...and I'm back in 1985

Almost there, only the second (internal) hub to add, a bracket for the external hub to be made and fixed in place because servo-tape just isn't up to the job and a few other bits of tidying, such as making the HDMI socket a better fit.

Speccy Pi

My Speccy Pi is almost there, need to fit the USB stuff such as the powered 4-port hub where the edge connector used to be. I've got it working with an external keyboard at the moment but that will change once USB is sorted out, then I can have WiFi and Bluetooth as well.

I'll post some better quality pics as well as some of the inside once I get the chance to neaten the wiring up a bit.

1... 2... 8... Gosh!

Thanks to OpenSE Basic & Geoff Wearmouth's Gosh Wonderful rom, my Grey +2 is now equipped with a home toasted Gosh128 ROM - bringing together the best aspects of both projects, combined with the extra capabilities of the 128k machine. Tonight's quick test provided me with just a glimpse of what the system is now capable of and hopefully will be even better combined with a Divide when time allows.

EDIT: Maybe it's not so great after all, had some quite random behaviour from it so the ROM will be going back in the UV oven later on, time to try something else :).

EDIT AGAIN: Much of the randomness seems to have been down to the CF card adaptor I was using, it came with my other (newer) Divide so I just assumed it was going to be ok, so Gosh128 might be getting a stay of execution.

...have this

Got my new laser printer up and running, which means I can have an honest bash at making a proper PCB version of the Simple 8-bit IDE Interface for my +2e. I'm really surprised that no-one sells a kit of all the stuff you'd need to make a few PCBs at home, though admittedly - pound shop cat litter trays and salad tongs are set to play a large part here...

Take That...

Had a sort of Super Saturday of my own yesterday, I repaired 3 Speccys including one (see earlier posts) that'd been bothering me for ages. I had removed it's Z80 so I could replace it with socket in order to later fit a Simple 8Bit IDE Interface, everything went well until I powered it up and I was greeted with a red or magenta border with alternate black & white bars and flashing attributes on the screen. After hours of detective work armed only with a multimeter I found a short between D6 and A2 which could well have destroyed either TR3 because when I finally got round to replacing it with a real ZTX313, problem solved!.

Next up was an Issue 3 board I got off Fleabay that was listed with a keyboard fault, the seller reckoned it was a ULA and I had a matching but untested replacement so I thought 'Ok, I'm in...'. I replaced the ULA and tested it with known working keyboard, still nothing from the keyboard so I asked those who know on WOS Forums who suggested I replace TR6. One replacement ZTX313 later and bingo!, a working keyboard - thanks to WOSf members McLeod_Ideafix, Johan1973, RetroTechie, RoKo and Guesser for all your help.

But no... I was going for the hat-trick, an Issue 3 rubber keyboard model that I bid on before reading the description properly, untested, no membrane, knackered faceplate and no ULA!. I simply took the ULA I had just removed from the previous machine, pressed it into the socket and gritted my teeth as I powered it up. It works! - not had time to thoroughly test it yet but I have another broken rubber keyboard machine coming soon that should yield enough parts to get a working machine.

+2e

Here's inside and outside views of my +2B now that I've fitted the ROMs I burned all by myself. I was going to send off to Garry Lancaster for a pair of pre-burned ROMs but I decided that I should be brave and burn my own so I bought a pair of used 27C256 EPROMs from Ebay and a Willem 5.0e programmer from Hong Kong. To my complete surprise everything worked first time, barring a minor issue with the programmer software and once I'd gently prised out the original ROMs and wedged the newly burnt EPROMs into place I was the proud owner of a +2e.

Now all I have to do is sort out an IDE interface, I decided that I should go with the Simple 8bit Interface but if I change my mind or need to update then I have my own programmer and don't need to send my roms off to be re-burnt again. I'd just like to say a big thanks to Garry, who's hard work has provided the basis of what is proving to be a great fun project for me.

ESXDOS One Sheet Manual v0.2

I was having trouble remembering all the commands for ESXDOS, what with one thing and another going on, so I decided I'd paste all of the relevant info into a printable sheet to keep next to my Speccy. As I've got to use ESXDOS more and more, the need to fall back on FATware has decreased steadily, to the point now where I only use it for loading games via the NMI menu

I decided I would share my 'Idiot Sheet' to help other DivIDE/ESXDOS users along as they get to grips with the system and after collecting some suggestions from Velesoft have produced an updated and revised version. I can't wait for the next update of this exciting new way to use my humble Speccy and look forward to any feedback and suggestions for ways to improve this brief guide.

The ESXDOS One Sheet Manual is available here.