowing where the river is, he'll

probably decide he never liked

fish anyway.

Or something. All of us have been

in the situation at one time or

another where we've worried

about asking about something

everyone else seems to know

about. Imagine what you would

feel if you did ask and were then

ridiculed by someone (and

imagine the sorts of words you

would later use to describe that

person when you relay the

incident to a friend over a pint).

Do we really need to be so

precious?

Eleven pages of Spectrum news p5

Your views and opinions p16

New spectrum software reviewed p20

Maria vs. some b*****ds p20

Gloop/Amusement Park p21

A new section. Matthew Harrodine examines 1982

p24

Simon Ullyatt on Cronosoft p26

Pick up the pen p30

A look at Spectrum adventure game writing today.

('Back to the Spectrum' will return next issue)

If you enjoy ZXF and you want it to continue then consider yourself

duty bound to let me know this (mail@cwoodcock.co.uk). All other

feedback will be gratefully received also - criticisms (please be kind),

improvement suggestions and notifications of any errors you think

you've spotted are essential for this sort of project to succeed.

ZXF now has a voluntary purchase scheme. If you have

downloaded and enjoyed an issue of ZXF, and if you are able to

afford to, please consider paying £1 for your issue via the Paypal

button on at the ZXF website ('magazine' page).

If you would like to contribute to future issues of ZXF - even if it's just

to write a letter - please do ; contact me again by the email address

above.

Editor: Colin Woodcock (mail@cwoodcock.co.uk)

Website: www.zxf.cjb.net

Contributors this issue: Matthew Harrodine, Simon Ullyatt, Nick

Humphries, Ramsoft, Jarek Adamski, Dave Mills, John King and

Thomas Eberle. A big thankyou also to all letter writers.

Until Christmas.

Colin Woodcock

zxf@cwoodcock.co.uk

ZXF05: 5

ZXF05: 6

ZXIF LAUNCHES • CSS FAQ • VBSPEC • AY RIDERS • MICRO MART

COMPETITION • SPECTACULATOR 5.1 • YS CDS • ZXCF • REALX

FURTHER FAQs

> CSS FAQ update

The tour-de-force that is the

comp.sys.sinclair FAQ

( www.sinclairfaq.com ) has had yet

another update. The May 2003

version of possibly the most

comprehensive Sinclair document

anywhere in the world has had a

number of new entries added,

including links to the new

Spectrum label Cronosoft and to

ZXF's very own online shop!

[ Enough with the sales pitch -Ed]

Best of all for PDF fans like myself,

you can now download the whole

lot in PDF format, print it off and

stick it in a ring file for easy

reference (Paperless office?

Never!). Although, at 93 pages

long you might need a spare ink

cartridge at the ready and a

soothing cup of tea to hold your

hand through the experience.

Nonetheless, a fantastic resource.

STATE-DEPENDENT

SNAPPING

> .SZX format documented

The snapshot as a file format is

now pretty much obsolete as a

method of spectrum software

distribution. Virtual cassette and

disk files are now the main vehicle

for this - and quite right too. This is

not to say that none of us use

snapshots for our own personal use

at home, of course; as a method

of saving progress made in a

tough game they are invaluable,

and snapshot files are still

employed for the Speccy Tour

each year.

One of the problems with the

existing snapshot formats - .Z80

and .SNA , both exceedingly long

in the tooth now, by the way - is

that they don't include any

information about the hardware

state of the system the snapshot

has been created on - what's

going on in the nether regions (ZX

Printer, Multiface, Currah µSpeech,

etc), for example, or what tape

file's in the virtual cassette player

at the moment (and what position

it's in - crucial for multiload

games).

Since version 2.5, Spectaculator

(now in version 5.0) has developed

and supported a new snapshot file

format which overcomes this

limitation: the ZX-State - or .SZX -

format. Spectaculator author

Jonathan Needle has now got

around to documenting this

format and the (very detailed)

results can be found at his site:

www.spectaculator.com/docs/zx-

state/intro.shtml

Cue, incidentaly, a very long and

technical discussion in css

between Jon and Phil Kendall,

and the sensation of an almighty

rush of wind passing over my

head...

Not for the faint hearted, then, but

brilliant stuff, all the same.

CSSCGC2003 UPDATE

My, but you've been busy. With 21

entries, the comp.sys.sinclair

Crap Games Competition 2002

was hardly the most well-endowed

incidence of the annual

competition. For the 2003 event,

however, you seen to have been

working away like beavers to

compensate. With no less than 42

entries received so far (and more,

no doubt, by the time this is

published), shady host Dave the

Lurker has had to take the

unprecedented step of splitting up

the entries over more than one web

page. And, with submissions such

as Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen's

Advanced Wallpaper Construction

Kit and the re-emergence of

Millionaire , last year's winner, in a

special 'Cheating Bast. Edition' (for

which, read same game submitted

by different guy), it looks like 2003

is going to be a vintage year. It's

nice to know that in a world with so

many problems we can, er, make a

few more...

The place to go is

http://8bitorbust.info/cgc/ . You've

five months left: get coding!

destinations. Alternatively, if you

would prefer to pay by cheque,

you can send an email request

to zxif@cwoodcock.co.uk, and in

your reply you'll be told where to

send the lolly. Overseas buyers,

please contact me by email and

we'll work out the cost of

postage just as quickly as

possible.

And in return you'll get a boxed

Spectrum cassette - labelled -

with a full colour printed inlay

card. But if you'd rather just play

the game on a PC to see what

it's like, Blink will be available for

free for a while at the ZXF

website (using the rather

excellent ZZ Spectrum Java

emulator), so you won't even

have to part with a penny to find

out what it's all about.

If you've written a previously

unreleased text/graphic

adventure game for the

Spectrum and would like to see it

published under the ZXIF label,

drop me a line at the email

address above. As per the

Cronosoft model, profits will be

split 50-50, so 50p for a £1.99 title

(it takes a pound to make each

casette) and 50p per pound

charged thereafter. If you've

never written one, but would like

to have a go, check out the

adventure writing guide in exp .

It's not all that hard, really.

ZXF NEWS

> Shameless self-plug time...

At ZXF we know there's nothing

more embarrassingly amusing than

an act of gross self-deception,

which is probably the best

summary for the new and exciting

range of ZXF merchandise now

awaiting your purchase at the ZXF

shop chéz cafepress.com .

Decorated in a delightful

collection of greens,

www.cafeshops.com/zxf is now

settled in alongside its many

neighbours and has already made

a reputation for itself by trying to

steal sugar from the nearby

www.cafeshops.com/c64files

across the street. They never see

the funny side of anything.

You'll be delighted to learn that

the ZXF shop stocks branded

mugs, T-shirts, mouse mats and

more. Yes indeed. There's even a

ZXF thong for the ladies (please

note, ZXF can accept no

responsibility for relationships

terminated upon receipt of this

gift).

Is that cool or did I just leave the

window open too long? ZXF

apparel at cafepress.com

SEVENUP: GROWN UP

> Graphics editor out of beta

Metalbrain's superb spectrum

graphics editor SevenuP has taken

the brave step over the beta

threshold. Version 1.0 was

released in June and now can

import and convert many of the

popular image formats such as

BMP, GIF and PNG. Compared to

the likes of LCD's BMP2SCR Pro and

Derek Jolly's YASPIC (see last issue),

the conversion is fairly

unspectacular, however the pure

felxibility of the editor more than

makes up for this (you can always

open images previously converted

elsewhere, after all) and - given

the frequency of Metalbrain's

updates so far - it wouldn't surprise

me one jot if future versions start

adding in more complex conver-

sion options. He's obviously a

seriously dedicated chap.

www.speccy.org/metalbrain/ for

more information.

> New Spectrum label

Inspired by Cronosoft , ZXF has

taken a step into the scary world

of software. Intended as a new

label for text adventures - or

Interactive Fiction , as these are

now called - ZXIF launches

alongside the publication of this

very issue of ZXF with the release of

its first 48k title, Blink . Blink takes

place in the fictional Cornish

village of Bostagel and involves a

bad case of time freeze for you to

sort out. Written by yours truely

using the Professional Adventure

Writing System, the game is heavy

on text and pitched generally at a

level that should accomodate the

beginner, whilst a couple of more

taxing puzzles should keep the

more seasoned adventurers

occupied.

Blink can be purchased online via

PayPal from the load section of

the ZXF website ( www.zxf.cjb.net )

and will cost you £1.99 plus 99p

postage and packing for UK

> £1 for ZXF?

ZXF now has a voluntary

purchase scheme. If you have

downloaded and enjoyed an

issue of ZXF, and if you are able

to afford to, please consider

paying £1 for your issue via the

Paypal button on at the ZXF

website ('magazine' page).

ZXIF launches. Gawd bless her.

ZXF05: 7

ZXF05: 8

THE FAT LADY HAS SUNG

> Spectrum looses to Amiga in the Micro Mart computer 'World Cup'

THE COMPLETE YS

> New CDs from Mort

Remember the Crash CDs

reported on in ZXF03? You might

recall that a chap named Stephen

Stuttard (aka Mort at WoS Forums)

scanned every last issue (plus a

few extras), burned the lot onto 5

CDs and then practically gave

them away for a mere £20. Well

now he's gone and done it again,

this time with Your Sinclair ,

arguably the favourite Spectrum

publication of the UK scene.

YS ran for nearly eight years,

launching at the start of 1986

(following a couple of years under

the title Your Spectrum ) and

managing 93 issues in total.

ZXF hasn't yet managed to get its

hands on these CDs yet, but if

they're anything like as good as

the Crash CDs then fans are in for

a big, big treat. Indeedy.

Republic, MEGUS from Russia and

the UK's very own GASMAN.

TOP STUFF

> Hit counter soars at YSRNRY

Your Sinclair Rock 'n' Roll Years

webmaster Nick Humphries has

'come up trumps' with a couple of

new ideas recently, which have

brought visitors to his site in their

droves.

Clocking up hits in their thousands,

Nick's Spectrum Top Trumps page

has been referenced in a number

of non-Spectrum websites, making

it a top internet destination for

surfers worldwide. The premise is

faithful to Top Trumps as we knew

and loved it, with each player

receiving cards from a deck of 74,

each rating a classic Spectrum

title for each of the following

categories:

Whooshability - Was the game

dead fast to play, or was the

gameplay of a more sedate

nature?

Strokability - Did the game charm

you with its sickening cuteness or

did it have the hugability of

Margaret Thatcher?

Blastability - Were there plenty of

things to shoot, kill, maim or

destroy? Or was it a game you

could safely play in front of your

granny without her tutting?

Ponderability - How puzzling was

the game to play? Did you have

to stop and think every now and

then or was it a simple case of

shoot first and ask questions later?

Memorability - Do people still talk

about the game today, a couple

of decades since its first release?

Or do they rank alongside

Brosettes?

Players then select one of these

categories (without knowing the

other's card) and then compare to

win the pair.

Nick's since followed this up with

second online game, Who wants

to be a Squillionaire , which - as

you can probably guess - consists

Alas, it was not to be... Beating

the Oric Atmos, the Vic 20 and the

Amstrad CPC to make it through

to the final round of Micro Mart

( www.micromart.co.uk ) magazine's

'Home Computer World Cup'

competition, the Spectrum found

in the Commodore Amiga an

adversary just too strong to

trounce. In a two week online

vote that pulled in several hundred

votes (the highest of the

competition), the final count was

45% to the Spectrum and 55% to

the Amiga.

The contest started in November

2002, with 16 home computer

formats selected to fight it out

against each other in a knockout

competition that saw weekly jousts

between opponents. Surprise

results on the way to the final

included the defeat of the Atari ST

in the first round at the hands of

the Amstrad CPC (and likewise the

Commodore 64 in the quarter

finals) and the PC falling to

noneother than the humble BBC

(which eventually ended up in

third place). The last battle

earned a full, two page spread in

issue 743 of the UK computer

magazine, with the Spectrum

argued for by yours truely and the

Amiga handled by regular 'Amiga

Mart' columnist Sven Harvey.

A few searches at Micro Mart's

website will turn up the text for

each round of the competition if

you missed out on the drama. My

argument for the final is below.

DO YOU REMEMBER can be

downloaded now as a series of

free MP3 tracks from their site at

http://ayriders.zxdemo.org

ZX Spectrum, Argued by Colin Woodcock

First published in MicroMart magazine, Issue 743, April 10th 2003

See also http://www.micromart.co.uk/content/features/default.asp?Category=Article&Type=&ID=1007

1K FORAY

> Minigame competition 2003

It's minigame time again. Last

year, the Spectrum chalked up 10

entries in the quest to find the best

game written in just 1024 bytes;

although four of these made it into

the eventual top ten (with a total

of 62 entries), the crown of the

competition in the end went to

Robin Harbron's C64 title Splatform ,

with the highest Spectrum entry

being Paolo Ferraris' 1Kanoid at

number five. This year there are

two categories to the competition,

with the 1K game reprised for a

second outing alongside a new 4K

contest. The overal size of your

entry must not exceed these limits,

and this includes headers, loaders,

basic stubs, and data files.

The closing date for entries is

September 29, 2003, at precisely

12.00 GMT. You can make as

many entries as you like. Full rules,

alongside the details of any

submissions received so far can be

found on the minigame website

over at www.ffd2.com/minigame/

There's also a discussion board for

general debate and support, and

the site links also to the previous

two competitions.

The Amiga is a much-loved

computer. With good reason. When

I got my first glimpse of this

wonderful machine my jaw just

simply dropped. Even by today's

standards, the basic A500 can still

pack a punch. And on this, my best

Spectrum buddy's first step away

from the 8-bit world, I got my first

taste of a WIMP GUI, of photo-

realistic graphics, of amazing sound

and more. I wanted one.

In fact, the Amiga is the single

machine in this contest (other than

the PC and the Spectrum) that I do

now actually own. Last autumn -

some 13 years after first my eyes

grew green and greedy at this sight -

I finally got my hands on one. One

reasonably pleasant evening later

and it was consigned to a box in the

shed. You see I might be an Amiga

owner now, but I wasn't when it

counted. And the love just isn't there.

Why didn't I get an Amiga back

then? Cost. Practically packed with

high-spec hardware, the Amiga was

way out of my price range. Instead,

my upgrade route in 1990 was to the

SAM Coupé, and here's the thing:

despite three subsequent years of

happy computing with that superior

machine, it's still the Spectrum I return

to.

I loved my SAM. 256 colours (no

colour clash), 512K RAM (what could

possibly use all that?), twin 3.5''

floppy drives, the best in-built BASIC

I've ever used; it was a dream come

true for this Spectrum user. I still have

it, but that too resides now in a taped-

up box. Meanwhile, my rubber-keyed,

48K Spectrum gleams beautifully on

my desk. Would it be any different if I

had bought an Amiga instead of a

SAM? Actually, I don't think it would.

Because the Spectrum is that first

love which just can't be forgotten.

Precisely because of its limitations

and because so many struggled so

hard to overcome them (and still do),

because of its low cost that made

computing accessible to so many for

the first time and because it was (and

continues to be) expanded on in more

ways than could possibly have been

initially envisaged, it represents the

very spirit of invention, inclusion

and ingenuity. The essence of

working with Spectrums today lies

in extremely creative thinking

within a very hard set of very real

restrictions; in that sense it is a

metaphor for life itself.

And thus it merits the crown of this

competition. The Amiga is a

fantastic computer. But the

Spectrum - I believe - is a legend.

AY REMAKES

> Riders release second album

Hot of the heels of their first

release, Y OU ARE ADULT, chiptune-

band AY Riders have released

their second collection of

Spectrum 128 tunes. DO YOU

REMEMBER? is a remakes album,

featuring a wide variety of tracks,

ranging from a version of Mike

Oldfield's Incantations 3 to an

extremely competant version of

That Titanic Song . There's also a

version of Tatu 's 30 Minut and, as

an additional track (and as a

rather splendid demonstration of

just how skilled these chaps are)

this has been mixed into the

original, vocals and all (surely the

girls could use this as one of those

extra tracks you get on CD

singles?).

The AY Riders are a European

collaboration, comprising

YERZMYEY from Poland, FACTOR 6,

TDM and X-AGON from the Czech

ZXF05: 9

ZXF05: 10

IS THIS THE COOLEST SPECTRUM IN THE WORLD?

> ZXCF CompactFlash interface from Sami Vehmaa

YSRNRY (cont)

of ten questions, each with four

possible answers. Final answer?

Each question features a screen-

shot with four possible titles to

choose from.

On the response to Top Trumps ,

Nick told ZXF , "It was amazing,

especially considering that it was a

freak idea that came out of the

blue on a late Friday night! I sent it

to the b3ta mailing list on the off-

chance that they'd like it, they put

it into their newsletter, and I got

around 4,500 visitors on the

afternoon their newsletter went

out. To put that in perspective, the

average number of visitors to the

website is around 1,500 (lower in

the summer months).

"I started getting referrers from

other people's home pages all

over the world, including many in

foriegn languages from people

who I was rather surprised had

made the connection between

Top Trumps and the Speccy.

"The cherry on the cake was the

mention in Web User, a print

magazine that I've never heard of,

but hey, it's all good publicity for

the site.

"A month after I did Top Trumps, I

wrote the herbal-Nytol-induced

Who Wants To Be A Squillionaire?

b3ta plugged it again, and that

day I got over 8,000 visitors, and

the additional referrers from other

people's sites, blogs, Livejournals,

etc... The bandwidth for the month

Squillionaire came out came within

a few K of my 10Gb/month limit

(usually it hovers around 6Gb) and

was easily the most popular month

for the website.

"And the reasons for the games,

apart from strange brainwaves

that occasionally hit me? Mainly

just to teach myself something

new when it comes to program-

ming Perl CGI scripts. It's also a

way of avoiding my commitments

to The Tipshop (thousands of

apologies to Gerard - I'm meant to

be programming for him right now,

but I've just finished writing a script

that does something incredibly

silly, and that idea was implanted

by a friend of mine who casually

mentioned "I wondered if you'd

thought of doing something like

this?" - I managed to twist it into

an idea which will teach me a

new Perl thing, and there goes

another 48hour project...)

"Now that things have calmed

down after the two game

releases, Top Trumps continues to

be slightly more popular than

Squillionaire - guess it's the

nostaglia value."

And all this while Nick's main

project is progressing - the Your

Sinclair Rock'n'Roll Years TV show .

Planned for later this year, the

documentary will be 30-40 minutes

long with plenty of movie clips of

Spectrum games accompanied

by an 1980s soundtrack. The

project is extraordinarily ambitious,

but a look at the preview page on

the YSRNRY website will convince

you that Nick is taking the task

very seriously and has already

developed some serious video

skills. The demo of the Interface 2

'flyover' is particularly impressive.

So it's hardly surprising, with all this

work, that Nick's site flipped 1

million visitors earlier this year.

Congratulations, I believe, and

well-deserved.

Top Trumps:

www.ysrnry.co.uk/cgi-bin/toptrumps.pl

Who wants to be a Squillionaire:

www.ysrnry.co.uk/cgi-bin/squil.pl

YSRNRY TV Show:

www.ysrnry.co.uk/tvprog/index.htm

MORE EXPANSION

> YABUS.ZX from Jarek Adamski

More hardware, and this one looks

mightily impressive. Jarek Adamski

is a name you might recall from

ZXF03 as the hardware guru

behind Andrew Owen's ZX

Spectrum SE . Jarek has, for some

time now, been an innovator of

add-ons for the various Spectrums

and the Sam Coupé. He's also

authored the ZXVGS operating

system for Spectrum compatibile

computers.

His latest creation is the YABUS.ZX,

an edge-connector interface

offering an external bus for a

whole range of peripherals. Just

so that we're clear, these are

perpherals designed for use with

the YABUS, not just any old

peripheral, but a considerable

range of such interfaces do

already exisit.

Here, Jarek describes the YABUS.ZX

in his own words:

What is YABUS.ZX? Two YABUS slots

in a small, through interface, that

connects to the rear slot of the ZX

Spectrum.

It could be you wanted to

connect some extra interfaces to

your Spectrum. You had to join

them in "a sequence" behind the

Spectrum or disconnect one

before connecting another, as

many of them were non-through.

The connection was not always

perfect and you had to do some

experiments with the 'angle of

insertion', etc.

Now it can be different; with

YABUS.ZX, you can connect the

extentions easy and easily

disconnect them (of course whilst

the power is off!)

I don't know if you ever tried to

build your own interface - perhaps

8255, perhaps AY, perhaps

something more advanced. My

experience says there always were

two important problems:

1) how to connect the signal bus,

2) what to do to keep the

possibility to connect something

else (non-through, such as a Timex

FDD 3000 interface).

YABUS.ZX removes both these

problems at once. It's a through

interface and the YABUS slots are

easily accessible from the top of its

box. I might mention that in YABUS

(as a whole) modules called

YAMOD are plugged into the

YABUS slots.

Several years ago I made a

prototype of YABUS for my Sam

Coupé. To have more fun, I built a

YAMOD with AY-3-8910. It worked

and played music. :-) Now, I've

plugged this YAMOD into

YABUS.ZX. It is correctly detected

and works!

This is a special property of YABUS -

the hardware independency. The

same YAMOD can be plugged

into a wide range of computers

based on Z80 CPU - e.g. ZX,

Spectrum, Timex FDD 3000, Sam,

MSX, CPC...)

Of course, it doesn't make sense,

but it is important in case of some

kinds of YAMOD. I didn't try with

computers with different CPUs

(6502, 68000), but this is also

possible (I would like to try with

Amiga...).

Both the YABUS and most of

YAMODs are very simple, so they

are cheap.

I've mentioned that you can easy

build an YAMOD. From my side,

I've designed several modules and

That there is a Compact Flash

card peeking out of the Spectrum

above. yes it is. And since last

issue's feature of Roelof Koning's

work, the subject has been

creeping up quite a bit in online

discussions recently.

Sami's system above uses Garry

Lancaster's ResiDos to access the

CF card and also features a

Versatile Memory Unit that offers

up to 1MB RAM in (lots of) 16K

pages. He is also working on a

version for the +3 which is

compatible with the latest of

Garry's +3e ROMs.

The bad news is that the soldering

is far from easy, so electronics

lightweights like myself will have to

be content to look on in envy for

the time being. Perhaps, however,

another significant step has been

taken towards the plug-in

interface that someone, one day,

is going to design and get Sintech

to distribute. I'm allowed to

dream, aren't I?

You can read up on the ZXCF at

http://home.sol.se/amiga/ , Sami's

ZX Spectrum Hardware DIY site,

and ResiDos can be found - along

with information about the +3e

ROMs - at www.zxplus3e.plus.com .

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