RWAP

Oh - the EightyOne X version is available from http://ww.rwapservices.co.uk/ZX80_ZX81/forums/eo-x-3-5-t757.html You need to download the original version and install that on your computer - the files in the link above then overwrite some of the files in the earlier version.

Thanks for the great comments about the ZXpand - it has proved really popular, especially with all the new software being released for the ZX81 recently - even the Mojon Twins (best known for good quality ZX Spectrum games) have started releasing games. The ZXpand-AY module is starting to be used more for production of music on the ZX81 / TS 1000 and includes its own joystick port - SirMorris (the designer of the ZXpand) has also patched various games to use the joystick. The latest news is that SirMorris has developed a small board which will plug into the ZXpand-AY and allow you to connect a mouse through the joystick port. And yes, we have them both in stock, and also supply the keyboard membranes as well as other things!

I know this is an old thread, but in response to some of the queries on here and other forums about games for the Sinclair QL, we have released the Sinclair QL Games Collection - 10 commercial arcade games packaged together with a special version of Q-emuLator, a Windows based QL emulator. You can find out more about the QL Games Collection here

Thanks to work by Daniele Terdina and Jiri Dolezal, we have now released the Sinclair QL Games Collection 1. This is a set of 10 commercial games for you to play on a Windows based PC, running under Q-emulator for £10 We hope this will help distil the comments that the QL was only ever a business machine and will hopefully help promote the QL itself. The games included are: * Cuthbert in Space by Steve Bak and S J Proctor * Deathstrike by Damon Chaplin and T. Bovingdon * Hoverzone by R G Riley * Jungle Eddi by Stefan Kuhne * QL Hopper by Steve Bak and S J Proctor * QL Pengi by Jochen Merz and R. Bieniek * QL Vroom by Daniel Macré * Stone Raider II by Alex J Herbert * The King by C H Robertson Consultants * The Lost Pharaoh by Stefan Kuhne More details appear at: http://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/details/Sinclair_QL_Games_Collection_1-2152

By the way Zaxon, Google Checkout may still be available. They have made a mess of it and I have reported this to them - basically they tried merging Checkout with Wallet. On Firefox and Google Chrome, you see a popup box when you try to access Checkout, telling you that it has merged with Google Wallet. Hidden in the bottom right hand corner is a link to the Google Merchant Checkout pages. Internet Explorer does not show the popup. Alas this is currently the ONLY way to access Google Checkout accounts !! - not very helpful at all.

Yes, the QL used the Motorola 68008 - which was a 32 bit processor with an 8 bit data bus, which limited it somewhat. Later developments, such as the Gold Card (68000) and Super Gold Card (68020) bypassed the onboard processor, or there were more QL compatibles such as the Thor XVI (68020), the Q40 (68040) and the Q60 (68060) computers which used the higher end chips. The phrase 'game carts' was never used for Sinclair QL software so far as I know - possibly for the Spectrum. The Coleco ADAM appears to use a different sort of tape drive completely - as it looks closer to cassette technology - microdrives were endless loop technology, compared to a cassette, where there are two sides. The Imagine Megagame for the QL was Bandersnatch - it was never released though unfortunately.

Hee hee - yes, I realised you must have overlooked them as they were not in the bullet list. His email address works fine for me - so suggest you try again

No - basically Rod was left with various bits and pieces that had either been overlooked previously, or users had said they wanted, but never paid him for!

There was a sound card designed and sold in the early 80s (the ZonX-81) - the new ones use the same ports and are compatible with the original

OK - time to put the record straight... There are indeed American versions of the QL which were designed for NTSC output (some have a switch next to the UHF to toggle between PAL and NTSC) and a lot more shielding. They were made by Samsung and are much more reliable than earlier models. The QL has RGB-TTL output as with the Spectrum 128 I have sent you a PM with a link to a guy on the TS2068 mailing list who has some QLs to give away for price of postage (they may have unreliable microdrive units, so you may need to get a hold of several and swap the microdrive units). Apart from the early production models, the QL has proved to be very reliable - the microdrive units sometimes need some maintenance, but most of the time, it is just the small rubber roller inside them which is (a) worn and needs replacing, (b) has ridden up the metal shaft and needs moving back down, or © is worn on the top half and needs turning upside down. As with any of the 1980s computers, the keyboard membranes need replacing about once every 10-15 years. I have a stack of second hand UK QLs, power supplies (220V) and keyboard membranes here. Power supplies rarely go wrong - some people had problems with QLs overheating in the past, but that was mainly due to the extra current needed by some early disk and memory card expansions. As for software - there were quite a lot of games produced for the QL - have a look on the QL Wiki for details of some (this is very much a work in progress). There are also quite a few Sinclair QL Games still available commercially and a wealth of public domain software available from the Sinclair QL Homepage. As for expansion options - the most commonly required ones are disk and memory interfaces - there were quite a lot of these produced, but ideally you want a Miracle Systems Trump Card which added 768K memory, and a disk interface. Later interfaces such as the Gold Card and Super Gold Card offered memory expansion up to 4MB and a much faster processor, and even allowed the QLs to use ED disk drives (3.2MB) as a mini-hard disk. There were all sorts of other peripherals, some home made, others more commercial, including hard disk interfaces, a new motherboard (the Aurora) which offered 256 colours and high resolution displays, I/O interfaces, EPROM programmers, video digitisers and speech modules for example. There are also a number of QL emulators for various platforms, with the Windows based QPC2 probably the most common emulator, followed by Q-emuLator (Windows and MAC). There is still a QL magazine (QL Today) and even a QL user group (QUANTA) which was first set up in 1983. Plenty of information for you to absorb and read up on - but if you want to know anything else, just holler.

2011 has been a very eventful year for the Sinclair ZX80 and ZX81, with the replacement keyboard layers and rivets for the ZX80 having proved something of a God send for collectors of this rare beast. Alongside the continuing sales of replacement keyboard membranes, there has been a plentiful supply of new software and hardware for the Sinclair ZX81 (which celebrated its 30th year this year) with the following having been released: The ZXpand (32K RAM and SD card interface) now available for both the ZX81 and ZX80. The ZXpand-AY (Full AY sound module for the ZXpand with built in joystick port) The ZXvid (Replacement UHF modulator for the early ULA based ZX81s which have no back porch and did not work on modern TVs, and provides a stable composite video signal) The ZXtend (bus extender for the ZX81 - ideal for using the ZXpand with clones!) The ZX-ULA2 (adds a turbo mode to the ZX81 as well as an M1NOT mod) A collection of 1K games with hi-res graphics Boulder Logic Chopper Drop The Crystal Frog Domin8tr1s Dunric's Adventure Laby Lightsout MazezaM Minefield Miner Man Nanako in Classic Japanese Monster Castle '81 QFrogger Shogun Tron Trails Virus ZXAKURO ZX4PAINT Much of the software is described and linked to on my own website - http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/zx81/zx81_software.html Other utilities have also been released to complement this, such as : ZX81 Tape Scraper to quickly make copies of cassettes onto SD memory card (using the ZXpand) The AY Sound Design Tool- this allows you to set the frequency, volume and mixing (tone and noise) for each of the three channels to create noises for use within programs. The ZXpand Sound Player - plays AY files in PT3 format stored in a directory on the ZXpand's SD card ZX81 STC Sound Player - program to play STC format sound files ZX81 Sound Tracker - music editor and tracker ZX81 Sound Engine - for playing sounds direct to an AY interface, using BASIC. NOTE: Both STC and PT3 files can be created from MIDI sound files, using Vortex Tracker II for Windows. A good tutorial for using Vortex Tracker II appears at: http://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/27/vortex-tracker-ii/ This has also helped the ZX81 clones, such as the TS1000, TS1500 and TK85. More details about the ZX81 hardware available appear on the ZX81 section of SellMyRetro.com We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and let's hope 2012 is just as productive!

Hi. In the future I would like to buy your nice ZXpand interface for ZX81, if compatibility with programs with UDG characters will be added. Hmm - do we know the technical details of what is required for this - if so, can you pm me?

Is anyone else here seriously expected to know the answer to that question? Or is it purely rhetorical? Well I guess Zaxon knows but yes, probably a silly question asked in the wrong place. Purely rhetorical, but as he doesn't respond to my pms, texts or even a letter, then there has to be some way of getting him to contact me!

So is this interface the reason why Zaxon does not respond to my contact anymore about him producing promised units for me?