Was it Christmas, birthday, or just because we begged?
Sadly I can`t remember but me and my brother so wanted one of these machines. Spending long hours at friends who owned one, finally it arrived as the biggest distraction of our childhood. Played to death until replaced by newer technology, yes I said played, no serious functions needed here, where`s the joystick plug in..... Well loved and an 8bit memories machine, time it got a makeover!
Having been stored in the attic, a roof leak many years ago had killed the original mobo. No amount of drying could fix it, it never booted and sadly got ditched, in hindsight many spare parts may have been recoverable. Ebay was my usual port of call and unfortunately this time it wasn`t going to be easy. Most Spectrum motherboards have had some sort of intervention over the years and mine was going to need more than I bargained for. This one almost got abandoned!
So the original parts have wear, usual stuff, worn keyboard membrane, print worn on key mat buttons and face plate not looking too clever. I ordered Chinese replacements from Retroradionics.
I think around the $30 mark, took a month or so but I was half way there. The motherboard I got from Ebay was more than problematic, ram had been tampered with and the board had a mountain of issues.
As you can see in the photo the lower ram (mobo upside down) so top right has had a socket fitted. This version has the old style voltage regulator strapped to the massive heat-sink. I replaced as many capacitors as I could and changed the voltage regulator to a modern alternative that stays cool and makes the heat-sink redundant. Call it a bit of preventative future proofing but not addressing the real issues. I was definitely out of my depth as far as ram and ic`s and needed to find a professional.
http://www.tynemouthsoftware.co.uk/ to the rescue. For those who don`t know, here resides Dave Curran, an 8bit Guru of the highest order. Reluctantly he took it on, understandably its been messed with by many unskilled hands of which I have now added myself. Secretly though I knew he liked a challenge and he didn`t let me down.
Here`s the board after Dave worked his magic. I got a lower ram kit from "Joules Per Coulomb" YouTube AKA zx.zigg.net and passed it on to Dave hoping to at least limit the damage. Turns out after god knows how many man hours Dave said it would be easier to list what didn`t need replaced. Maybe the cost has outweighed the outcome here but for me I now have a future proof 48k speccy I wanted, learn`t a few things along the way and gave Dave enough meat to create the mother of all blogs for himself. I can`t recommend him enough for anyone with 8bit machines in need of repair.
My parts had arrived from Retroradionics, now Dave had sorted the board, time to give the little monkey a facelift. So what did I get!
New membrane, rubber key mat (went for different colour) which i think is a clean look.
The face plate impressed me most, looks Sinclair factory stock. I did have to replace the double sided tape that glues the face plate to the casing with my own 3M tape as the stuff supplied was pretty useless.
I was pleased with the look and could do with some fine cleaning to area just above the face plate. I replaced the psu with a small modern version that looks more like a mobile phone charger and bought a composite cable.
plugged it in to my 32" retro tv, trusty Toshiba with all the right inputs. The iconic copyright screen was all i needed as i couldn`t be bothered to dig out a tape deck right now. Then i remembered my little Randomize USR 1310 command i used to type in to machines setup in shops and 10 PRINT a brand new game name that would draw crowds whilst it ran endlessly loading nothing. I was about 12 and easily entertained by mischief.
This now joins my ZX81 and Spectrum +2 though it holds a special place for me and my brother as the beginning of all things computing/gaming in our lives anyway!
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