British computer use in the USA?

[JohnElliott]

Originally Posted by FishFinger

Spectrum joysticks are generally one of two types:

1) Standard atari-style 9-pin joysticks (referred to as "Kempston" joysticks in Spectrum circles). These are the most common, and virtually all after-market joystick interfaces will be this type.

2) So-called "interface 2" joysticks, which use the same 9-pin D-sub connector, but with a non-standard pinout. You can make an adaptor cable easily though. These are only really used by the Sinclair Interface 2 joystick interface, and the built-in ports on the +2/+2A/+3 models.

There are a few other types, but I wouldn't worry about them.

Actually, the Interface 2 had a standard Atari pinout. The funny pinout is only on the Amstrad-made +2, +2A and +3. It was their cunning plan to force everyone to buy their own-brand joysticks.

[Tupin]

Does anyone have a picture of the ports on a Sinclair-made Spectrum? What is the cassette cable set up like?

Oh, and which would be the better model between the original 48k rubber-keyed Spectrum and the ZX Spectrum 128k? I might have to go with the former just because it would be so small to ship...

[carlsson]

The ZX Spectrum 16/48K has a total of five connectors: 9V DC power, RF output, two 3.5 mm jacks for EAR/MIC (cassette) and one expansion bus which is where you connect the joystick interface, printer interface, IDE interface, network interface or whatever you like.

If you don't mind a bit of modding, you can internally convert the ZX Spectrum from RF to a reasonably good composite video signal, reusing the same RCA connector. If you do it properly, you can even restore RF at a later point. I write "reasonably good" because the signal may not be of ideal strength but most TV's can display it anyway. Usually TV sets are more likely to properly display a composite video signal from a foreign region than a RF antenna signal.

The Spectrum 128 has a slightly better keyboard and more memory, but in terms of size I would just as well step up to a +2 model which has an even better keyboard. Of course the small rubber keyboard is what made the Speccy iconic so if you want one to show to your pals, it is the model you should aim for.

By the way, the Acorn Electron and BBC Micro have a 7-pin DIN connector for tape. Only a few of the pins are significant though. The Oric-1 happens to be compatible with this tape cable. This cable however is NOT the same one as you would find on a TRS-80, IBM PC (?) and a few others.

While joystick interfaces for the ZX Spectrum are fairly common and can usually be picked up cheap, an Atari-style interface for the Acorns is harder to obtain. There is a "First Byte" one for the Electron which shows up now and then, but I believe you need to load a patch program before loading one of the SUPPORTED games. It comes with instructions how to adapt other games to work with it though. The BBC has its own analogue joystick port which some games utilize. There are diagrams how to build an Atari joystick adapter but I haven't tried this yet. Rarely a commercially built adapter shows up on eBay but I've noticed they end up at remarkable prices.

[Tupin]

Looks like I'll be going for a 48k Spectrum, then. Both for the iconicness and for its games. It can handle games from the late 1980's that are bigger, right?

It's audio quality compared to the other computers was less than average, correct? Didn't it have a speaker built into it? And that keyboard, did people like word process with it, or was it only good for games?

[carlsson]

I'm afraid a 48K machine can only load programs written for the 48K machine. I don't know the ZX Spectrum good enough to tell how many games and utilities were 128K only. I believe the listings at World of Spectrum will tell you. A quick search reveals 441 out of 10584 commercial titles (4%) were exclusive for the 128K machine.

Quite a few of the smallest computers have built in speakers. I never figured out why, in particular those with a dedicated sound chip should just as well have managed to route it through the RF. Perhaps due to different PAL substandards and audio carriers they preferred not to, so one could import a machine from the UK to mainland Europe and use it with TV volume off.

Regarding the keyboard, I would not want to use it too long but those who grew up with it generally have fond memories. Again there were quite a few machines with rubber keyboards and out of those Sinclair may have had one of the better ones. It is similar to full sized keyboards, you have good and bad ones among those too.

[geoffm3]

Hope you like playing in B&W (without modification that is)... PAL machines won't show color on NTSC sets... and that includes composite video outputs. If the machine has a SCART output, or if it's available on the video chip outputs you could wire up to either take the color difference signals and adapt to RGB (or straight to a newer TV with component video I think), or the analog RGB outs to a monitor like a Commodore 1084. Then you should be able to display color.

[FishFinger]

The vast majority of Spectrum software will work on the 48K. The extra memory in the 128K was generally just used to load a game all in one go, instead of loading levels separately as some games did on the 48K, and to hold the music for the 128Ks sound chip.

I think the 48K only has RF output, and possibly composite (or can be modded to produce composite). Only the 128Ks had an RGB video socket.

[Tupin]

Originally Posted by geoffm3

Hope you like playing in B&W (without modification that is)... PAL machines won't show color on NTSC sets... and that includes composite video outputs. If the machine has a SCART output, or if it's available on the video chip outputs you could wire up to either take the color difference signals and adapt to RGB (or straight to a newer TV with component video I think), or the analog RGB outs to a monitor like a Commodore 1084. Then you should be able to display color.

What about a computer monitor? Or, there are converters that allow color to be shown.

I have no TV that can to 50Hz, just monitors. I get a VGA to composite cable, I plug that into the output of a PAL converter, and plug the Spectrum into that. That would be setup, unless my monitor has a PAL mode.

[geoffm3]

Originally Posted by Tupin

What about a computer monitor? Or, there are converters that allow color to be shown.

I have no TV that can to 50Hz, just monitors. I get a VGA to composite cable, I plug that into the output of a PAL converter, and plug the Spectrum into that. That would be setup, unless my monitor has a PAL mode.

That is something I hadn't considered. Yeah, if you got a PAL->VGA converter that would be an option.

[Tupin]

What I was actually considering doing was just getting a VGA to composite cable, modding the Spectrum for composite video, and plugging it directly into the monitor using the adapter cable. It can run in 50Hz and I'm pretty sure it can auto-detect PAL and will switch to PAL mode and give me color.