★ HARDWARE ★ DIVERS ★ Time for the game machines ★ |
| Spectrum Plus 2 (Popular Computing Weekly) | Hardware Divers |
Andy Pannell dissects the new Spectrum Plus 2 The new Spectrum Plus 2 is a nice improvement over the ordinary Spectrum 128 in most ways. The most obvious differences are that it's not black (it's grey) and the keyboard looks reasonable. While the keyboard has exactly the same layout as the Spectrum Plus and 128 machines (except that the Extended key is bigger) it is much nicer to type on. It feels similar to the Amstrad range, for obvious reasons, though feels more cramped, and of course keys such as ; and ” are in the 'wrong' place. It's definitely better than any previous Sinclair keyboard and is good in all respects, except that most of the keywords used in 48K Basic are missing The exceptions are the Run. Load and Code tokens. All the others have gone, including some non-tokens like [ and @. The built-in cassette player is to the right of the keyboard, and makes loading and saving programs a whole lot easier, with no leads to muck about with and no fiddling of level controls. The machine is designed for the games market and to load a 128K game couldn't be easier - press Cursor down a couple of times to get to the Tape Load menu and press Return, and that's it The white legends on the cassette buttons were wearing thin on the review machine and didn't look as if they'd last very long. The machine has all of the sockets of the 128, including the standard Spectrum edge connector, reset switch, RS232/Midi socket, TV and RGB socket. but in addition offers a sound socket for amplifiers (even though it comes through the TV as well) and two D-type joystick sockets. Unfortunately the pinouts of these are entirely different to the standard, following the old Sinclair standard (as used on the Interface 2) rather than the more common Kempston or cursor-key formats It would seem that compatible Sinclair joysticks will be bundled with the machine from at least some retailers.
Inside the case there is a completely new PCB, containing mainly familiar components. The cassette mechanism has a small PCB on it and connects via proper sockets. The quality of the keyboard connectors has also been improved by the designers at Brentwood. While the word ‘Amstrad* doesn't occur at all on the outside of the machine, it can be found at least five times on the inside! The Rom itself is in two parts - there's the copy of the original 48K Spectrum Rom and the extra one containing the screen editor and code to access the new hardware. The old' part of it is identical to its counterpart in the 128 excep that the copyright message has been replaced with a very short '© 1982 Amstrad' and the Record message in the tape routines has been changed. Any programs that run in 48 mode on the 128 will work on the Plus 2. The 'new' part of it is slightly changed from the 128 version, because of an extended Amstrad copyright message and the removal of the 'Tape test' routine. Because of these changes some programs which access the new Rom directly in the 128 will not work unmodified on the Plus 2. The officially defined entry points have remained though, and games that have no need to call anything else and should work without any problems. The Spectrum 128 has compatibility problems with quite a few 48K games, and these have not been fixed on the Plus 2. which is a great shame. It would have been an easy job to make the Plus 2 much more 48-compatible by removing some of the redundant code from the new part and replacing it with the code that causes the problems from the modified old Rom. Oh well, it's a bit late now. In 48K mode most games should work, though older ones do have problems, but programming in 48K Basic is near impossible because all of the tokens have disappeared from the keyboard. Although I was surprised how well I could remember the positions of the more common tokens. even an old hack like me got stuck on the lesser ones and had to reach for a nearby Spectrum. Anyone who doesn't know the Spectrum keyboard very well can forget programming in 48K mode, and use the screen editor in 128K mode instead. It's better in most ways, and you don't need the tokens for it. The only snag it has is that it has a nasty habit of losing key presses just after running a program or a direct command. All Sinclair add-ons. including the Microdrives work with the Plus 2, although unmodified third party add-ons will have problems if they have Roms. I was hoping to find some code in the Rom for a disc interface, but I was disappointed. It is rumoured that there will be an official Sinclair/Amstrad one at some point though, which would be good. The Spectrum really needs a standard disc interface that all programs can use. instead of the plethora of incompatible ones there are at the moment. All in all the Plus 2 is a nice version of the Spectrum 128, and will run most games admirably. The built in cassette recorder is very useful, and the keyboard is definitely the best Sinclair production. The CPC464 and the ordinary Spectrum 128 look doomed. Popular Computing Weekly (1986-10)
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