ScuzzBlog: Diaries February 2018
Entry 25th February 2018: Post: 3
Sinclair Spectrum 16K - Seeing the difference
OK I bit the bullet, or should I say .. rubber bullet and ordered
a new membrane for one of the lucky Spectrums. Only £10 so very
reasonable. No doubt advise when it arrives. However, I have this
old 16K Spectrum which has always been broken. I bought the unit
in 2005 simply to include with the collection and so I have never
opened the computer up to have a nose around.
And so today I opened up the computer which is an issue 2 from
1982 and first thing I discovered was that the keyboard connectors
were cracked and broken. I wasn't able to restore the computer to
any working state, though I was able to confirm the general state
of the motherboard for future reference. I am getting very tempted
to start practising my electrical skills and undertaking some basic
capacitor replacement. I mean how hard can it be.
No real story here, just the inside of a 16K. Just as an aside, when
we obtained our first Spectrum it was 16K and in a very short space
of time developed a fault. We took the unit back to John Menzies
and they replaced it with a 48K, which in the day was a quite massive
upgrade to the basic Spectrum.
Note the chips on the board and various onboard controls that you
can actually adjust with a screwdriver... at your peril. Amazing bit
of kit, even after all these years.
UPDATE
Sorry but in my haste to get the pages online yesterday I forgot the
punchline to this blog, and that was that this was more than likely an
Issue Two motherboard that was already upgraded to 48K. Whilst this
version of the board could be 16K it often was issued populated as 48K.
And so my treasured 16K machine is actually a 48K, I believe.
No... Pretty sure that's not working
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