Sinclair zx spectrum

[repairman 1234]

Hi all,
Have just entered into the world of zx spectrum ownership!!

Could anyone give me a program that is short and simple just to test it please?

I have a data recorder and many games on tape but can't seem to get any of them to load
I do get the spectrum start page and it does take commands (when a tape is loading i get the multi coloured border on a blank screen) But when it stops loading the screen just stays on the flashing border.

I have never used a spectrum at all (and never had much luck with any of these early computers) So the shorter the program is the more chance i will have of making it work

Thanks in advance

[Guitarist28]

Hi Chris,
Its been many years since I sold my 48k spectrum (press a squidgy rubber thing). If I remember correctly, you really have to up the input volume of the tape recorder to get programmes to load. Have you played around with the loading volume at all??

Regards

Rob

[McMurdo]

Assuming you're loading it properly, obviously the game will normally just launch once it's completed; so it sounds like its just not going in; have you fiddled with the volume on the tape recorder? You may also need to pull out the 'rec' jack otherwise it can suffer feedback and a bad load. The spectrum is fairly tolerant of playback levels but wont like feedback that occurs on certain models of cassette player; the input during load is output on the rec jack simultaneously by the spectrum which is a known issue. I fitted my jack leads with a toggle switch to stop it.

The border will sometimes go stripey even if you play music into it, it doesnt itself mean there's valid data being decoded.

Any BASIC program will run on the spectrum, there's loads on the WWW. A few quirks with sinclair basic mean you have to type things like PRINT in full eg PRINT "HELLO" rather than ?"hello" and you have to define variables using LET each time, eg LET C=4 rather than just C=4.

try


10 PRINT "HELLO ";
20 GO TO 10


this should fill the screen with hello and stop at the bottom with a scroll prompt.

[repairman 1234]

Many thanks Kevin and Rob,

I have got the scrolling hello message fine (my first program)

Now i am going to try the tape games, do i need to play both sides of the tape or just one?

Many thanks

[Radio_Dave]

Oh dear it's been ages since I had one of these! Don't you have to type 'load', hit enter and then press play on the cassette?

[repairman 1234]

I have now got it to load software from a cassette but when it reaches the end nothing more happens.
do i need to press anything more or should it start on its own?

[G8VAT Wolfman]

Most programs should self start at the end, but not all, it should tell you in the instructions.

Most likely problem is the volume or perhaps the heads on the cassette need cleaning and aligning, don't be tempted to use a good quality stereo type cassette player, a cheapo mono one works best.

[repairman 1234]

Thanks for that,

Looks like i may have found the problem, the little mono cassette player that came with it is slowing down as it gets to the end of the tape and even stopping at one point.
I will strip it down and give it a service then try again.

[repairman 1234]

Still won't load a game from a tape!

I have stripped and cleaned the tape player and it will load up as per the pic below (on all games) When the tape reaches its end and the player stops i get no change in the screen, it stays exactly as in the pic.
Am i doing something wrong here?
I have tried pressing enter at the end of the tape, even tried run and enter!
It seems like it is getting the info ok as the welcome screen comes up, not sure what i am doing wrong.








Hope someone who knows these little machines can sort this one out

[julie_m]

A Spectrum file consists of the following segments, if you listen to it:

1. A pilot tone, with red and cyan stripes in the border;
2. A short burst of harsh-sounding noise, with yellow and blue stripes in the border, which is the file header;
3. Another stream of data rather longer than the header, which is the file contents;
4. More pilot tone, then silence or power hum.

The header contains the filename and an indication of whether it is a BASIC program, binary data (screen images are just binary data) or BASIC variables. There is also some additional information in the header. BASIC programs have an optional starting line number, if they are to autorun. Binary files have a default loading address and size. If a binary file is loaded into the display memory, the screen changes; and if a binary file goes through a certain memory address, which indicates where the program continues, it will autorun. On seeing a file header, the Spectrum always prints the filename and filetype to the screen; but if the cursor is positioned in a solid-coloured area and the PAPER and INK colours are set the same as the background, this will not be visible.

A typical application consists of a short BASIC program, which autoruns; followed by a picture, which appears on screen in an unusual order due to the way the Spectrum display hardware works and then is coloured in last of all; and then the main machine code program. Sometimes the picture and the main program are in the same file, and sometimes there is a "turbo loader" which is basically rewritten-from-scratch loading routines optimised for speed rather than robustness. Turbo loaders usually use non-standard border colours.

If you're getting the picture, that is a good sign, as some data must be getting from the tape to the computer; but there should be more to come after this point. What are you seeing and hearing after the picture loads?

[repairman 1234]

Wow thanks,
I get the first pilot tone with the red and cyan stripes
Then the rest of the tape seems to be taken up with harsh noise and yellow and blue stripes, also some musical sounding tones then the flashing background changes to solid as in my pic. It still says loading please wait and just does nothing more. Not sure if i am missing steps 3 and 4 or if they are not happening. (the tape plays to the end where it auto stops.)

[G8VAT Wolfman]

I think that loading screen could mean the cassette deck isn't working properly and is only just good enough to entertain a small piece of code.
For whatever reason the data must be getting corrupted, tape speed, dirty head, head alignment or any combination could cause your problems.

It could be worthwhile to try a different player if possible.

But also, Memory problems are common, however they usually show up as screen or system errors rather than simply poor loading.

[repairman 1234]

I don't have another data recorder to test it with, does the internet have anything whereby i could connect my lead into the headphone socket of my laptop and use that as a tape player?
I did find a site that had loads of sinclair game downloads, but it would not let me play them in media player.

[julie_m]

Normally, Spectrum games are downloaded for emulation purposes as a .tzx tape image. This isn't exactly an audio file, though it contains enough information to generate one. Any emulator site will have links to tape utilities.

The Spectrum's tape interface is quite primitive, and is very fussy about signal levels; you need a strong enough signal for it to be able to tell a crest from a trough, but not so strong that any noise or distortion that may be present causes false readings.

[repairman 1234]

I have just been reading the spectrumworld fault guide, it suggests trying this memory check

PRINT PEEK 23732 + PEEK 23733 * 256 (Enter)

I did, and got the following response....
2 variable not found, 0:1

It also seemed to point at memory faults being common on these units

Do you think my unit would load as far as it does if a memory IC was faulty?

[julie_m]

You didn't spell out "PEEK" letter-by-letter, did you? You have to press both caps + symbol shift together to get extended mode (cursor changes to E), then press letter o (unshifted) to get the word PEEK.

If a memory IC was faulty, you'd most probably get a latch-up or hard reset at some point during loading.

[repairman 1234]

I did indeed

I will give it another go the correct way!

Many thanks!

[Jack Spark]

Have you tried typing in a short BASIC program such as:

10 PRINT "Hello Repairman 1234"
20 GOTO 10

Save that to tape then load it in, type "RUN", press enter. That should get you the correct volume level for that cassette player without hanging around for a game to load in.

Quite often old tape games do fail.

HTH

Jack

[richrussell]

I would try a different tape deck -or if the one you have has tone controls, try setting them to maximum. Also you may find you need to either increase or decrease the volume to get the best results. Another thing to try is to adjust the tape head alignment to get the clearest signal - I found tapes varied quite a bit and some recordings were particularly sensitive to this.

When tapes were shiny and new, they rarely had problems, but as they get older they don't work as well - I've got quite a few Spectrum tapes that don't work at all any more. I'm tempted to try to convert them to .tap or .tzx format then recreate the audio using a PC onto a fresh cassette.

Then as Jack said - find a blank tape and try saving a short program to it. Then enter 'NEW' to wipe the memory, and try loading it back.

[Paul Stenning]

Originally Posted by ajs_derby

You didn't spell out "PEEK" letter-by-letter, did you? You have to press both caps + symbol shift together to get extended mode (cursor changes to E), then press letter o (unshifted) to get the word PEEK.

If a memory IC was faulty, you'd most probably get a latch-up or hard reset at some point during loading.

Originally Posted by repairman 1234

I did indeed

I will give it another go the correct way!

Many thanks!

The same applies with the LOAD command for loading a game from tape.