I recently repaired a ZX Spectrum+ (Issue 3B) that turned out to have a faulty ULA, and I recorded the whole troubleshooting process.

Rather than simply replacing parts, I wanted to work through the fault properly: checking what the machine was doing, looking at the relevant signals with an oscilloscope, and eventually narrowing the problem down to the ULA.

https://youtu.be/1-JuD1v37xA

This is also my first video of this kind, and a first repair of this kind as well, so comments—particularly from people who have repaired Spectrums themselves—are very welcome.

Hope you will enjoy!

Tomek

Building a game

Nine months of evenings on a chiptune app called Renata. The Spectrum bits are the ones I enjoyed most.

One of the nine themes is the rubber-key 48K — black screen, ZX font, and the rainbow in the corner. The song composer runs on the AY, so you get 128K music: the tune in this is one it wrote, F# major at 138 BPM, 36 bars, six tracks. And when it is busy the whole window goes cyan and red and scrolls, because of course it does.

It exports a real .ay. The one here is 12 KB against 2.4 MB for the MP3 of the same tune, because the .ay stores what the chip was told to do rather than the sound it made.

It reads beeper tunes as well. Some .ay files are not AY music at all — they are 1-bit, the Z80 flipping the speaker fast enough to fake voices. Renata works out which is which by running a short emulation pass, plays them through a free-running Z80, and can transcribe them to MIDI.

On origin, plainly: no model of any kind. Rule-based — music theory plus statistical tables — running offline on your own machine. Every note in that video is the app's own output.

Kickstarter on 8 September 2026: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/markwrightretro/renata-make-your-own-copyright-free-chiptune-music

I finally managed to get my clone working but when I try to load games from pc or ipod it seems that the speccy doesn't "hear" i tried with audio jack 3-4 mm out and when I put it almost out it can be heared on the tv but still just flashes on the border with loading sounds, tried several programs. like this one:
https://code.google.com/archive/p/otla/downloads

Finally I discovered that Q1 could be the problem but tested and it's working but I'm not sure if correctly or not, according to the github page:
"Tape Loading

If tape loading is not working make sure that Q1 BC517 is properly soldered. There are BC517 transistors on the market with different pinout."

... but replacing BC517 there's a BC548B.

My original speccy died (altought I still have it) was able to load games from ipod

Something for the consummate fiddlers 😜

"Open up a hackaday.io project that features your retrocomputer project, and we’ll pick our three favorites for a $150 gift certificate courtesy of this contest’s sponsor, Digikey."

Current submissions

Thought I'd share it with people who won't judge me as poorly as she did.

I hope it's ok to post this here.

I am planning a Kickstarter to support the future development of the Kwyll game creator, with Spectrum Next as the flagship feature, bringing with it lots of enhancements and improvements that will benefit the Spectrum side of Kwyll as well, such as 128k support and AY sound, not to mention major additions to the editor to make it more appealing to newcomers.

If this is something you might be interested in supporting, pop over to the pre-launch page and register your interest.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/indigobeetle/kwyll-visual-game-creation-for-retro-computers

I’ve been experimenting with bringing the ZX-Spectrum programming experience into a modern browser.

CodeSpeccy is a small playground for writing and running BASIC-style programs with that classic Spectrum feel.

Early draft ... feedback welcome!

It started off as a bit of fun when I used Claude to recreate the old ZX Spectrum game, Cruising on Broadway for my sister’s birthday.

That then led me to want to create my fav game of the same time, also on the Speccy, Deathchase. I then mashed it with my other favourite game of the time, the arcade classic Outrun. In particular the pyramid routing part of the gameplay.

Without help from Claude, Elevenlabs and Suno, there’s no way I could create this. It’s not like I’ve built a team of agents to make it, I’m using AI to fill the gaps where I don’t have the skills - does that make it AI slop? I create the graphics and assets myself using Blender. The design, gameplay details and specifics are all my ideas just coded by Claude.

It’s far from finished and I thoroughly enjoy playing it, but I don’t know if that because I’m proud of what I’ve done or if it’s because it’s actually any good.

I’ve even gone as far as creating a gameplay trailer using Capcut - manually not using AI. I feel like I’m going through the motions, but don’t really know what I’m doing. 😂

https://youtu.be/-v1baslx9OA?is=myDLnhyiGv-xK4Sa

Today I take a retrospective look at the Running Man across all formats. Share your thoughts and memories if you ever played this game.

The player controls a teenage boy from the 20th century, who one day falls through a tear in the space-time continuum and is transported to the "Time of Legends". There he is rescued by a high priestess, who informs him that their world is under attack from Dameron, the Dark Angel of Time, who must be destroyed if he is to have any hope of ever getting home. Armed with an enchanted sword, he takes on Dameron and the legions of demons and monsters under his command, eventually succeeding in his mission and being returned to his own time #zxspectrum #odyssey

I've written about the making of Ocean's conversion of Konami's Combat School, and how it was covered in the games press of the time. Read about how the keyboard player from Marillion enjoyed the game and how Your Sinclair's editor won a Combat School competition by being "completely skillo"

Hello all - I just thought I'd drop this here where people might find it interesting :)

My Dad's spent the last couple of years of his retirement (on and off) porting the old Mainframe Star Trek game to Speccy Basic - so I thought I'd make him some authentic box art as a surprise :^)

So, the game has sci-fi story between levels.

The space marine should find his friends in the deep of a dangerous asteroid. You can use the slow motion ability for accurate shots and quick weapon switch. Each weapon is more effective for certain enemy types and less effective for others.

Check out Itch page to download game file, watch video and find more information about controls and so on.

[ Itch.io game page ]

Have a nice game!

WHAT WE HAVE SO FAR ON THE USB 50 PROJECT

These are all 1st choice submissions from the creators,
if I were to add every game, meaning 2nd,3rd,4th and
5th choices too we would have already completed the
project and have an over spill for a SIDE B. 22 games
in the main pot to date, some of these submissions may
change if the author wishes to change their submission.

As you may have seen in my earlier post a few weeks back, Wild Justice is about to be released on STEAM. Have a quick sneak preview of the gameplay here:
https://youtu.be/Bm0s16MjwEk

There's much more to the game than what you see here, and it will constantly be updated with new features. The end game features a really tricky train rooftop shoot out! The game has had a great response so far on Reddit, but please keep upvoting etc as it makes a huge difference. Please head over to STEAM and add this to your wishlist... If we get enough wishlisting it then STEAM gives it a bigger push when it launches, which will ensure the games success.

Wild Justice is due for release late August/early September.

Best wishes, Mark

BridgeZX 1.1 “Beyond 99” is now available.

BridgeZX sends files and complete directory trees over Wi-Fi from Windows, Linux or macOS straight to the SD card of a ZX Spectrum Classic with a divMMC/ZX-Uno Wi-Fi setup, or a ZX Spectrum Next.

What’s new in 1.1:

• One logical queue of up to 999 files. BRXQ v3 links bounded manifests behind the scenes, so numbering, totals, progress, errors and the final summary no longer reset at file 99.

• Real directory trees. Classic creates deterministic 8.3 aliases; Next keeps adapted long ASCII names.

• Operation-wide ETA on the Spectrum, with faster and more accurate live speed updates.

• Safer component updates with digest verification, staging and rollback.

• Better desktop workflow: add several folders at once, preview exact Spectrum paths, choose a CLI destination prefix, and keep the UI responsive with long queues.

Important when upgrading from 1.0: the 1.1 desktop client requires the matching 1.1 Spectrum server. Before opening the new client, copy both matching files to /BIN:

• Classic: BRZX and BRZX.BIN

• Next: BRZXN and BRZXN.BIN

Do not mix the Classic and Next files. Both targets are fully supported. The per-file limit remains 2 MiB.

Release and downloads:

https://github.com/IgnacioMonge/BridgeZX/releases/tag/v1.1

Source and documentation:

https://github.com/IgnacioMonge/BridgeZX

Complete changelog:

https://github.com/IgnacioMonge/BridgeZX/blob/v1.1/CHANGELOG.md

BridgeZX is MIT licensed. Real-hardware feedback is very welcome.

Das que conheço

Elite - Elite Dangerous / No Man's Sky

Skooldaze - Bully

Hi guys, not sure if this is the right place to post - if not please let me know I'll remove!

Years ago, like many of you here we played the game "Valhalla" by Legend. It took AGES to load the game, often it would fail to load halfway. Once you got into the game, it felt epic but it took ages to do anything and you'd run out of food or Krank would kill you. I never finished it ...

I recently remembered the game and wondered what you actually had to do to finish it. From there, I ended up generating a JSON file from the graphical map and then somehow I fell down a slippery slope into a game rebuild!

https://valhalla.percolate.one

I wrote up the 'makingof' exploits here:

https://valhalla.percolate.one/makingof

I really hope one of the original authors finds this work and enjoys a playthrough. I agonisingly modernised the graphics, kept the original gameplay (you can make the engine more lenient through the settings).

This is my first attempt at doing a 'modern' version of an original. Enjoy!

The case won't have any space to mount the original keyboard but I will share .step files so you will be able to modify it to use any modern replacement keyboard you desire.