Most clones I've seen don't look that great, but this one's nice. I noticed that the PCB has no ULA. I'm reading that it was impossible to procure in the USSR because of embargos so the designer, Sergey Zonov, reverse-engineered it and used 74xx ICs. That ..is an impressive feat. It has been replicated by Chris Smith, but by actually opening up a ULA and looking at the circuit. Doing this blindly is just awesome.
It really does look great. Unfortunately for me, grandpa’s one has a broken bottom part and died battery. I tried to repair it but I did not have enough tools not to burn the plate.
Sinclair had, it seems, a design tradition that oddly mirrors Apple's. Lots of brilliant prototypes, and I hope the Delete book, which is where I first saw this, hasn't exhausted the treasure trove.
I love it. I mean laptops are billed as the tool for "productivity on the go", but this thing just screams "sod all that, I want to play some JetPac on the go".
I was going to ask how we got three quarters of the way through SPECtober without me noticing, but I guess you just invented it?
I love (‘love’?…), though, that when I searched for it, Google confidently told me all about it, and suggested some ways to celebrate and games to play, despite the fact that your comment was the only actual search result! It’s like it agrees it should be a thing.
Yeah, it's something I just made up, following on from the YouTube trend of SepTandy and later DOScember and Marchintosh. I just figure other platforms should get their own month as well: Mayframe, Amigust, Spectober (alternatively: DECtober), Februatari ST?
It would make sense with those Soviet homebrew OSs, like iS-DOS, that rendered 64 characters per line on the Speccy's 256x192 screen, and featured a file commander and a full software package.
I get that this is a hack rather than an actual product but I'd have expected something more in line with 6 days of continuous gameplay with 4 AAA batteries.
The Gameboy lasted 30h. With all the improved processes and powering off the modern peripherals when not in use, I think the computer part should draw very little current during operation. The screen may require some compromises.
I keep hoping somebody makes a product similar to the TRS-80 Model 100 - a slab laptop that ran for 20 hours on 4 AA batteries. With 40 years of technology improvements, I'd hope that a similar machine could run for months or even years on those same batteries.
> I'd hope that a similar machine could run for months or even years on those same batteries.
Reducing power draw becomes increasingly harder as you go down the scale. And in use, it's either "sleep/idle" (not doing work) or "draw power" (however modest).
More likely / practical use for those 40y tech advances: similar runtime & power draw, but waaay more compute power (and RAM). Like 32-bit 100 MHz+ vs few-MHz 8-bitter. Oh and more beefy battery ofc.
A $1 microcontroller + a character LCD (or epaper) could get you there. Leaving software + physical construction.
> Reducing power draw becomes increasingly harder as you go down the scale.
Surely the state of the art is orders of magnitude better than in 1983? Or rather late 1970's because much of the computer was using tech that was already aging.
If it could run for a year off a pair of AA batteries that you can buy in literally any country in the world, who needs more battery power or weight? Or are you saying a cheap modern low-power CPU + ePaper display gets you there?
More compute and RAM comes for free, but it certainly isn't necessary. That exact machine with a USB-C port for network or external storage would still be useful today.
The last time I was looking into this, one of the more difficult parts was the keyboard. Wired keyboards seem to assume abundant power and often consume 0.25 watts at idle. Low energy bluetooth keyboards are designed with power consumption in mind and use significantly less than that. But it would be insane to install a bluetooth keyboard into a slab computer...
My grandpa kept Soviet copy of ZX Spectrum called Leningrad 1. You can read more about this thing here.
https://zxbyte.org/leningrad.htm (it's in Russian but I hope you have an auto translator in a browser)
Great post overall!
Most clones I've seen don't look that great, but this one's nice. I noticed that the PCB has no ULA. I'm reading that it was impossible to procure in the USSR because of embargos so the designer, Sergey Zonov, reverse-engineered it and used 74xx ICs. That ..is an impressive feat. It has been replicated by Chris Smith, but by actually opening up a ULA and looking at the circuit. Doing this blindly is just awesome.
It really does look great. Unfortunately for me, grandpa’s one has a broken bottom part and died battery. I tried to repair it but I did not have enough tools not to burn the plate.
It appears to have a better keyboard than the original. The rubber keys were an abomination.
Website does not load for me, unfortunately.
The obvious next step would be to put it inside the case of a Pandora.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cassettefuturism/comments/1tnsb2u/s...
I already have a ZX Spectrum - well, a couple really - in my Pandora:
https://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=zesarux
.. incidentally, the Open Pandora runs a ton of great stuff:
https://repo.openpandora.org
Sinclair had, it seems, a design tradition that oddly mirrors Apple's. Lots of brilliant prototypes, and I hope the Delete book, which is where I first saw this, hasn't exhausted the treasure trove.
You may be interested in Rick Dickinson's Flickr account which contains the prototypes he developed while at Sinclair:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/9574086@N02/albums
Mostly Rick Dickinson, who was a superb industrial designer.
I love it. I mean laptops are billed as the tool for "productivity on the go", but this thing just screams "sod all that, I want to play some JetPac on the go".
Happy SPECtober everybody!
Happy SPECtober!
I was going to ask how we got three quarters of the way through SPECtober without me noticing, but I guess you just invented it?
I love (‘love’?…), though, that when I searched for it, Google confidently told me all about it, and suggested some ways to celebrate and games to play, despite the fact that your comment was the only actual search result! It’s like it agrees it should be a thing.
https://postimg.cc/VSRMCLPF
Yeah, it's something I just made up, following on from the YouTube trend of SepTandy and later DOScember and Marchintosh. I just figure other platforms should get their own month as well: Mayframe, Amigust, Spectober (alternatively: DECtober), Februatari ST?
Where is the slot for then cassette tapes?
You have to whistle in the code down the microphone.
It would make sense with those Soviet homebrew OSs, like iS-DOS, that rendered 64 characters per line on the Speccy's 256x192 screen, and featured a file commander and a full software package.
2020.
Looking at that chassis I'd like to retrofit a touchpad with 3 buttons on new standard laptops.
Title needs a (2020).
6h?
I get that this is a hack rather than an actual product but I'd have expected something more in line with 6 days of continuous gameplay with 4 AAA batteries.
This thing has a 14 inch LED screen never mind the actual computer part. How much energy do you think they can hide in a AAA battery?
The Gameboy lasted 30h. With all the improved processes and powering off the modern peripherals when not in use, I think the computer part should draw very little current during operation. The screen may require some compromises.
1. The Gameboy was powered using AA batteries not AAA which have about triple the capacity.
2. The Gameboy screen was LCD not LED, with no backlight, and had a 2.5 inch diagonal compared to this laptop's 14 inch diagonal.
3. Also if you read the article you will see a technical limitation was that the screen had to be run at full brightness
Tiny display + a lot of them didn't have a backlight. This laptop has a big display.
I keep hoping somebody makes a product similar to the TRS-80 Model 100 - a slab laptop that ran for 20 hours on 4 AA batteries. With 40 years of technology improvements, I'd hope that a similar machine could run for months or even years on those same batteries.
> I'd hope that a similar machine could run for months or even years on those same batteries.
Reducing power draw becomes increasingly harder as you go down the scale. And in use, it's either "sleep/idle" (not doing work) or "draw power" (however modest).
More likely / practical use for those 40y tech advances: similar runtime & power draw, but waaay more compute power (and RAM). Like 32-bit 100 MHz+ vs few-MHz 8-bitter. Oh and more beefy battery ofc.
A $1 microcontroller + a character LCD (or epaper) could get you there. Leaving software + physical construction.
> Reducing power draw becomes increasingly harder as you go down the scale.
Surely the state of the art is orders of magnitude better than in 1983? Or rather late 1970's because much of the computer was using tech that was already aging.
If it could run for a year off a pair of AA batteries that you can buy in literally any country in the world, who needs more battery power or weight? Or are you saying a cheap modern low-power CPU + ePaper display gets you there?
More compute and RAM comes for free, but it certainly isn't necessary. That exact machine with a USB-C port for network or external storage would still be useful today.
The last time I was looking into this, one of the more difficult parts was the keyboard. Wired keyboards seem to assume abundant power and often consume 0.25 watts at idle. Low energy bluetooth keyboards are designed with power consumption in mind and use significantly less than that. But it would be insane to install a bluetooth keyboard into a slab computer...
No LED torches the size of LCD backlight last 6 days. More like up to 8 hours.
Ok avadodin@, we'll give you your money back.
Umm the next draws like 3 watts without a display. Which is still 3x less than the original zx spectrum.