As a subscriber to SUM, I thought I would sit down and take the time to. share with others my experience with some new hardware that I recently purchased from the English Micro Connection. Although the total purchase price of everything might appear somewhat excessive ($250), the end results are very rewarding. The hardware involved is as follows:
ZX SPECTRUM EXPANSION SYSTEM ($134.95). It consists of Interface I, a Microdrive Unit, the necessary cables, and Cartridge Pack with 4 microdrive cartridges: Tasword II and Masterfile on the business’ cartridge; Ant Attack and Games Designer on the games cartridge; Utilities and Help on a cartridge; and a blank cartridge.
INTERFACE III ($59.95). Transfers every Spectrum program available on to microdrive or makes a back-up copy to tape.
10 MICRODRIVE CARTRIDGES ($2.75 each) & EMC SPECTRUM BUS ADAPTER ($45.00). Designed to connect to the 2068’s edge connector, and gives you a Spectrum edge connector for running all Spectrum hardware with Emulator, Romswitch or ROM chip.
To start with, I should tell you that I also own an A & J Waferdrive. I feel the Sinclair is faster than the A& J by a mile. All microdrive cartridges are about 85K. A & J cartridges are of different lengths from 14K to 85K. Though both use an endless loop tape, the microdrive seems to be able to get back around to the’ same place on its tape and load a program than the A & J. Microdrive cartridges are half the size of the A & J cartridges.
Now to the heart of all this hardware. To use Interface III, just load a Spectrum program from tape as you would normally. Once the program is running, it generally will ask you for some kind of keyboard input. At this time a red button on the interface is pushed, a blank tape put in your recorder and a fresh recording of the program saved to it. After saving, the computer must be reset. Next, a short utility program is loaded which reads what Interface III just had you save on tape. A prompt concerning the opening screen of the program you are converting allows you to determine if you should save the screen as well.
Finally, you are asked if you wish to save the final version on tape or microdrive. The final copy will be missing part of the opening screen (to show that this is a copied program perhaps).
This may sound difficult, but the actual work is easier than explaining it. If you run into any problems, drop me a line (with SASE) or call: Ken Duda, 210 Bernice Dr., Northlake, IL 60164. I might also add that all this is available, along with their new catalog (it’s more like a manual!), from the English Micro Connection, 15 Kilburn Court, Newport, RI 02840.