@leesmithsworkshop.bsky.social Ah cool, I was assuming you’d power it separately. Defo much neater to have it internal.
Some floppy controllers need 12v, but not 177x AFAIK. None of my drives need 12v, but they do seem to pull 5v quite sharply. I assume this board accounts for that but I doubt my Spectrum’s regulator would cope!
@fuzzweed.co.uk Hahah! I came here to post the same thing. Look like one of @futurewas8bit.bsky.social’s patented* Edge Connector Cleaning Tools 😁
@leesmithsworkshop.bsky.social I mostly use USB. Ben at ByteDelight fits his with a barrel jack which is quite convenient with an adapted USB lead.
@leesmithsworkshop.bsky.social I found that my VR-1772 isn’t that keen on disks authored by Greaseweazle, so I’d reccommend loading up the MGT System Tape on the Spectrum first, and formatting/creating your system disk that way.
@leesmithsworkshop.bsky.social This it looking great, Lee! Are you already familiar with the PlusD? It’s much easier and nicer to use than BetaDisk (TR-DOS) but if you need a hand getting started just shout. You’ll need a boot disk, but all the files you need are on ZXDB / Spectrum Computing.
@flatduckrecords.co.uk Close! But no, it’s “Sonic”.
@sloanysoft.itch.io I remember one summer we got really into “Rola Cola” which seemed to be exclusively stocked by the Dunfermline branch of What Everyone Wants, and convinced ourselves it was incredible. Years later, we discovered Fentiman’s Ye Olde Poshe Éxpènsive Cola — and you know what? It’s Rola Cola. Always was.
@samsterdave.bsky.social I can only speculate but I would have thought they want as close to a drop-in as possible? One difficulty between the first two campaigns was the different FPGA (Spartan-6 to Artix-7). This time they’re sticking with Artix-7 but bumping it from XC7A15T to a XC7A35T www.amd.com/en/products/…
@specnext.com Yes, there are some really smart custom-loaders that TAP files just can’t handle so it’s a nice thing to have. It should be straightforward to fit your own Pi Zero if you want to: wiki.specnext.dev/Pi:Main_Page
@specnext.com Yes the accelerator board is a Raspberry Pi Zero, it’s not essential but enables a few features. The main one is loading TZX files, but things like MP3 playback and MIDI are possible too. (TZX files are a form virtual tape files, the Next can load TAP files without the accelerator).
@ambientcoder.com I quite like it, it’s built on top of Gary’s work on +3e. (Not everyone loves that Plus3 heritage of course!) But it’s under active development and is readily extensible with dot-commands (inline ASM is a good example of that). PROCs and LOCALs bring structure. Oh and integer vars at last!
@flatduckrecords.co.uk Indeed! 👾
(Hah, I didn’t but I do now!)
@specnext.com Ah, me too! Oh well; Magenta it is, then!
@breakintoprogram.co.uk 10V, 1.2A. I remember using it interchangably with my Spectrum back in the day. The cost-reduced MegaDrive II swapped polarity though — my mate blew the RAM in his Speccy with that so worth double checking! 😅⚡
Yes, with no cartridge the power LED will still light and black screen will show.
@maxy.bsky.social I’ve made a start! 🥁 🥊🥚
@maxy.bsky.social Omg yes 🙌
@flatduckrecords.co.uk I did not know that! SAM actually has a built-in screensaver of sorts, but it just switches off the screen.
@flatduckrecords.co.uk Heh! I know what your mean, I really enjoy collecting these ancient tomes!
Most of mine are Spectrum-specific but this one is generically about Z80 so it gives plenty of examples, but doesn’t make assumptions about display output for instance.
@flatduckrecords.co.uk 🍻 ☀️ 📖 ✌️
@zxvintage.bsky.social Ah, of course. I did wonder about that but couldn’t fit that into one toot! In any case I’ve been humming that daft tune all afternoon, thanks!
@zxvintage.bsky.social Hah, I thought the song was released on a separate tape (an upload on YouTube shows a different inlay). So I’ve had fruitless eBay saved-search for nigh on five years! …and of course I had this tape all along! 😁😆
ZXDB recons it was the Aug ’89 issue though? spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/13774/
@jamie-b-b.bsky.social It’s a new Golden Age!
The mag is a real treat, great work 😁
@jimblimey.com Having a dark/light theme in your code editor that roughly matches the brightness of your chat client is essential too; nothing quite gives away that you’re not paying attention than when your face suddenly glows because you’ve alt-tabbed to another window. 💡😆
@geezerdiamond.bsky.social When the Wall’s fell.
@jimblimey.com My fave combo of the modern/repro colours is the yellow faceplace with the black keymat. Not sure if it would suit your silvery grey case, but I think it looks good with the translucent grey one: