[HN Gopher] Building a new ZX Spectrum from all new parts
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Building a new ZX Spectrum from all new parts
Author : mariuz
Score : 155 points
Date : 2023-06-24 14:14 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lostretrotapes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lostretrotapes.com)
| glimshe wrote:
| It's somewhat humorous that the most expensive part is the
| manual! And no wonder electronics nowadays stopped including
| comprehensive manuals like the Spectrum's in their aggressive
| cost cutting.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| The Spectrum manual was good, with the usual programming guide
| and a breakdown of the memory map and system variables, but the
| Jupiter Ace manual also included example circuits so you could
| build your own peripherals...
| nickt wrote:
| Here's a bit of my comment from the MyNOR / FORTH thread the
| other day [0] about the Jupiter Ace manual.
|
| The manual was great for its time, a little dated now but
| still a decent read [2]. It was reprinted in 2018 and still
| available [3].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Ace
|
| [2] https://archive.org/details/vickers_steven_jupiter_ace_40
| 00_...
|
| [3] https://www.amazon.com/Jupiter-ACE-Manual-Anniversary-
| Progra...
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36416325
| nickt wrote:
| Oh, and of course, Steven Vickers wrote both these manuals
| and the ZX81 BASIC manual.
|
| Also wrote the (Jupiter and Sinclair implementations of
| the) languages too!
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| For small-run offset printing (as opposed to laser-printer-
| quality stuff you get from print-on-demand shops, including PoD
| reissues of old titles the big academic publishers sell under
| the guise of new copies), the books themselves are basically
| free compared to the plates. A bookshop owner who also worked
| in printing once told me it was in the order of $1M for the
| plates for a 300-page book, and then negligible costs for the
| actual books until you get past at least tens of thousands of
| copies. So printing one manual or a hundred of them is a very
| different proposition from a normal-sized run of like 50k of
| them.
| laxd wrote:
| Just publishing on the web wasn't an option at the time. But
| damn! I remember reading at the back of a C64 manual as a kid.
| Trying out the various "commands". I had no concept of
| "programming" or "basic". This was just how the machine worked
| and I was occasionally in the mood of figuring it out. That
| time will never come again, for me or anyone else.
| mchannon wrote:
| Making a second, third, or fourth set of manuals would have
| obtained substantial economies of scale whether in the 20th or
| 21st centuries.
|
| There was a time where PDF didn't exist, there were no tools to
| create, let alone view or print manuals. Even when these became
| widespread, a number of troglodytes would get bent out of shape
| if their new appliance didn't come with a (preferably bound!)
| paper manual. Most of these folks have either passed on or
| begrudgingly assimilated.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I'm kind of in that camp with cars. The last car I bought
| didn't come with an owner's manual. I've "begrudgingly"
| accepted that a PDF copy on my phone is for most practical
| purposes just as good, but I still prefer the paper. It's
| just easier to read, thumb through, or check the index and
| find what I'm looking for than doing the same on a small
| touch screen.
| ghaff wrote:
| The cost for the manuals seems high--at least if you're willing
| to have some flexibility on paper choice. I'd think that one
| volume print on demand from Amazon would be more like $10
| although it's admittedly been a while since I looked at
| pricing.
| azurefan wrote:
| Pretty cool post. I've been playing spectrum games recently
| http://torinak.com/qaop/games
| tyingq wrote:
| Apparently the hardest part used to be the ULA chip, but now
| there are CPLD based replacements. This project used this one
| from Charlie Ingley:
| https://www.tindie.com/products/charlieingley/vla82-spectrum...
|
| It uses a Xilinx XC95144 CPLD to emulate the ULA:
| https://docs.xilinx.com/v/u/en-US/ds067
| Pixelbrick wrote:
| There's also the superfo harlequin that disintegrates the ULA
| into 74 series logic:
|
| https://www.bytedelight.com/?product_cat=harlequin128
|
| I'm currently building the 48k version
| nickt wrote:
| That's pretty neat, the ULA is just a gate array after all.
|
| [Edit] I forgot to mention I have speccy and ZX81 ULAs from
| Charlie and they are top notch and have been working
| flawlessly, and especially in the case of the ZX81, better than
| the original.
|
| Chris Smiths' book, "The ZX Spectrum ULA: How to design a
| microcomputer", is an excellent read if you like to imagine
| yourself as a hardware guy back in the 80's.
|
| http://www.zxdesign.info/book/
| urbandw311er wrote:
| I loved this. Did he shrink wrap it only to then immediately rip
| it open?
| TillE wrote:
| I love projects like this. It's even simpler to just homebrew
| your own 8-bit computer / game console from widely available
| parts, and a great way to learn about and really understand how
| computers work. Computers have become far more complex, but the
| broad fundamentals are basically unchanged since the 1970s.
| wkjagt wrote:
| I did Ben Eater's 6502 kit and expanded on it a lot. You're
| right, it really gets you to appreciate how computers really
| work, in a much simplified way of course, compared even to for
| example the first IBM computer.
|
| Implementing something like a FAT file system for example also
| really makes you appreciate the deeper concepts of how an OS
| works. I only did a very simple FAT implementation, without
| subdirectories, but even with that, terms like FAT and sector
| became very concrete things instead of vague concepts.
| pthreads wrote:
| Loved it! I couldn't find any info on the case and keyboard
| though. Did he just reuse an old one? They did look to be in mint
| condition. No mention of those in the video either (or maybe I
| just missed it as I was skipping over some sections).
| rzzzt wrote:
| Replacements do exist both for the membrane as well as the
| rubber keys on top. The author lists it in the parts page under
| "Misc": https://www.lostretrotapes.com/zx-spectrum-
| issue-3b-parts-li...
| [deleted]
| vsviridov wrote:
| So, a 100 pounds in the 80s is almost 500 pounds today, according
| to the UK inflation calculator. So his build total cost is below
| that... Arguably 100PS was the retail price, not costs, but still
| xyzzy3000 wrote:
| For those wanting a link:
| https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/in...
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