ZX Spectrum: Difference between revisions
Move add-ons to their own section, add some
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* 9V DC in.
* TV out (coaxial providing an analogue UHF signal).
* Edge Connector/expansion bus - literally the edge of the motherboard, sporting a double row of printed tabs. Can be duplicated but not hot-plugged.
** ZX Printer - Sinclair's spark-gap printer, that prints on 100mm-wide rolls of aluminium-coated paper. One or two electrically-compatible clones were spotted in the wild.▼
** ZX Interface I - provides an [[w:RS-232|RS232]] port and connectors for Microdrives<ref>A midget data tape produced by Sinclair</ref> and a proprietary network.▼
*** ZX Interface II - The official one, sporting two joystick ports and a ROM cartridge connector. The joystick part was built in to the Spectrum +2. Joystick movements simulate number key presses (1-5 for the left stick, 6-0 for the right) to make life easier for game developers. ▼
*** Kempston - the most popular.▼
*** Cursor - which emulates arrow key presses instead of number keys<ref>Although the arrow keys are technically shifted number keys</ref>.▼
*** Protek.▼
*** Fuller.▼
** Several mice and floppy drives▼
** Hacker/debugging tools including Romantic Robot's "Multiface". Magazines frequently published "Multiface cheats", consisting of memory addresses to be zeroed for infinite lives in various games.▼
</tabber>
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==== [[Wide Open Sandbox]] ====
* ''[[Elite]]''
=== Add-ons ===
Sinclair released several add-ons to extend the Spectrum's functionality, and numerous other companies got in on the action. The ZX printer, already released for use with the ZX81, was also Spectrum compatible, and the burgeoning games market allowed several competing joystick adaptors to thrive, at least until Amstrad starting building joystick ports into later Spectra.
All Spectrum add-ons were plugged in to the "edge connector" or "expansion bus" which, according to the manual, exposed enough functionality to do "almost anything with a Spectrum that you can do with a Z80". Some devices included a duplicated edge connector for daisy-chaining, and for the rest, "expansion doublers" could be bought.
Attachments included:
==== Hacker/debugging tools ====
* Various external ROMs, including one in...
▲
==== Joystick interfaces ====
Some of the earlier joystick interfaces included ROM cartridge slots, but the cartridges never caught on - by most estimates, less than 11 games were ever sold that way. Later versions sometimes shipped with spaces on their circuit boards for the cartridge connector.
▲
▲
* RAM Turbo - one of several attempts to combine multiple joystick protocols in one unit. At least two of the protocols worked, and it had a reset button to make reboots easier for owners of pre-Plus Spectrums.
==== Printers ====
▲
* At least one electrically-compatible clone of the ZX printer was spotted in the wild, printing on larger, more ordinary-looking thermal paper.
* Other printers could be attached via the Interface 1.
==== Others ====
▲
* Fuller Orator, an external sound box using the AY-3-8912 (the same sound chip that was built into later Spectrums).
{{reflist}}
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