Networkin’ like it’s 1983! Well sort of. But I finally found a legitimate use for the telly’s picture-in-picture mode #zxspectrum #interface1 #sinclair #network #baudrate #chunteyfield

Ah, okay… now it’s #Christmas.

screenshot of Sega Saturn game Christmas NiGHTS

New High Score: 24,180 ☃️

high score table: top place FD RECORDS with 24180

Competition is heating up in round two of the Spectrum Computing Christmas High Score Challenge! This week’s game is The Snowman. spectrumcomputing.co.uk/forums/vi…

ZX Spectrum screenshot, title screen of The Snowman by Quicksilva from 1983

Merry Crashmas! 🌈 🤖 👻 🐢

christmas tree decorated with 1980s toys and a 2020 copy of Crash magazine

Tonight’s silly project: replacing a tired old ZX Spectrum cassette with a freshly-recorded new one! TZXDuino! Sony TCM-818! By far the hardest part was printing a new label!

a tangle of wires, cassette tapes, recorders and ZX SpectrumsUCHI MATA JUDO game on cassette tape with a worn label, and a brand new green cassette with no labeloriginal cassette case and inlay card with new cassette featuring a printed label

Oidhche Shamhna 👻 #spooky

spooky house on a spooky hill with a spooky moon behind some spooky clouds lighting a big spooky tree

Wayhey, it’s new game Saturday: Millie & Molly on Commodore 64!

Commodore 64 cassette tape game Millie ans Molly with illustrated cover showing the main characters.

Morning sun in Connel

Feàrnach

Resistance is… ~futile~ approximately 18KΩ

New project time! It’s a recreated Romantic Robot Multiface 128. (Or rather it soon will be, hopefully!)

ProjectSPECCY recreated Romantic Robot Multiface 128

Pakket overhandigd door de verzender aan de Pickup parcelshop! 🚚 🌈 📦 #zxspectrum #bytedelight

I’ve removed, tested, replaced or bodged almost everything and it’s still not working! Time to give up, or start saving for an expensive oscilloscope… #eBay #fixerupperopportunity #zxspectrum #repair

A mostly disassembled ZX Spectrum

Last night’s re-cap seems to have been a success. The -5v line in particular was really noisy, but now the voltages (-5,+5 and +12) all seem to be nice and stable. Bad news: that means something else must still be wrong! (Yeah I’m lookin’ at you, IC3!!) #zxspectrum #repair

ZX Spectrum circuit board showing two new electrolytic capacitors

Uh oh! #zxspectrum #repair

Jetpack Jock by @_gazmarshall is so super hardcore difficult* you really ought to set your Cruiser to Tension Level Two: extra tight. (No one has ever used Level Three). Now to just get past level two of the game!

  • easy mode now also available!
garish green pink yellow and blue Cruiser joystick set to "II"

Making some progress! This will be much faster in machine code (and probably easier to traverse the display file with bitwise operations) but in the meantime I’m enjoying using Looking Glass for working in BASIC. #zxspectrum #alphacom32

Thermal printer with several print-outs of BASIC program listings and corrupted graphics.

Tonight I’m trying to stuff the display file into the print buffer 32 bytes at a time, in the right order. (Why? Mostly because I want to print screenshots and the COPY command misses the bottom two rows.) But! I’ve upset the tokeniser! #zxspectrum

ZX Spectrum screenshot showing BASIC code listing

I am on my holidays. #retro #zxspectrum

Bottle: Drygate Gladeye Retro IPA; Books: Z80 Machine Code for Humans, and The Complete Spectrum ROM Disassembly

Aye, but does your gaming rig support hi-definition graphics and stereo sound? #zxspectrum 🌈 👾

ZX Spectrum 48K with ZX-HD, ZX-AY, and DivMMC FutureWH Smith computer program data recorder CPD8300ZX-AY by Ben Versteeg of bytedelight.com

Postie has been. Time to print all the things! (No, it’s not bog-roll, it’s till-roll!) 🧻 🦖 🌈

cardboard box full of till rolls and a plastic dinosaur toyZX Spectrum and printer, with various print-outs

Restoring some eBay junk this evening. What a beauty though. #hench #badlad #whsmith #cpd8300

disassembled cassette playerbadly corroded magnetic tape read/write headWH Smith CPD8300 computer program data recorder

I’ve had a new power converter sent over from Tosche Station. Now my toastrack is much cooler. #ZXSpectrum

Five volt power regulator

👀 DualShock 4 paired to a @RetroBitGaming MegaDrive Bluetooth receiver, hooked up to a @futurewas8bit DivMMC Future (acting as a Kempston joystick interface) with a Raspberry Pi (to provide the missing +5v that a MegaDrive would supply) 🕹 #ZxSpectrum #Small #Faraway

ZX Spectrum joustick test programSony PlayStation Dualshock 4 being used to play Bionic Commando