Many many many thanks (once more) to Rich. Yep, when you get this kinda thang scrambling your vision on booting up yer 48k rubber keyed little Sinclair ZX Spectroid, you know you've got issues... What the issues were wasn't immediately apparent as it looked like it could be bad RAM/ULA etc but in actual fact the little sod wasn't booting properly with an original PSU... I'd never come across this before - I mean normally, stock Speccies work with stock Sinclair ZX power supplies, yeah? Anyway, our ace electronics whiz Richie offered to have a closer look at the brute and lo and behold it was perfectly fine when Rich hooked it up to a modern smoothed regulated PSU - it's all bloody go now, lads. Again, many thanks to Richie for rescuing another perfectly good 8bit micro which might well have been thrown out/broken up for parts/spares n repair when really there's nowt wrong with the little larker at all. As ever, wonderfully packed and dispatched to ol Baz Towers and just remains for me to thank Rich again for being so kind, generous and wonderful at fault-finding these ol beauties of ours... Cheers, mate - you are a total wizard and i'm very grateful. This repair and modern PSU donation was a Christmas gift from Richie to me so it is very nicely and warmly received indeed. It came weeks ago by the way but you know what I'm like at "getting round to things" Brilliant, mate. Lovely mix of thick air pockets / bubble wrap and care and thought gone into keeping it all safe within. Betty approves - plenty of packing for her to nest in afterwards - Speccy packed excellently. ...and lo and behold the composite mod works great out of the Speccy with the new Rich-supplied modern power supply: Mega crisp and clear, fellas. PS. Btw, I told our Bev NOT to leave the gas turbines and nuclear reactor on when we popped out to shops at weekend... I kid ye not... smart meter? You having a larff?!? This was the reading Sat night when we got back from Sunderland
Get on to them ASAP, they will try and push it. I've refused smart meters all the way down the line..Almost every week I get Scottish Power and EON AND Affinity water trying to fit these god awful things. They can feck off, first they blame the 1st generation versions, now it's sommit else. Its nigh on organised crime between them, fleece the punter, with all supplying parties in agreement.
Thanks to Richie, I;m indulging in some rubber keyed lurve - I've never played this one by the colossal KEV TOMS - Not bad but not a patch on Football Manager - IMHO - more a Candyfloss type business profits and loss turn-based game but it's a bit of fun for 15mins. Anyone here ever tried it and did it get released on the C64/Amstrad? I imagine it probably did...
Did turn up on the C64, no idea re Amstrad.. Edit: Quick wiki later, yes, on Amstrad as well, no other machines... Never got on with "It's a perm" man games...If I have to use my brain, then it's too much for me..
Kudos to Rich for his skills, God bless people like him, because we poor mortals would have been lost without them. The problems with the original Sinclair PSU are sadly known, but it's not easy to find out that the ugly black power cube so nicely ornated with the red logo is the real responsible for the trouble of most old rubber-key Speccy. And not only, I hear that the Plus version and also the infamous 128K "Toastrack" both suffer the original power supplies. Reversed polarity, unstable tension output, cheap components: here's the right ingredients for a disaster. But our hero repairers are luckily beside us to assist and give a new life to our beloved micros. ;-)
Building, a basic DC psu is pretty easy, better to repair them and upgrade the components so it's a matching item. Sadly, early on a lot of makers made it hard to do that, the worst offender was the STUPID use of epoxy resin. Not only does it turn the psu in to a mobile battering ram when posted and not secured well, but it totally stops any real chance of a simple repair. But yes, having a reliable repair person is a godsend, I used to do bits for folks, but the spine put paid to soldering by making my shoulders spasm at times. I'll probably give my gear away at some point.
