from the outside it was still a Sinclair, but on the board was already printed the AMSTRAD logo. Here you can see the Zilog Z80 CPU and the board revision “ISSUE1” from 1988. On the upper right, the cassette drive with the drive belt.Ī common weak point of these devices are the drive belt from the cassette drive, which can become porous after many years, and the paper-thin flat cables for connecting the keyboard. The keyboard (hidden under the silver plate on top) with its paper-thin flat cable. The construction is quite clear: Below the mainboard with all connectors. Here is a view into the inside of the +2A.

There are also interesting mods, if the sound or video output is not good enough (more about that later). So if you’re thinking about getting one of these devices nowadays, you should check the various websites about the ZX Spectrum.

With the Spectrum Plus/+2/+2A/+3A there was a confusing number of board revisions and some special features to be considered. And finally a real keyboard … a dream 😉 The inner parts Especially the Z80 CPU made many people think about computers later on in their careers.

Still, the ZX Spectrum is and remains a cool machine. Unfortunately the larger memory and the finally available sound chip could not make up for that. That was surely one of the main reasons why the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and its successors did not find such a large spreading world-wide. A big shortcoming is and remains the missing sprite ability, which is just as important for games and made the C64 so successful. In the UK the success of Sinclair or Amstrad was undisputed for a long time, but on the world market the competition between Commodore and Atari was simply too great. You always have to keep in mind that Sinclair’s philosophy was to build very cheap and simple computers that were affordable for everyone. Furthermore it finally had its own sound chip from Yamaha with 3 channels and a MIDI connection. Not only because of its 128KB RAM and additionally 64KB ROM it was already very well equipped for that time. RGB, RS232/Midi To compare: Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2, Schneider CPC 464 und Schneider CPC 664.Ĭompared to the first ZX Spectrum the +2 was already technically much better equipped. Sound – 3 Channels, 7 Octaves (Yamaha AY-3-8912) ROM: 64KB (32K for 128K mode, 16K for 48K mode, 16K for +3DOS)įull-stroke 58 key Keyboard (same layout as Spectrum+) I am especially proud to have a Spectrum +2A in my collection, because this model was not very widespread in Germany.īy the way, my Spectrum +2A with black case, which was released in 1988, was again a successor of the Spectrum +2, which originally had a grey case. Thus Amstrad took over the design from its own computer line, which also had a built-in cartridge drive or floppy disk drive. Because in 1986 the British competitor Amstrad acquired the trademark rights for Sinclair and released with the Spectrum +2 and +3 two successors of the 8-bit computer with 128kB memory – one with built-in cassette recorder drive and the other with floppy disk drive. With the ZX Spectrum Plus, the ZX is finally growing up! And yet it was the beginning of the end for the British company Sinclair as a legendary computer manufacturer.

Sinclair zx spectrum roms