Comment on evil non-unix computer (zx spectrum 48k!)
vk6flab@lemmy.radio 1 week ago
I’m surprised that the Spectrum didn’t reset when you put your feet up. 😁
For those not familiar, both the ZX81 and Spectrum were notoriously fickle when it came to power supplies … often resetting when you looked at it funny.
Source: I’m that old.
Also, nice socks!
Tiger_Man_@szmer.info 1 week ago
its powered from a lab power supply because it bought it without the original one. also the frequent resets were perhaps caused by the instabiloty of the internal power circuit rather than thr external one
i had similar problems (as well as no tape i/o, colors and restarts after attempting to execute some more advanced commands) before i replaced the tr4 and it was caused by the lack 12v and -12v rails so maybe 12v rail that powers ram was unstable in your machines (due to a bad capacitor or transistor perhaps)
replacing transistors in the speccy is a bit problematic because no one sells ztxes, but i managed to find the tr4(ztx 651) one (but for example tr5(ztx 213) is apparently not manufactured anymore and i suspected that to be broken too so i just bought one with a similar hFE facfor but luckily i didnt have to replace it)
also which issue of the speccy did you have? mine is issue 2
vk6flab@lemmy.radio 1 week ago
I worked for a now long defunct company with half a dozen of each, no idea which revision. My job was to crack and re-enable copy protection to create master tapes for bulk duplication.
I was told (as a teenager) that we had agreements with the copyright holders, but I never saw them. We also had an Orange…an Apple ][ clone, a Sinclair QL and a few Commodore and MSX machines.
My own computer was a VIC-20.