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ZX Spectrum Loading From An iPod - Anyone Tried It?

gone fishin

By gone fishin,
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gone fishin

gone fishin

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I'm getting a bit of a retro itch again... this time for a Speccy.

Yes, I threw out my old spectrum about 17 years ago - because I stupidly thought "well, I can play everything from a CD on an emulator now"

Anyway, I've been getting an itch to pick one up. Unlike the C64, which has some cool ways of loading games via SD card - like the SD2IEC - the Spectrum still seems a bit out of date. There's that IDE device where you can load games via Compact Flash, but it looks like someone made it in a shed. And a bare circuit board doesn't fill me with confidence when I've got a 5 year old going around my house!

I was reading about how the Spectrum could actually load games a lot faster (as in seconds) and that there's software where you can convert TZX files into WAVs/MP4s and then upload them onto your iPod.

Here's an example of the fast load (from a PC) here

Has anyone tried this? Is it worthwhile using a real Spectrum, or is it better via emulation?

I use my Wii for emulation, and it's pretty good... doesn't have the same "feel" as an old Spectrum. But maybe buying that rubbery keyed Speccy bluetooth keyboard could change that.

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Camel

Camel

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I've tried the above from an iPhone and an old laptop. From a laptop you don't need to convert to MP3/whatever, you can load from tzx files. There's a piece of software (Loader? Taper? Something like that) which plays files as audio. Connect the output of the laptop to the input on a speccy et voila. I found this method the most consistent but getting the volume exactly right was more fiddly than I expected.

MP3s from an iPhone was very hit and miss. Perhaps due to compression?

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Lorfarius

Lorfarius

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I've done it with my iPhone, an app and a Spectrum +2. Worked a treat and the games load pretty much instantly. You can connect most directly to the World of Spectrum archives which lets you download the games, running them within it which was pretty neat. I'd go have a look on their forums as there's loads about that sort of stuff there.

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gone fishin

gone fishin

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Wow, that's perfect!

It's interesting to see just how many Spectrums are for sale on my local Gumtree, there's at least a couple pop up per week. I might have to get one and sneak it into the house... ^_^

From people's experience, what's the best model to have for modern TVs? I'm most tempted by the rubber keyed model (it was the first one I had), but it's only got RF out. The ones with RGB - the 128k never comes up, the +2 is pretty common (the second one I owned) but it's just not as iconic. Plus the build quality was pretty crap - I remember having to replace my play button several times during its life..

What's RF like these days? I guess it's a true retro experience.

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Swainy

Swainy

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Wow, that's perfect!

It's interesting to see just how many Spectrums are for sale on my local Gumtree, there's at least a couple pop up per week. I might have to get one and sneak it into the house... ^_^

From people's experience, what's the best model to have for modern TVs? I'm most tempted by the rubber keyed model (it was the first one I had), but it's only got RF out. The ones with RGB - the 128k never comes up, the +2 is pretty common (the second one I owned) but it's just not as iconic. Plus the build quality was pretty crap - I remember having to replace my play button several times during its life..

What's RF like these days? I guess it's a true retro experience.

Go for a 128k model, RGB makes such a difference. I've got a mint 48k (see this video: http://youtu.be/7FJdnejdbZI ) but the 128ks RGB picture is much nicer unless you really don't mind an RF connection.

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roberthazelby

roberthazelby

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I'm currently using a Spectrum +2A as that supports RGB. I've got it hooked up to a CRT with RGB SCART. The picture quality is absolutely fantastic.

The only thing I've found is that the RGB out on a Spectrum doesn't fully match the SCART standard. To get a picture I have to put the image through a multi-SCART adapter. If I hook it up directly to the TV the image is so dark you can hardly see it. It's something to do with a missing voltage on one of the pins (I think!).

With regards to IDE interfaces, I've got the DivIDE and the DivMMC, and much prefer the MMC over the DivIDE. You can get the DivMMC here:

http://www.bytedelight.com/?product_cat=divmmc-enjoy

I still like to fire up games from tape from time to time. I had a fun evening earlier in the week just rummaging through the collection and firing up a few titles.

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Swainy

Swainy

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I'm currently using a Spectrum +2A as that supports RGB. I've got it hooked up to a CRT with RGB SCART. The picture quality is absolutely fantastic.

The only thing I've found is that the RGB out on a Spectrum doesn't fully match the SCART standard. To get a picture I have to put the image through a multi-SCART adapter. If I hook it up directly to the TV the image is so dark you can hardly see it. It's something to do with a missing voltage on one of the pins (I think!).

With regards to IDE interfaces, I've got the DivIDE and the DivMMC, and much prefer the MMC over the DivIDE. You can get the DivMMC here:

http://www.bytedelight.com/?product_cat=divmmc-enjoy

I still like to fire up games from tape from time to time. I had a fun evening earlier in the week just rummaging through the collection and firing up a few titles.

Yeah, I've found that some TV's are ok with it, others are not. My Sony Trinitron is fine with it but my new TV doesn't like it.

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Venice Cull

Venice Cull

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Forgive my ignorance, but watching that video am I to assume that the only thing that stopped the spectrum loading games that fast back in the day was the resolution of analogue tape?

I'm guessing that the reason it loaded so fast was because the sound recording of the game has been speeded up by a factor of 10 or so - and the spectrum can actually cope with that speed of data input?

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Vimster

Vimster

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Wish I could remember the name of it, but there's an Android app that gets .TZX files from WoS and acts as a virtual tape deck. It's not an emulator, it just plays the tones out and lets you handle multiloads much more easily. Damnit, I wish I could remember it so I could have a go now I have a 48k.

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Swainy

Swainy

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Wish I could remember the name of it, but there's an Android app that gets .TZX files from WoS and acts as a virtual tape deck. It's not an emulator, it just plays the tones out and lets you handle multiloads much more easily. Damnit, I wish I could remember it so I could have a go now I have a 48k.

TapDancer which is pretty much the same as Speccy Tape on iOS only it allows you to load games up on the C64 & CPC too.

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roberthazelby

roberthazelby

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The first fast loaders I saw were Ocean's Daley Thompson's Decathlon and Mikro-Gen's Automania.

Looking at the World of Spectrum it looks like Automania came out around July 84 as Crash August 84 has a review. Daley was reviewed in October, as it appeared in the November 84 issue.

I'm sure there was something earlier, but those are my first experiences of the turbo/fast/hyper load games.

(Note, much of the above is based on a bit of guesswork. I'm just going by magazine review dates)

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cubik

cubik

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The first fast loaders I saw were Ocean's Daley Thompson's Decathlon and Mikro-Gen's Automania.

Looking at the World of Spectrum it looks like Automania came out around July 84 as Crash August 84 has a review. Daley was reviewed in October, as it appeared in the November 84 issue.

I'm sure there was something earlier, but those are my first experiences of the turbo/fast/hyper load games.

(Note, much of the above is based on a bit of guesswork. I'm just going by magazine review dates)

Daley Thomson's Decathlon must have come out during the summer holidays as I remember getting it as a brand new release on the way home from a family holiday, and we only ever went on holiday between the end of July to end of August.

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gone fishin

gone fishin

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Judging by wikipedia, it was indeed Daley Thompson's Decathlon that was the first to use it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedlock

Written by David Aubrey-Jones in 1983, although it sat unused for a year.

That name sound familiar? He did the spectrum speech in Ghostbusters! That's right... it was his name that you stared at for 3 minutes while Ghostbusters loaded...

There's an interview with him here (he also did the speccy conversion of Mercenary). Also confirms Daley to be the first.

http://www.crashonline.org.uk/44/david_aj.htm

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roberthazelby

roberthazelby

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Crazy to read that the loading scheme took around a year to see the light of day. With piracy rampant on the Spectrum you'd have thought that software companies would have jumped at the chance to use it in their games.

Ah, thanks to your article link I see that software companies weren't interested as they thought they could rip off the loader themselves.

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Goose

Goose

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Was Elite the first game to use lenslok? I remember seeing on the OCP art studio and I want to say Fighter Pilot by DI for some reason.

Edit: my god I was right! Fighter Pilot did use it, as did a number of DI games. Don't recall Moon Cresta having it though.

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