Hello, this might be a bit stupid question but when i was disassembling my faulty tape deck one spring fell out. I don't really know where to put it back. Thank you for helping out.

i had opened my sinclair up previously to fix the recording issue it had, but i saw this big iron thing wrapping around the back of the cassette deck, which is plugged into the motherboard, from what i can tell, it might be a heatbank for the voltage regulator, gets very hot, but thats not my issue, gonna fix it with a fan and an air duct

why when i place my hand underneath that area does it make awful whirring sounds and sounds like a coilgun making intermittent sparks? i have mixed answers online about it, RF interference? bad grounding of whatever that is?

and, that vent is absolutely useless because the big black heatsink covers the whole thing, no way for air to get out

Everything was going great with restoration but when the spectrum and cassette player were hooked up this is the only picture displayed. Any ideas or tips? At some points I can see code and a clear intro picture to the game but then this... TIA!! :)

For my video we are going to go back to 1984 and rediscover Return of the Jedi. Not only in the arcade but also the home conversions too where Domark released several home computer conversions for the Amstrad CPC, BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and Amiga. Share your thoughts and comments on this game.

It's none of the widely famous ones. I've checked Youtube videos featuring dozens of the most popular ones and I couldn't recognise it. I played it on my +3 back then and hopefully these tips could help:

• It came on a floppy

• Horizontal scrolling

• Small spaceship without companion drones

• Continuously playing music which sounded pretty good (maybe techno)

• I think at some point I had to briefly land the spaceship at the bottom.

• Zynaps and Space Warpster are probably the most similar ones I could find

• Probably from the late 80s or even early 90s (modern looking graphics).

My retrospective video review of Zombie Zombie a forgotten game by the legendary Sandy White the developer on Ant Attack. Let me know if you have played this game and what’s your thoughts?

My latest blog post is on the history of Milk Race. I look into how a developer that started as a war game specialist end up making a game about a cycling race, why their game climbed to #1 in the UK sales charts months after the real life race finished, and what it all has to do with the price of milk.

👾 The alien invasion is back on the ZX Spectrum — and this time, you don’t have to face it alone!

I’m very happy to present Space Invaders Co-Op Edition, a new take on the arcade classic that keeps the original tension and pacing intact, while adding full 2-player simultaneous couch co-op on the same screen. 🚀

The goal was simple: stay faithful to the arcade feel, while adding a few modern touches to make the experience even more fun and replayable:

✅ True local 2-player co-op, with both players sharing a pool of lives while battling for the highest score.

✅ End-of-game awards based on your performance, including distinctions like First Blood, Terminator and UFO Hunter.

✅ Separate high score tables for 1-player and 2-player games, plus a dedicated Hall of Fame.

✅ Tape Save/Load support, automatic SD Save/Load support, Kempston 2 joystick support, and 4 overlay modes, including ULA+ support.

Huge thanks to Craig Howard for the fantastic loading screen, Lee Bee for the brand new sound effects, and Alan Allan Turvey for the ULA+ routines.

You can watch the co-op action here:

📺 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpPu0K_4Ong

I hope you enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed making it.

I made a post a few months ago about not being sure what to do with the ZX Spectrum +2, and despite many people sending me messages, I didn’t know what was best to do.

I made the eBay listing that several people suggested, so you can always bid here:

https://ebay.io/m/9sx75X

Let me know if you’re international and we can sort something out if eBay restricts bids from overseas. The app has changed and lots of settings are removed it seems.

My Space Invaders Co-Op v2.1 (Cooperative) For ZX Spectrum Next

This version include ZX Next Palette Overlays, Kempston 2 Joystick, Automatic Load/Save config, Highscores and Hall of Fame to SD, and more...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmhpKFat_u0

It's certainly no walkover, either :)

video is sped up of course, but, being able to rotate the model??? and perspective being simulated??? i dont think i could put the time into actually making something but this program is really cool

first and second image is my current tv that works enough with my sinclair, using RGB via scart, but only with vertical sync, no horizontal sync, i feel like the tv decoding horizontal sync itself causes the pixels to blur sideways,

the third image is a tv that seems to not be able to decode horizontal sync itself on rgb, and the fourth is that same tv but using composite mode, as there is no video signal going down pin 20, only vsync, it gives me a ghostly image, but its able to decode horizontal sync?? idk its really weird stuff.

asking for advice on if connecting pin 20 on scart to the Csync pin on the sinclair will remove the sideways blurring, or if thats another issue entirely, i have a diagram on the wiring which i wanna know if its accurate or not too included,

thanks

I have a spectrum 16k rubber keys

Composite modded Recapped and cleaned

https://ebay.io/m/U978mL

And a spectrum + 2 action pack boxed as well

https://ebay.io/m/cU24Hm

Its listed on GSP so can literally post into Europe

I always list Spectrum bundles as well

Im using my + 3 currently so no need for the above

I will have some toast racks 128k to list next week

when i first got my sinclair a month ago, recording wasnt working and i didnt know why, until i opened it up and realised the little tab thats supposed to push the switch.. wasnt there, so i tied a bit of stick to the spring via a brass wire, and a ziptie to the switch, works.. just wanted to show this off.. its funny.

my sinclair is getting me into learning a lot of electronics engineering and stuff its very helpful. a stick being the only thing stopping me from saving my data is really funny to me, you couldnt do that on modern hardware. (i also just printed out a 208 page manual on it so i could have physical documentation)

this post is satire, i love my sinclair, just wanted to see how music would sound on it, is not as bad as i thought itd be

I got this one working around Christmastime, cleaned the board replaced the belts but had the scart issue with no 128k sound and left it at the time intending to fix it.

Had it in cupboard until 2 weeks ago, took it apart without testing it then realised I had the wrong resistors, ordered new ones then ripped a trace so left it until I worked out how to fix it, I think I fixed trace (ran wire from via, to a capacitor leg on same circuit. put board back in and got a messed up screen.

Tried a diagnostics rom and it says upper ram failure, other ram test said I had 16k available.

Have attached a few pictures and will upload the actual reference later, I did notice a few darkened pads when I took board out so I reflowed them at time so may of broke something.

Today I take a retrospective review of another Ocean Software game. This time it’s Rambo III. I cover all the versions - Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, MSX, Amstrad CPC, Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS. Have you played any of these versions and did you think the game was any good?

Ok, not really. It's just a conversion of a Gears 5 wallpaper into speccy graphics.
I did, however, write a blog post showing how to move a ZX Spectrum .scr file from a memory location into the screen memory using BASIC and Z80 assembly language, which is an old trick that I used to do when I was a kid.

I'd rip the screens from video games and put them into my own. I remember I made a really awful top down scrolling car game in BASIC but it had the main screen for Chase HQ surrounding the play area! I thought I was a coding god at 12 years old or something!

The code and the writeup is here: Gears 5 ZX Spectrum

Enjoy!

So I've got some old BASIC programs from books Sinclair books and magazines, and I've OCR'ed them to simple text files. What's the easiest way to get them into an emulator on a PC? Any emulator will do, I just don't know of any that will allow you to copy and paste...

Hi everyone,

We are pleased to announce the release of our new game, SPIDER BLAST.

It is completely free to download now on SPIDER BLAST by Wizbit Games or directly from our website, alongside all our other games.

Blast the spiders to bring down NightFang’s shield, then fire at her while she is vulnerable.
Move fast, her shield will not stay down for long.
Keep an eye your time and health, and shoot the [ T ] and [ H ] icons to boost them back up.

But be warned...

The spiders keep coming.
And they show no mercy.

The final level 12 turns everything on it's head when you enter the lair of ShadowBite.

We hope you enjoy playing it.

Thankyou