Comments on: Spectrum ZX Laptop

By: Moonlit

Moonlit — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:40:09 +0000

@jim macarthur - you can get hinged TFT screens for playstations, which presumably take a composite video input - perhaps you could fix one of them to take a spectrum's video output.

Like this fun li'l mod here?
http://www.neoncherry.com/retrorepairshack/readarticle.php?article_id=8
:)

By: Jim MacArthur

Jim MacArthur — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 03:21:03 +0000

The ZX keyboard is indeed quite terrible. It is just a bit of fun, not intended to be anything practical.

Keeping the real ZX motherboard seemed a bit silly, since the libretto can easily emulate a spectrum and many other more powerful retro computers. Also, cutting up a 20 year old computer’s case was quite traumatic enough without taking an iron to the electronics. The original spectrum board is safely stowed in an antistatic bag and still works fine.

@frk-kun – you can get hinged TFT screens for playstations, which presumably take a composite video input – perhaps you could fix one of them to take a spectrum’s video output.

By: zigzagjoe

zigzagjoe — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:01:59 +0000

i thought he had “merged” a zx and a libretto…but just replacing the lower bit with a craptastic keyboard is rather lame

By: Fry-kun

Fry-kun — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:13:00 +0000

I wonder how much harder it would be to make a real ZX Speccy laptop..?
The biggest challenge would be the video output

By: matt tc

matt tc — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:05:21 +0000

make that ‘existing keyboard’

By: matt tc

matt tc — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:04:17 +0000

for anyone interested, you can also replicate the feel of a zx spectrum keyboard by covering your existing in 10-20 layers of cellophane. or wearing boxing gloves.

By: def

def — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:03:42 +0000

What’s the point? Crap keyboard on a crap laptop?

If it really was a speccy 48k in laptop form then it’d be ace. If someone’d put one together and interface it to a SD card then it’d be ace. I’d also like to see a minimig put in a laptop.

By: Stu

Stu — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:30:07 +0000

Yup, the last thing I’d do with a ZX Spectrum (or speccy) is use its keyboard for something – hacking stuff is cool, but there are limits, its keyboard sucked so badly, that for mine, I actually went out and bought a third party keyboard that a local company made. We must be talking 1984 or 1985 here, wow.
Now if he could turn that whole mod ass about face and put the guts of the speccy into the libretto and turn it into a mobile speccy, that’ll be better.

By: Beanolini

Beanolini — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:25:23 +0000

#3- It wasn’t just difficult to type on, it was unreliable too- the membranes wore out very quickly (3 times on my Spectrum).

I’ve done the reverse of this- I wired a PC keyboard to work on a Spectrum. I just cut all the tracks on the PC keyboard’s PCB, and wired up the switches in a matrix matching the Spectrum’s one.

I didn’t fancy soldering onto the Spectrum’s PCB, so I just pushed the wires into the connector. Worked well till I gave it away a few years ago.

By: sweavo

sweavo — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 12:54:59 +0000

it’s a ZX Sp.. oh.

By: g

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 10:50:18 +0000

Great retro mod. Don’t envy him typing on that thing though the Speccy was renown for having one of the worst keyboards around!

By: John Bokma

John Bokma — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:52:48 +0000

It’s ZX Spectrum, not Spectrum ZX.

(It was the first computer I bought, almost 25 years ago)

By: atrain

atrain — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 07:34:04 +0000

Awesome mod… Do you have the libretto running a zx emulator though? :P

Why must every pic on this site be greyscale – with the only exception (atm) being the laser etcher?