Spectrum Hardware Index - V
Name: Video Vault Upgrade Module
Manufacturer: Video Vault
Price: £79.95
Blurb: Turns your old 48k Speccy into a 128k machine including sound upgrade. It also included a Kempston joystick interface, Sound direct throught the TV, reset button and parallel interface.
Source: Crash May 1990
Name: Videoface
Manufacturer: Data-Skip
Price: £69.00
Blurb: Video digitiser for your Spectrum. Fast 3 grabs/sec. Animate last 6 grabs. Save animations to tape/disk.
Full 256x192 screen grab.
Source: Your Sinclair Jan 87
Note: Romantic Robot also sold this unit.
Name: Viscount Disk Drive System
Manufacturer: Inteeractive Instruments Ltd.
Price: £245.00
Blurb: 5.25in disk drive and interface. Holds around 107k per disk.
Source: Sinclair User May 84
Name: VISMO Joystick Interface
Manufacturer: VISMO
Price: 250fr (January 85)
Blurb: Std joystick interface.
Source: BOISSEAU Olivier
Name: VISMO ZP83 parallel interface
Manufacturer: VISMO
Price: 1095fr (January 85)
Blurb: Std parallel printer interface.
Source: BOISSEAU Olivier
Name: Volex TTX2000S
Manufacturer: Volex Electronics
Price: £145.00
Blurb: Teletext/telesoftware adaptor. Receive all teletext services without the need for a special TV. Download software.
Source: Your Sinclair Jan 87
Volex TTX 2000s
The following article was taken from Your Sinclair - January 1987
TELETEXT
Teletext is extra information available day or night whilst television transmitters are on air and without any charge and can now be enjoyed without the need of having a special Teletext TV set. All you need is to plug in you VOLEX TTX 2000S adaptor to receive 4-tel from Channel 4, CEEFAX or ORACLE services.
TELESOFTWARE
Telesoftware is the name for computer programs which are broadcast as Teletext. Thus they may be loaded "off-air" into your Spectrum instead of being loaded from, say, tape or microdrive. 4-tel is Channel Four's Teletext magazine and they are now broadcasting FREE telesoftware. Because of the special nature of teletext these programs are frequently updated - so you will not see the same thing each time you run the program.
EASY TO SET UP AND USE.
A simple procedure tunes the VOLEX adaptor to your local teletext channels. All loading of telesoftware is via an index page on 4-tel which the adaptor will automatically find and display for you. Absolutely no modification is necessary to TV or computer. A comprehensive manual is supplied.
STORING PAGES
With the VOLEX adaptor it is possible to send received pages to your printer or to Microdrive for storage and later recovery.
The following review was taken from PCW 6 March 1986
Housed in a standard size under-the-Spectrum black box, the TTX2000 S could easily be mis-taken for a modem. But its purpose is to access Oracle and Ceefax, ITV and BBC's way of making use of spare lines in TV signals, which hold text information pages, as well as a considerable amount of advertising on the commercial channels.
Strong Signal
This lets a Spectrum and ordinary set receive them - it is not suitable for bulletin boards or communications - as well as downloading telesoftware directly into the micro. The use of an identical power supply connector to the Spectrum's for the tuner creates an initial bad impression - a simple slip could put 18V into your micro. You'll also need a strong signal to receive those spare lines and I found timing incredibly difficult. Once I had it set up I found that it treated interference on normal vision, not that this mattered much because as far as I could tell there's no way of superimposing pages (eq. containing subtitles or newflashes) over broadcasts. After all these problems I was surprised to find that the telesoftware downloaded without problem - I received a section of The Living Body program.
Normal Vision
However, downloading is not fast and you're limited to Channel 4 telesoftware unless a soft converter makes the BBC transmissions available too. All in all I wasn't impressed with the products performance and see little point in investing a penny short of £100 to indulge in the delights of broadcast teletext and software when a modem and subscription to a network gives you interaction too.
Note: I do not know why the units price changed between 86 and 87, especially upwards !
Name: Voltmace Delta 3S
Manufacturer: Voltmace Ltd.
Price: £10.00
Blurb: Compact, lightweight, hand held fingertip controler.
Source: Crash 5 (Jun 84)
Name: Voyager 7 Modem
Manufacturer: Modem House
Price: £91.94
Blurb: 300/300, 1200/75, 75/1200 full duplex, 1200/1200 half duplex.Autodial and autoanswer. Auto logon, Carousel up to 26 frames. Frame editor,Full Xmodem support, Xon/Xoff.
Needs VTX 711 interface. (£119.90 for both)
Source: Your Sinclair Oct 86
Name: VTR Parallel Centronics Interface
Manufacturer: VTR
Price: 790fr (January 85)
Blurb: Parallel printer interface.
Source: BOISSEAU Olivier
Name: VTR Spectrum Programmable Joystick Interface
Manufacturer: VTR
Price: 260fr (January 85)
Blurb: Programmable Joystick interface
Source: BOISSEAU Olivier
Name: VTR Vocal synthesizer
Manufacturer: VTR
Price: 470fr (January 85)
Blurb: No info. Guess at speech synthesiser.
Source: BOISSEAU Olivier
Name: Vu-Load
Manufacturer: Computer Add-ons
Price: £19.99
Blurb: Ensure programs load every time. See the tape level.
Source: Sinclair User Aug 83
Spectrum Hardware Index
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• Page 3 of 3 • 1, 2, 3
Re: Spectrum Hardware Index
by crustyasp46 » Wed Jan 21, 2015 1:12 am
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Re: Spectrum Hardware Index
by crustyasp46 » Wed Jan 21, 2015 1:19 am
Spectrum Hardware Index - W
Name: Watford SP-DOS
Manufacturer: Watford Electronics
Price: £99.00
Blurb: Disk interface with on-board DOS. Supports drives up to 800k.
Source: Your Spectrum issue 11
Watford SP-DOS Disk Interface
The following review was taken from What Micro, April 1985
THE WORLD IS YOUR OYSTER
Until now the choice of disk drive for the Spectrum has been
basdly limited. Steve Applebaum reviews an interface
which enables you to use any BBC drive.
Ever since the launch of the Microdrive its reliability has been questioned. Before the launch it was publicised as the mass storage device for the Spectrum. Since then independent manufacturers have thought differently, and it has not taken long for several disk interfaces to hit the market.
The Watford Electronics interface connects BBC disk drives, of which there are plenty, to the Spectrum. It comes complete with operating system and Masterfile, Omnicalc 2 and Tasword 2 - a data base, spreadsheet and word processor.
The new interface plugs directly into the Spectrums edge connector, the top reaches a fair way above the computer; just enough, in fact, For it to cheekily display the Sinclair rainbow which emblazons its front. On the rear of the interface is a Spectrum edge connector, while on the right-hand side there is a second, shorter one, for the attachment of a disk drive.
If you already have a disk drive it will probably have a BBC specific interface rather than an edge connector. Do not worry, this can still be attached to the disk interface via a TRS-80 Model 1 compatible ribbon cable. Any Tandy store will sell you one of these.
Should you not have a drive at all you could always buy one equipped with the edge connector, direct from Watford Electronics. A 40 track 200k 5.25 inch single disk drive will set you back about £149.
This is a lot of trouble to go to when you could just as easily use a cassette recorder or Microdrive, but what you get in the end is a fast and reliable storage system which uses random access rather than serial access to your files.
Random access filing is a process where a file is stored on a disk and its position, as well as name, is logged into a catalogue. By knowing where a specific file is located on a disk, the computer is able to move the drive's read/write head directly to it, without having to carry out a laborious search.
Serial storage is far slower as your files are stored one after the other in a line, on a cassette tape for example. This means that the tape has to be played through until the required tile is found.
The Watford Electronics disk interface is interesting because the disk operating system (SP-DOS) can be accessed directly from Basic. Whenever a disk or extended Basic command is used with the prefix PRINT #4, any further processing is done under SP-DOS.
ODDITIES
Before a blank disk can store any information it must be formatted. This is a process where the surface of the disk is magnetically split into tracks and sectors, ready to accept data. To make sure that most drives are catered for, SP-DOS formatting menu contains several parameters which must be changed according to a drive's spec. For instance the number of tracks, sides and the stepping rate must be set. The commands used are PRINT #4: FORMAT "FILE-NAME": PRINT n1, n2, n3, n4: where n1 is the drive containing the disk to be formatted, n2 the number of tracks, n3 the number of sides and n4 the stepping rate.
As well as SP-DOS, under which a disk is formatted, there is a second sub-system called MiniDOS. When one of the packaged programs, such as Tasword Two, is loaded from the system disk, SP-DOS automatically switches into MiniDOS. This only occupies 3k of user RAM, leaving the operator plenty of memory space for his own use. When saving your own programs you might want to lock them so that nobody else can see them. You can do this by putting a line number within the save command, which automatically runs the program on loading. The syntax for an auto-run is: PRINT #4: SAVE "filename" LINE n; where n is the line you want the program to start at.
The Watford Electronics disk interface is an extremely powerful piece of hardware, SP-DOS covers most users needs, while the facilities of Basic overlays and sequential files make it a programmer's delight. Add to this the free software comprising of Masterfile, Omnicalc 2 and Tasword 2 and you have a professional little system that gives Spectrum owners access to the many disk drives available for the BBC.
Name: Watford Centronics/RS232 Interface
Manufacturer: Watford Electronics
Price: £29.95
Blurb: Centronics port. Bi-directional RS232 port.
Source: Your Spectrum issue 11
Name: Watford 200/400/800k Disk Drive
Manufacturer: Watford Electronics
Price: £129.00 (200k), £149.00 (400k), £175.00 (800k)
Blurb: Disk drives... !
Source: Your Spectrum issue 11
Name: Wear Saver
Manufacturer: Computer Add-ons
Price: £9.50
Blurb: Saves wear and tear on your ear/mic and power sockets.
Source: ZX Computing Feb/Mar 84
Name: Wico Trackball
Manufacturer: CGL
Price: £??
Blurb: Track ball working from any standard joystick port.
Source: Sinclair User Feb 85
Name: WSX Mk1
Manufacturer: Wessex Microcomputers
Price: £?? Under £300 !
Blurb: Interface that allows the Spectrum to be connected to other computers like the C64 and BBC, and allow data to be transfered between them. Uses the IEEE 488 connector.
Source: Sinclair User Feb 85
Note: Due to be launched soon, but was it ever released ?
Name: Watford SP-DOS
Manufacturer: Watford Electronics
Price: £99.00
Blurb: Disk interface with on-board DOS. Supports drives up to 800k.
Source: Your Spectrum issue 11
Watford SP-DOS Disk Interface
The following review was taken from What Micro, April 1985
THE WORLD IS YOUR OYSTER
Until now the choice of disk drive for the Spectrum has been
basdly limited. Steve Applebaum reviews an interface
which enables you to use any BBC drive.
Ever since the launch of the Microdrive its reliability has been questioned. Before the launch it was publicised as the mass storage device for the Spectrum. Since then independent manufacturers have thought differently, and it has not taken long for several disk interfaces to hit the market.
The Watford Electronics interface connects BBC disk drives, of which there are plenty, to the Spectrum. It comes complete with operating system and Masterfile, Omnicalc 2 and Tasword 2 - a data base, spreadsheet and word processor.
The new interface plugs directly into the Spectrums edge connector, the top reaches a fair way above the computer; just enough, in fact, For it to cheekily display the Sinclair rainbow which emblazons its front. On the rear of the interface is a Spectrum edge connector, while on the right-hand side there is a second, shorter one, for the attachment of a disk drive.
If you already have a disk drive it will probably have a BBC specific interface rather than an edge connector. Do not worry, this can still be attached to the disk interface via a TRS-80 Model 1 compatible ribbon cable. Any Tandy store will sell you one of these.
Should you not have a drive at all you could always buy one equipped with the edge connector, direct from Watford Electronics. A 40 track 200k 5.25 inch single disk drive will set you back about £149.
This is a lot of trouble to go to when you could just as easily use a cassette recorder or Microdrive, but what you get in the end is a fast and reliable storage system which uses random access rather than serial access to your files.
Random access filing is a process where a file is stored on a disk and its position, as well as name, is logged into a catalogue. By knowing where a specific file is located on a disk, the computer is able to move the drive's read/write head directly to it, without having to carry out a laborious search.
Serial storage is far slower as your files are stored one after the other in a line, on a cassette tape for example. This means that the tape has to be played through until the required tile is found.
The Watford Electronics disk interface is interesting because the disk operating system (SP-DOS) can be accessed directly from Basic. Whenever a disk or extended Basic command is used with the prefix PRINT #4, any further processing is done under SP-DOS.
ODDITIES
Before a blank disk can store any information it must be formatted. This is a process where the surface of the disk is magnetically split into tracks and sectors, ready to accept data. To make sure that most drives are catered for, SP-DOS formatting menu contains several parameters which must be changed according to a drive's spec. For instance the number of tracks, sides and the stepping rate must be set. The commands used are PRINT #4: FORMAT "FILE-NAME": PRINT n1, n2, n3, n4: where n1 is the drive containing the disk to be formatted, n2 the number of tracks, n3 the number of sides and n4 the stepping rate.
As well as SP-DOS, under which a disk is formatted, there is a second sub-system called MiniDOS. When one of the packaged programs, such as Tasword Two, is loaded from the system disk, SP-DOS automatically switches into MiniDOS. This only occupies 3k of user RAM, leaving the operator plenty of memory space for his own use. When saving your own programs you might want to lock them so that nobody else can see them. You can do this by putting a line number within the save command, which automatically runs the program on loading. The syntax for an auto-run is: PRINT #4: SAVE "filename" LINE n; where n is the line you want the program to start at.
The Watford Electronics disk interface is an extremely powerful piece of hardware, SP-DOS covers most users needs, while the facilities of Basic overlays and sequential files make it a programmer's delight. Add to this the free software comprising of Masterfile, Omnicalc 2 and Tasword 2 and you have a professional little system that gives Spectrum owners access to the many disk drives available for the BBC.
Name: Watford Centronics/RS232 Interface
Manufacturer: Watford Electronics
Price: £29.95
Blurb: Centronics port. Bi-directional RS232 port.
Source: Your Spectrum issue 11
Name: Watford 200/400/800k Disk Drive
Manufacturer: Watford Electronics
Price: £129.00 (200k), £149.00 (400k), £175.00 (800k)
Blurb: Disk drives... !
Source: Your Spectrum issue 11
Name: Wear Saver
Manufacturer: Computer Add-ons
Price: £9.50
Blurb: Saves wear and tear on your ear/mic and power sockets.
Source: ZX Computing Feb/Mar 84
Name: Wico Trackball
Manufacturer: CGL
Price: £??
Blurb: Track ball working from any standard joystick port.
Source: Sinclair User Feb 85
Name: WSX Mk1
Manufacturer: Wessex Microcomputers
Price: £?? Under £300 !
Blurb: Interface that allows the Spectrum to be connected to other computers like the C64 and BBC, and allow data to be transfered between them. Uses the IEEE 488 connector.
Source: Sinclair User Feb 85
Note: Due to be launched soon, but was it ever released ?
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Re: Spectrum Hardware Index
by crustyasp46 » Wed Jan 21, 2015 1:37 am
Spectrum Hardware Index - X-Z
Name: XK System
Manufacturer: Stephen Adams
Price: £14 + Ram (DIY kit) or £74 for full installation.
Blurb: Gives up to 64k of internal RAM in your Spectrum. Software control of paging.
Source: Your Spectrum issue 8
Name: XRI Micon
Manufacturer: XRI Systems
Price: £99.00
Blurb: Midi interface with 1 input, 2 outputs and a drum box synchronisation socket. Complete with software that will allow up to eight synchronised sequences and 26,200 notes.
Source: Your Sinclair July 86
Name: Zeaker Micro Turtle
Manufacturer: Colne Robotics Co Ltd.
Price: £69.50
Blurb: Spectrum controled, 2 wheeled robot.
Source: ZX Computing Aug/Sep 83
Name: Zeal Sound Booster
Manufacturer: Zeal Marketing Ltd.
Price: £14.99
Blurb: Clear sound with volume control.
Source: Sinclair User May 84
Name: Zero 2 Robot
Manufacturer: Intergalactic Robots Limited
Price: £? Less than £100 claims the ad.
Blurb: Small robot, controled via any RS232 port on your Speccy.
Source: Your Spectrum issue 15. June 85
Name: ZON X
Manufacturer: Bi-Pak
Price: £25.95
Blurb: "Make amazing sounds with your Spectrum." 8 octaves, 3 channels with full control over pitch, volume, tones and noise, all with envelope control. Usable in your own Basic or M/C programs. Because this devices used the A4 address space, it is not compatable with the Interface 1 and Micrdrive. Because this was originaly a ZX81 interface, a small additional board is required. It sits between the ZON X and the Spaccy, and conatins a 3.5Mhz oscillator to stabalise the frequency.
Source: Sinclair User Dec 83/Apr 83
Name: ZXM
Manufacturer: Timedata
Price: £29.95
Blurb: Sound box based on the 8912 chip. Includes twin joystick ports. Volume control, amplifier & speaker.
Source: Sinclair User Dec 83
Name: ZXS
Manufacturer: Timedata
Price: £24.99
Blurb: Speech synthesis box. Needs ZXM to amplify sound.
Source: Sinclair User Dec 83
Name: ZX Box
Manufacturer: Interservice Electronics Ltd.
Price: £9.95
Blurb: A Sound Investment. Bring arcade style sound to your Spectrum. Sound Amplifier.
Source: Sinclair User Oct 83
Name: ZX Loader Aid
Manufacturer: Fulcrum Products
Price: £12.20
Blurb: Cure tape errors when loading. LED's indicate correct volume setting.
Source: ZX Computing Aug/Sep 83
Name: ZX Lprint III
Manufacturer: Euroelectronics
Price: £34.95
Blurb: Centronics printer interface. Works with standard commands. Also has RS232 port for serial printers.
Source: ZX Computing Aug/Sep 85
Name: ZX Printer
Manufacturer: Sinclair Research Ltd.
Price: £39.95
Blurb: 50 characters/sec.
Source: Sinclair User Oct 83
Name: ZX Slowloader
Manufacturer: East London Robotics
Price: £10.00
Blurb: Load your ZX81 tapes into your Spectrum.
Source: ZX Computing Aug/Sep 83
Name: ZX Tapeloader
Manufacturer: Elinca Products Ltd.
Price: £14.99
Blurb: Trouble free loading and saving. Switchable load/save. Meter shows level. Filters cut out the noise to create the best signal possible.
Source: ZX Computing Oct/Nov 83
Source :
Name: XK System
Manufacturer: Stephen Adams
Price: £14 + Ram (DIY kit) or £74 for full installation.
Blurb: Gives up to 64k of internal RAM in your Spectrum. Software control of paging.
Source: Your Spectrum issue 8
Name: XRI Micon
Manufacturer: XRI Systems
Price: £99.00
Blurb: Midi interface with 1 input, 2 outputs and a drum box synchronisation socket. Complete with software that will allow up to eight synchronised sequences and 26,200 notes.
Source: Your Sinclair July 86
Name: Zeaker Micro Turtle
Manufacturer: Colne Robotics Co Ltd.
Price: £69.50
Blurb: Spectrum controled, 2 wheeled robot.
Source: ZX Computing Aug/Sep 83
Name: Zeal Sound Booster
Manufacturer: Zeal Marketing Ltd.
Price: £14.99
Blurb: Clear sound with volume control.
Source: Sinclair User May 84
Name: Zero 2 Robot
Manufacturer: Intergalactic Robots Limited
Price: £? Less than £100 claims the ad.
Blurb: Small robot, controled via any RS232 port on your Speccy.
Source: Your Spectrum issue 15. June 85
Name: ZON X
Manufacturer: Bi-Pak
Price: £25.95
Blurb: "Make amazing sounds with your Spectrum." 8 octaves, 3 channels with full control over pitch, volume, tones and noise, all with envelope control. Usable in your own Basic or M/C programs. Because this devices used the A4 address space, it is not compatable with the Interface 1 and Micrdrive. Because this was originaly a ZX81 interface, a small additional board is required. It sits between the ZON X and the Spaccy, and conatins a 3.5Mhz oscillator to stabalise the frequency.
Source: Sinclair User Dec 83/Apr 83
Name: ZXM
Manufacturer: Timedata
Price: £29.95
Blurb: Sound box based on the 8912 chip. Includes twin joystick ports. Volume control, amplifier & speaker.
Source: Sinclair User Dec 83
Name: ZXS
Manufacturer: Timedata
Price: £24.99
Blurb: Speech synthesis box. Needs ZXM to amplify sound.
Source: Sinclair User Dec 83
Name: ZX Box
Manufacturer: Interservice Electronics Ltd.
Price: £9.95
Blurb: A Sound Investment. Bring arcade style sound to your Spectrum. Sound Amplifier.
Source: Sinclair User Oct 83
Name: ZX Loader Aid
Manufacturer: Fulcrum Products
Price: £12.20
Blurb: Cure tape errors when loading. LED's indicate correct volume setting.
Source: ZX Computing Aug/Sep 83
Name: ZX Lprint III
Manufacturer: Euroelectronics
Price: £34.95
Blurb: Centronics printer interface. Works with standard commands. Also has RS232 port for serial printers.
Source: ZX Computing Aug/Sep 85
Name: ZX Printer
Manufacturer: Sinclair Research Ltd.
Price: £39.95
Blurb: 50 characters/sec.
Source: Sinclair User Oct 83
Name: ZX Slowloader
Manufacturer: East London Robotics
Price: £10.00
Blurb: Load your ZX81 tapes into your Spectrum.
Source: ZX Computing Aug/Sep 83
Name: ZX Tapeloader
Manufacturer: Elinca Products Ltd.
Price: £14.99
Blurb: Trouble free loading and saving. Switchable load/save. Meter shows level. Filters cut out the noise to create the best signal possible.
Source: ZX Computing Oct/Nov 83
Source :
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