Great to meet you

Introduce yourself to your fellow forum members - what was your journey into the Sinclair world?
JonnyGee
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2020 8:57 pm

Great to meet you

Post by JonnyGee »

Hey everyone,

I'm new to this message board. So by way of an intro.... My first computer was a ZX80 which I only owned for about a year as I persuaded a friend to buy it from me so that I could get a ZX81 - wish I'd held onto it now but the ZX81 was an important stepping stone. I moved onto a Beeb after that and from there I've ended up having a career in IT.... which all stems back to my ZX80.
SO, as good ZX80's are rare as budgie's teeth and cost ££££ I decided to build one from a replica PCB. I have to own up that I bought the PCB a couple of years ago and bought all the IC from eBay and it's stayed in the cupboard as I considered it would take more time than I had to build it. So Covid strikes and out came the box, and I was pleased how quickly it all came together. I started with the IC sockets (I decided to socket them all in case I had any duds), then resistors, caps, 3.5mm sockets, diodes, the modulator, then the 7805 regulator for which I had to fashion a heatsink. I then inserted the ICs and I was quite pleased with the results.
initial-build.jpg
There were a couple of faults however. All I could see was a patterned screen from the modulator and no sign of the "K" prompt.
with-faults.jpg
So I checked the board and my soldering seemed to be in order. I had ordered a ZX8-CCB from Pokemon to give me composite output so I tried that instead of the modulator. I wasn't getting the pattern any more but still no "K" prompt. So I started looking at the ICs and began swapping some out with some spares and....I got it working by replacing IC16 (74LS10). Via the modulator I was still getting the lines but using the ZX8-CCB it was perfect.

Although the modulator has a fault, I'm not that bothered as my intension all along was to use the composite out - so I've wired that up via the modulator leaving the rest of the modulator circuit preserved in situ.
final-build.jpg
working-display.jpg
Next step - I've just spent a crazy amount of money and bought the Shapeways case which is arriving this week. I'll post another pic with the results. After that I'm going to build Grant Searle's 16K RAM pack - all the bits have arrived now.

So I have a couple of questions:
1) I'd like to get proper decals produced for the case so that it looks as much like the original as poss. I have copies of the files with the artwork but I'm keen to get the transfer style decals (rather than a sticker that doesn't look great). Does anyone know how I might get these printed?
2) I'll be using my macbook to load/save games via the audio port but I was wondering what' recommendations you have about the better options?? I've seen the Tzxduino on eBay and I like the idea of being to load/save to a memory card.

Thanks,
JonnyGee :)
Last edited by JonnyGee on Sat Nov 07, 2020 9:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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1024MAK
Posts: 5103
Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2011 10:56 am
Location: Looking forward to summer in Somerset, UK...

Re: Great to meet you

Post by 1024MAK »

Hello and welcome to our forum JonnyGee!

:D :D :D

I hope you enjoy this forum :D

I can’t see any pictures, photos or attachments. Use the tab under the text edit box to add attachments. Note that for images such as photos, JPEG/JPG are recommended. If the size is too great, the forum software will not accept them. If so reduce the size and try again.

Your first handful of posts will need to be approved, also if you edit a post. So be patient.

Mark
ZX81 Variations
ZX81 Chip Pin-outs
ZX81 Video Transistor Buffer Amp

:!: Standby alert :!:
There are four lights!
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb :!:
Looking forward to summer later in the year.
User avatar
1024MAK
Posts: 5103
Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2011 10:56 am
Location: Looking forward to summer in Somerset, UK...

Re: Great to meet you

Post by 1024MAK »

That’s better :D Now that you have edited your post, I can see the photos 8-)

Mark
ZX81 Variations
ZX81 Chip Pin-outs
ZX81 Video Transistor Buffer Amp

:!: Standby alert :!:
There are four lights!
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb :!:
Looking forward to summer later in the year.
JonnyGee
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2020 8:57 pm

Re: Great to meet you

Post by JonnyGee »

Thanks Mark :)
Moggy
Posts: 3231
Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2008 2:00 pm

Re: Great to meet you

Post by Moggy »

Hi JonnyGee.

Welcome from myself also. I'm almost sure that forum member Sir Morris posted the decals for the ZX80 somewhere on the forum or some information as to where they could be found.
I will try to seek them out and report back. :D

Cannot help with save/load jobby I'm afraid as I use the ZXpand SD card interface for that rather than tape.
Moggy
Posts: 3231
Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2008 2:00 pm

Re: Great to meet you

Post by Moggy »

Don't know if this might help re Stickers.?

Note that the integral functions sticker is only needed if replicating issue one margarine tub plastic made ZX80's and not the issue 2-3 ABS cased variants. (Not sure how accurate you want to be)
Attachments
ZX80 stickers.pdf
(251.76 KiB) Downloaded 230 times
JonnyGee
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2020 8:57 pm

Re: Great to meet you

Post by JonnyGee »

Moggy wrote: Sat Nov 07, 2020 9:45 pm Hi JonnyGee.

Welcome from myself also. I'm almost sure that forum member Sir Morris posted the decals for the ZX80 somewhere on the forum or some information as to where they could be found.
I will try to seek them out and report back. :D

Cannot help with save/load jobby I'm afraid as I use the ZXpand SD card interface for that rather than tape.
Thanks Moggy - I'll take a look at ZXpand SD
JonnyGee
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2020 8:57 pm

Re: Great to meet you

Post by JonnyGee »

Moggy wrote: Sat Nov 07, 2020 9:54 pm Don't know if this might help re Stickers.?

Note that the integral functions sticker is only needed if replicating issue one margarine tub plastic made ZX80's and not the issue 2-3 ABS cased variants. (Not sure how accurate you want to be)
Thanks for the file :) - any idea where I can get these turned into transfer decals?
Moggy
Posts: 3231
Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2008 2:00 pm

Re: Great to meet you

Post by Moggy »

Sorry no and it seems I got the forum member wrong. It was Balford who I think is no longer active here who did the stickers but his link to them is now dead. :cry:
Trevor_B
Posts: 101
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2020 12:31 am

Re: Great to meet you

Post by Trevor_B »

Good luck with finding a ZXpand for sale; I've only seen them on https://www.thefuturewas8bit.com/, and unless you buy it with a minstrel kit they won't sell it to you; I know, I've tried...
It needs a specific ROM which apparently you can only get (or will only be supplied) with the minstrel kit. I built a Minstrel 3 from bare PCB as I wanted it to fit in an original case - even got the ROM image from Dave Curran but they still won't let me buy one*.

In the meantime I have a "working" Minstrel 3 that has very limited use as I can't load anything from a TZXDuino and I currently don't know why, so no point in saving anything either (tbh I haven't worked this bit out yet as there seems to be little point until I know I can load; my approach is probably save to PC then WAV->TZX conversion then onto SD card.. still to be decided)

I'm sure I'll get there in the end somehow - I've just found a mono cassette recorder; all I need to do now is copy the .p and .tzx files onto a cassette and give them a try. I don't actually have any cassettes available (yet - arrives Tuesday) and amusingly I've also found that the cost of a new TDK C60 tape is now higher than the cost of a Z80 processor - how times have changed.

Trevor

*if anyone on this board knows anyone/someone helpful at tfw8b, can you plead my case for me - before I took the bare PCB route I contacted them to see if I could buy a kit without the keyboard attached so I could use an original case and was told quite definitely no. My only option would have been to buy the kit and another bare PCB, and just use the components but this seemed unnecessarily expensive. SInce then I've also asked if I could jut buy the ZXpand - and again, told no due to the ROM.
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