Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2

Back in the day, you were either team Commodore, or team Sinclair. A few of you were team Amstrad, but they were weird.

Originally I was team Commodore Plus/4, until I got a Spectrum 128 "Toastrack". Now I could finally play the same games as everyone else

If you're not in the UK, then you may have missed out on the Spectrum, although there were clones available in other countries, most notably Russia

Sinclair started out with computers as Science of Cambridge with the MK14, which was a bare bones computer, or just a PCB with a keypad and a few external connectors. Then one year later the ZX80 was launched. The company was renamed Sinclair Research to coincide with the ZX81

Then in 1982 the ZX Spectrum was launched, as a 16K RAM model, then a 48K RAM model. The Spectrum + came in 1982, which was the same hardware in a new case. Finally the Spectrum 128 model was launched in 1985. Known as the "Toastrack" due to it's large heatsink on the right hand side of the machine. This was the last Sinclair ZX Spectrum model before Amstrad bought Sinclair Research, I used to have one of these.

My Spectrum is the first Amstrad released model, which is a Spectrum 128 with a built in tape deck, and a slightly modified ROM.
There was a Spectrum +2A model released afterwards, this had a black case instead of the grey case mine has, and some hardware mods.
The last models were the Spectrum +3 and +3B, this had a 3 inch floppy drive instead of a tape recorder built in



That's enough rambling, lets have a look around my Spectrum



From the top of the machine you can see the keyboard, the Amstrad models omitted most of the keywords from the keys, making typing programmes in 48K mode tricky at best.
On the back of the machine you can see the heat vent, 9V power socket, an expansion I/O port, this was not compatible with earlier Spectrums. A RS232/MIDI and keypad sockets. A RGB monitor connection. Finally the RF out and sound out sockets.
The bottom of the machine just has the serial number, and "07" stickers, and an embossed logo



The right side of the machine is empty, but the left side has a reset button and two joystick ports, these are not Atari compatible. Joysticks of the time had two plugs, a black one and a grey one, the black one was Atari compatible, referred to on the Spectrum as "Kempston", and the grey plug was for the Spectrum +2/3, or the Sinclair joystick interfaces for the earlier models.



Here is a closer look at the keyboard and tape deck



Now lets take a look at the software I got with the machine



The software speaks for itself, but here are a couple of "blank" cassettes I also received



Hmmm, I never heard of Yashima UFO cassettes before, also note the red tape cassette label



If you're wondering, User programs claims to contain the above programmes, I wonder what Tonysname is?

Let's fire this beauty up then...



It took a little while to get the modern LCD screen tuned into the Spectrum's RF output, but we got there eventually, you can see the Amstrad models have a red power LED



It works, fantastic! I was expecting some issues, like perished rubber belts in the tape drive.



Update

I couldn't resist buying this cheeky little Horizons cassette for £1.99, and of course I had to try it out almost immediately...





I had to use my Raspberry Pi powered Spectrum to help with the keywords



For more retro hardware check out my online museum here