ScuzzBlog: Diaries February 2018
Entry 20th February 2018: Post: 1
Tales from the Spectrum graveyard
I was watching the very wonderful Jan Beta on You Tube last night
opening lost boxes of Amiga stuff from his childhood and then
clicked his link to a repair session he was having with a Spectrum.
He seems to know all the best places to get replacement parts and
gave a very good link to a site selling Sinclair Spectrum keyboard
membranes. I was motivated to buy one as I have these four Spectrums
sitting broken, and I just must be able to get one working.
So today I grabbed the four Spectrums which I will call Spectrums
1,2,3 and 4 and set too seeing if one was a likely candidate for a
new membrane to get it working.
And so enter Spectrum 1 which when I first switched on had a load
of nonsense on screen. After a wait for a few minutes I fired again
and still had disruption on screen but could get some keyboard
activity. Not much though. So I stripped the machine back and removed
the motherboard and what I call the heat sink and cleaned all the
components and reconnected. This time no electric mesh-mash on the
screen but still only very limited keyboard functionality. Certainly
a worthy choice for a new membrane.
To Spectrum 2 which I had little hope for given that its been broken
since 2005. I stripped back and cleaned etc. I also tried out the
keyboard on the other Spectrum but got even less from it. So this
computer gets the thumbs down.
Next to Spectrum 3 which basically had zero keyboard functionality
but switched on and booted straight to the Spectrum notification. I
then flipped over the keyboards and got the same lack of keyboard
functionality and reasoned that the machine works but probably needs
the new keyboard membrane. So I have numbers 1 and 3 as candidates.
To Spectrum 4 and this computer was simply fried. It wasn't even
showing any large rectangle on screen. Also the keyboard connector
was totally shot, so definitely one for the graveyard.
I am sure there are those out there with electronics skill that may
be able to resurrect these computers. That would be my hope in the
long run. Whilst broken they are checked regularly and I do keep in
a dry safe environment. I just wish I was better at the old 'tronics.
Spectrum 1
Spectrum 2
Spectrum 3
Spectrum 4
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