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Re: MEMOTECH

Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2017 6:29 pm
by Andy Rea
Well i should have thought the external keyboard would be a number 1, the interface it's self is not difficult, but getting a custom keyboard fabricated could be somewhat costly


Andy

Re: MEMOTECH

Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2017 7:00 pm
by Paul
Yes, I forgot about this (not usable on ZX80) ;)
A PS/2 keyboard interface is available next year. That is much better than any matrix keyboard that needs to be produced.

Re: MEMOTECH

Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2017 7:16 pm
by mrtinb
The problem with using a "regular" keyboard with an interface is that the text and graphics on the keys are missing. This makes the keyboard be like an emulator or the like.

That's why I made my own keyboard. I used Wilf Rigther's schematics for an external interface.

Re: MEMOTECH

Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2017 7:58 pm
by Paul
There is nothing compared to a cherry keyboard.
Keyword stickers aren't difficult to make.
The ZX-TEAM is creating lot of pcbs in half euro pcb format (80x100mm) for a backplane zeddy.
Don't ask me why. Somehow this became a habit during the last year.
Backplane, Serial, parallel, Zeddynet, zxblast, zonX (with speaker} are ready, video output and keyboard coming soon. Backplane to be plugged into bare zx81 or zxnu, ZX core or ZX more.

Re: MEMOTECH

Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2017 8:52 pm
by RWAP
Yes, a keyboard interface is one of the most popular wishes.

A centronics interface is also a potential thanks to the Retro-Printer - however, it would probably make more sense here to develop a simple centronics interface which would work with the ZX81 and ZX Spectrum and just emulate the ZX Printer to send the signals to a centronics connector (and hence the Retro-Printer). The Retro-Printer would then need a new filter to convert that data to a PDF for printing.

Re: MEMOTECH

Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2017 10:23 pm
by gammaray
Paul wrote: Sun Oct 15, 2017 6:14 pm In order to give the thread a different direction :
Memotech expansions were great when they were first offered but nowadays make little sense to recreate.
Rampack with dynamic ram should better be static ram today. And with ZXPand and zxblast these are available.
Hrg module are not necessary any more and there is very little software supporting the Memotech Hrg.
Memotech serial port was very bad in quality and serial ports are available via the ZX-TEAM.
Centonics interfaces were very good but printers with Centonics interface are rarely available anymore. Something new should be developed here.
All the software modules were really very difficult to use.
So what would you like to reconstruct?
I should have been asking does it make sense to reproduce these peripherals. But if you want to nostalgia, it would hard won in recreating some of these if originals could be found and design plans shared.