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I like your hat, got it from a Christmas cracker did you? ;)

In 1984, I was in my twenties and happy about getting a job at a high tech firm that designed and manufactured semi conductor manufacturing equipment. These machines were used to make the IC chips that are in a Spektrum and other computers, along with everything else. Going further back to my childhood, I never received Christmas presents because of my family's financial situation. I can only imagine that as a child it would have been exciting, but I don't really know. I still loved my parents though.

My mum was actually angry that i bought a silly stupid computer, which was the zx spectrum. I learned basic but also assembler. Together we wrote a printer driver in assembler which was residing in the spectrum printer buffer memory space (not an easy task due to the small printer buffer size) It used the beeper with a transistor at the output to create a unidirectional serial interface. We hooked up an HP line printer which we bought from a scrapyard for almost nothing and yes it worked ! We also hooked up a real computer monitor and a real keyboard. The speccy was housed inside the computer monitor housing. Everything was looking super professional 😂😂😂 (fortunately we had a computer scrapyard nearby who sold old computer equipment y weight) I am now an electronics engineer, still passionate about small computers and microcontrollers.

Marvelous ! I enjoyed you video , made me think of my wonderful Mom too. I still have my Sinclair. I was studying electronics at the time and in order to learn assembler we were given a choice , buy a pcb with Z80 on it called a Micro Professor (looked like a book) or get a ZX Spectrum. The Sinclair made more sense. Went on to learn Basic and the road to programming and code opened up from there .

Thumbs up just for the jetpac memories ! hit all the buttons to

Oh the good old days. I cleaned up in school selling cassettes loaded with specy games. Self-taught sinclair basic from mags and books, took for ever then they scrapped it.

i got my speccy in 84 but when we opened the box it was scratch to bits. so mum took it back to Rackham's the day after boxing day and they replaced with a spectrum plus. it was worth the extra few days wait

i had my zx spectrum rubberkey in christmas '84 , i later got the 'plus' upgrade keyboard and fitted it in that, still got both, i got an interface 1 and 2 in the 1990s from a car boot sale , the rom games were always expensive and they certainly are more so now! i recently made my own rom cartridge board that uses just a single rom file 27c128, but not yet tried it, , that 27c512 board could be very useful as i was given a load of programmed but never fitted 27c512s some years back

Did anyone here go in to shops back in the day, and type 10 PRINT "(Some obscene message)" 20 GO TO 10 RUN on some of those 8-bit machines on display? When I got my own Commodore 64 in April of 1985, I learned how to use its sound capabilities (which routinely made Speccy owners green with envy! 😎), and did a bit of BASIC code which mimicked the boot-up screen, waited either for a keypress or just a few minutes to give me time to leave the "crime scene", and then made some loud siren noise (don't forget to POKE 808,251 to disable the RUN/STOP key 😛) Later, when I mastered machine code/assembly, I had a little routine which waited for the cursor to leave the leftmost column on the screen, and then sporadically "press" the DELETE key, frustrating the next bloke who came in to do the PRINT "(obscene message)" thing. Nowadays, computers in shops just run an advertising video or slide show, and demand a password if you want to do anything else with them. Today's kids will never have the same kind of fun we had...

The ZX 48k is still in the basement somewhere. Built a joystick interface myself, played a lot of Jet Pac, many hours. Been working in IT most of my life.

40 years ago ! I was 13 (14 in January 1985) and I got my Commodore 64. Happy memories and thanks to mum and dad who are both no longer with us

I'm gonna have to demand that you clean the gunk out of your joystick ports. Am I the only one?

I bought a couple of carts for 99p each back in the day. Still work today, they were Hungary Horace and Planetoids.

I`ve got an A3000. I wonder if there are any mods worth doing. I`ve changed the clock chip and battery. Not done the power supply yet due to not knowing the kit to get.

can we see a video detailing your EPROM programmer? ...this video did not appear to detail it nor can I see any link to it.. I was building one back in the mid 90's ...buying one next time.....

My cousin had one and that was the best Christmas day ever, I think he had Manic Miner. Great trip back in time :) thank you

You seem to have had your moneysworth out of that system!

ohhh she's beautiful!!

Superb video! as a huge Spectrum owner and fan, I had to sub!

With those rom carts, a cheap interface 2 remake would be interesting. It should not be hard or expensive, as there shouldn't be many components needed.

To be able to use that socket and running a game from cartridge like that on the Speccy is quite something! 40 years in the making! :)

:o)

The compression on that muzak.....aaaaargh !

I got my 128+2 speccy with a joystick, Soldier of Fortune and Fire&Forget, just a few months before christmas. At the time, it was being sold here just a few quid short of a minimum wage, and my dad was the only one working due to my mom doing chemotherapy. During that time I hardly saw my dad for almost a year because he was doing overtime in construction even on weekends. I can not even imagine the effort he made to make it possible, having to support a house of 4 and paying for experimental treatments. I don't remember if he got anything for me and my brother on that christmas, but we already had what we wanted, really. I still have it, and just waiting for a full refurbish, which I will do as soon as my workbench is free for a couple of days.

I remember sending off £125 for my Spectrum (16K) in 1982 then later upgrading it myself to 48k. It was known as an Issue 1.5 (rare) meaning it had the Issue 2 Pcb with the original 5C102E ULA and the dead cockroach IC stuck to the top of the Z80.

I wish I still had my original Speccy, I have my QL and highly upgraded Amiga A2000 but have no idea what happened to my last Spectrum. My dad (a Snr Systems Engineer) made me learn BASIC and tested me before I was "rewarded" with a 16K ZX Spectrum in 1982 and Planetoids was the first game I got for it, I only played it for a bit of nostalgia using Fuse this Tuesday. He made me learn BASIC to encourage me not to use it just for games and I've been a professional Software Engineer since 1987 working on the code for avionic systems such as the Head-Up Displays (HUDs) for C-17, F-16, F-5, Eurofighter Typhoon and the fly-by-wire (FCC) for Boeing 777, all thanks to my dad and my humble Spectrum. "From little acorns..." as they say, but I never had an Atom, Electron or BBC Micro 😉

I have many fond Speecy memories although not relating to Xmas. There was the time at my job during a lunch break, (I worked in a TV repair workshop so there was loads of TV's to try it out on) one of the guys showed of a new fangled thing called a ZX Spectrum and over the course of the week the guys tried to complete the Hobbit and failed. At the end of the week I was hooked and purchased my own Speecy and a copy of the Hobbit and solved the game over the weekend (more by luck than skill, they kept getting killed in the forest by the spiders, I had a brainwave and tried waiting before moving and it worked), so I saved at the point where you put the treasure in the chest and completed the game. The following Monday lunch time I smugly showed the guys I had completed the game before any of them! Another memory, is that I had being trying to go out with a girl at work and eventually took her on a first date. At the end of the evening I persuaded to come back to my flat and to my eternal shame I spent the night playing Horace goes skiing with her!! Unsurprisingly, the relationship with her never went any further. Changing the subject, are you limited to just 16K Rom images with the cartridge or can you put other games on it. Happy New.

Thank you for this video. I just picked one up for some projects I have in mind and made my decision based off this video

i liked your video and ypur christmas story about the spectrum and you mom! thats awrsome.!my favorite was1982 mom worked very hard and got me a colecovision!! my favorite christmas ever!! i live with mom to help her out with things. i love mom! and i bet your moms happy she has a good son!merry christmas simon!

I guess that device only works with 16k games? I've never seen a 48k game on rom.

Cool build. I do need a ZX Interface 2 now 😉 Merry Christmas !!!

I purchased an ATPL sideways ram board years ago when I first started (in a very hobbyist way) mucking around with electronics and made the exact same mistake in that I used pin headers instead of turned pin headers. Normal (non-turned) pin headers are too thick and can permanently widen the dual wipe contacts in the socket that they go into, making putting a ROM IC back into that socket an issue as the ROM IC legs don't always make good contact any longer. Sometimes you have to replace the socket.

hey simon great job onthat board! you stayed on it when i probably would have stopped..mery christmas my friend !

I like your Pac Man ghost light. I have the same one. 💪🏼😺👍🏼

Interesting video. It certainly highlights the need to make sure that pins and sockets are compatible with each other. Merry Christmas 🎄🎁

My goodness.. that was a rollercoaster ride (and not one if the fun ones for you!) Certainly a cautionary tale there - not all pins are made equal.. something I will definitely bear in mind! Thank you for taking the time to edit down the many hours it took to get it all sorted - the outcome was worth it! Happy Christmas 🎄 to you and yours, and here's to mkre retro adventures in 2025! 🥂

Ever heard the phrase... you can't fit a square peg into a round hole? .... The singular reason for all your socket problems is because someone has replaced the original turned pin 0.5mm round riser pins for 0.5mm square section Dupont style headers. They're quite a lot bigger than turned pins hence damage the springs, and won't push into turned pin sockets. I'd remove those Dupont headers and fit the proper turned pin headers.

Could it be that R37 is the same as "EAR" input pin? That would explain why you pick this resistor and not others.

how come very time i think " i will upgrade this computer or that computer" you pop up showing me the do's and don'ts that's a Christmas gift innit ??

Another interesting video. Wishing you a Happy Xmas and a Merry New Year, looking forward to many more of your excellent videos in 2025. Hopefully Santa will come down your chimney and bring you loads of presents, provided you had been a good boy this year and not been put on the naughty list. Santa come early this year for me and bought me an Atari 800Xl, never had one of these machines before, so I'm looking forward to unboxing this on Xmas Day.

Se ve genial

Oh my god! I had that, me and brother loved it as did my dad, hed play it at night while i was sleeping 😂 i even remember the tune

I have 2 Cub monitors also (and a Duratool). Great minds think alike !

5:00 There ought to be a nose adapter for de-soldering multiple in-line pin components like these.

Not up to date. Actual version of T12 is grounded to case

i have blu teethed a few now , speccies of course acorn electrons and msx and a 64c very nice mod works and as long as you can get mp3 or wav copies of games etc works a treat , i will advise to buy the modules that have a built in amp as you need to throw the volume on your device high to get a good signal

Voce pode medir as tensões de +5v -5v e 12v no chip de memoria ram baixa, para saber se a fonte interna está ok.

Hi, wonder about the hassle of getting replacement parts like the seal and glass tube.

Interesting video. I saw the hard plastic cover you have on your beebs for sale on ebay recently, the seller was asking a mere £50 for one! I think I'll give that a miss - lol. I think I might have a problem, there was a very nice 1040 STE (upgraded to 4 meg and complete with box and polys all in excellent condition ) with lots of goodies on ebay that I just had to buy. That's 5 x ST's I now have! If you need the split tos 1.04 mages give me a email to send it to you. Did you use the same dye colour on your Amiga 500 as the beebs? Bone colour, I think?