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British computer use in the USA?

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Tupin

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I've seen the large amount of Europe-only computers and games, and I figure I should get around to adding one to my collection one of these days.

I have a few questions, some vague and some specific, and others just opinions.

1. Most British computers used the cassette tape as their standard method of recording data. If I were to download a game off of the Internet and onto a tape, would it work?

2. About plugs and currents, is there a voltage range of these old computers? I.E, can it be plugged into an American outlet using only a plug converter without any sort of stepdown?

3. NTSC-PAL differences, will there be a major problem or will the games just run really fast due to Hz differences?

4. What should I expect to pay for a ZX Spectrum/Amstrad CPC 464/BBC Micro/Acorn Electron?

5. Which of those are best for a person wanting to start a British gaming collection?

Sorry about the questions, I just want to know what I'm going to get myself into.
 
1. Shouldn't be a problem. You might not even need to put them on tape. The software you find on the internet is often in a custom archive format designed for use with emulators, and there is often player software that will let you plug you PCs sound output straight into the old computer's tape input.

2. Depends on the computer and power supply. Some may accept a wide voltage range such as 100-240V and 50-60hz, but most 80s stuff tends to have fairly basic power supplies that will most likely only work with 220-240V 50Hz, so you'd need a proper power converter for them.

3. If your TV only supports 60Hz then you won't get a proper picture from a computer putting out 50Hz. Some computers can be modified to produce 60Hz instead, but this may lead to compatibility problems with software that uses the framerate for timing. Many modern TVs can accept both 50Hz and 60Hz anyway, although you might only get a b&w picture if the TV doesn't also support PAL colour encoding.

4. Depends if you're buying locally or importing. In the UK Spectrums are dirt cheap. The iconic models such as the original rubber keyed 48K, the Spectrum+ and 128K are a little more expensive than latter models like the +2/+2A, but there are always tons on ebay. £10-30 unboxed at a guess. The CPC is roughly similar. The BBC tends to be a little more expensive, but not much. Boxed examples are a little more.

5. My first computer was a Spectrum, so I'm probably a little biased, but that's a very good starting point IMO. There are probably more Spectrum games than the others put together.
 
Finally a topic that I know something about :)

EDIT: FishFinger was quicker than me... But I see that we agree! :)

Tupin said:
I've seen the large amount of Europe-only computers and games, and I figure I should get around to adding one to my collection one of these days.

I have a few questions, some vague and some specific, and others just opinions.
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Of course you should have some European computers in your collection! But I do miss the Swedish ABC-80 in your list below ;) It's a computer with similar specs to the TRS-80. (Did I mention that it was my first computer)

1. Most British computers used the cassette tape as their standard method of recording data. If I were to download a game off of the Internet and onto a tape, would it work?
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Yes it would work. But often you wouldn't have to go all the way to tape. You could play a .wav (or maybe .mp3) of the game with media player on your modern computer or Ipod or such. Likewise for saving programs you've written, then just record with your soundcard.

2. About plugs and currents, is there a voltage range of these old computers? I.E, can it be plugged into an American outlet using only a plug converter without any sort of stepdown?
Click to expand...
All European electronic devices run on 220-240V so you can't run them on the 120V you have over there... You need a stepup device. Some computers used the Hertz of the current to keep it's internal clock in sync so that would be a small problem for you. I know that the C64 did this, making the clock run a little fast on a 220V/50Hz-machine in 110V/60Hz-land.

3. NTSC-PAL differences, will there be a major problem or will the games just run really fast due to Hz differences?
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Not with computers (video game consoles however might have some trouble). The only thing noticeable would be a slight speed increase if you notice anything at all. There probably are some demos made for various computers that really need a PAL machine to work correctly, but they aren't all that many I'd think.

4. What should I expect to pay for a ZX Spectrum/Amstrad CPC 464/BBC Micro/Acorn Electron?
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Looking at ebay.co.uk gives you this:
ZX Spectrum £20-50 depending on condition and boxed or not
Amstrad CPC £20-50 depending on whether the monitor is included (you need it to run the computer)
BBC Micro £20-200 depending on model, included accessories (disk drives etc)
Acorn Electron £10-50 depending on loose or boxed and condition

Beware of shipping from the British islands though it's very expensive to send any thing heavier than 2 KG from there. You might find all of the above computers at ebay.de, but then you need some knowledge in German and they usually don't take Paypal. As a side note, the Amstrad CPC was sold as the Scheider CPC in germany...

5. Which of those are best for a person wanting to start a British gaming collection?
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I'd say the ZX Spectrum. It's a small computer (doesn't weigh much) and it has a gazillion games made for it on tape. The Electron would be my second choice. The Amstrad wouldn't be all that interesting as it needs a monitor to supply power to the computer so shipping would be really expensive. But it's a nice computer with some competent games made for it. The BBC Micro is another nice machine, that is really interesting, but it's heavy and if there's some nice accessories budled then the price usually gets high.

Sorry about the questions, I just want to know what I'm going to get myself into.
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If you don't ask you don't learn things :)
 
I can add that BBC Micro's have (temporarily?) increased in value after BBC Four aired the 90 minute comedy documentary Micro Men, which was about the competition between Sinclair and Acorn for the contract to sell BBC a school computer. It seems to have stirred an increased interest in Beebs, but perhaps not in Speccys.

Another unusual machine you may consider is an Oric-1 or Atmos, which however is less common to find. And well, you have the Welsh Dragon 32, but that is pretty much the same as a TRS-80 CoCo. Besides I think it was sold in the USA as Tano Dragon so you may be able to find those locally.

If you look beyond the UK, you have a few more European computers but most of those are only known within the country and may have limited support, e.g. the French Thomson MO and TO series.

What Zeela mentions about internal clock only works for those machines which require AC input, e.g. 9V AC. The ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and BBC Micro essentially use DC power of different voltages, so I can't believe that would ever be an issue. Although I think the Acorn Electron takes low voltage AC input, I doubt it has any particular use of the frequency.

And yes, you need to step up ~110-115V to ~220-230V. Us in Europe use step-down converters to go in the other direction. You can find cheap step-ups and step-downs on eBay. I can't say if the one on Radio Shack is a good price, but 150W capacity is quite a lot. Of course if you're going to connect some PAL monitor and perhaps other device it doesn't hurt if the step-up is beefy.
 
Even though I'm not British, I would agree that the ZX Spectrum, and BBC are classic British early '80s micros. Those two especially but also the others that have been mentioned.

The Sinclair QL and of course the original ZX-80/81 were also British. The ZX81 was also very popular but that could be bought in North America as the Timex 1000.

In the early 80s in New Zealand we saw machines from all kinds of English speaking countries coming in such as those from Britain, U.S.A and even Australia (microbee anyone?). However, we also saw models from Japan (Sord for example) and other Asian countries (e.g. EACA machines).

While we had a good spread, the downside was that everything was highly expensive once it reached the customer. Even in bulk, shipping still costs. Distance also increased the number of middle men with their corresponding mark-up.

Tez
 
Of course all these systems are emulated and you tend to have good libaries of available software. Although some people may have mixed feelings for emulation, I believe it is a good way to get acquainted with a system, find out if it is something for you. Those who simply collect computers to put them on the shelf have no need to try an emulator, but for possible enthusiasts it could make a difference or at least help defining a priority list.
 
I'm definitely going to emulate these systems before I get one, the Electron I found an emulator for, as well as the ZX Spectrum. Any other system would cost way too much to import.

Oh, and I guess I'll need a joystick interface for either, right? Can someone post the pictures of the ports on these systems?
 
Spectrum joysticks are generally one of two types:

1) Standard atari-style 9-pin joysticks (referred to as "Kempston" joysticks in Spectrum circles). These are the most common, and virtually all after-market joystick interfaces will be this type.

2) So-called "interface 2" joysticks, which use the same 9-pin D-sub connector, but with a non-standard pinout. You can make an adaptor cable easily though. These are only really used by the Sinclair Interface 2 joystick interface, and the built-in ports on the +2/+2A/+3 models.

There are a few other types, but I wouldn't worry about them.
 
FishFinger said:
Spectrum joysticks are generally one of two types:

1) Standard atari-style 9-pin joysticks (referred to as "Kempston" joysticks in Spectrum circles). These are the most common, and virtually all after-market joystick interfaces will be this type.

2) So-called "interface 2" joysticks, which use the same 9-pin D-sub connector, but with a non-standard pinout. You can make an adaptor cable easily though. These are only really used by the Sinclair Interface 2 joystick interface, and the built-in ports on the +2/+2A/+3 models.

There are a few other types, but I wouldn't worry about them.
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Actually, the Interface 2 had a standard Atari pinout. The funny pinout is only on the Amstrad-made +2, +2A and +3. It was their cunning plan to force everyone to buy their own-brand joysticks.
 
Does anyone have a picture of the ports on a Sinclair-made Spectrum? What is the cassette cable set up like?

Oh, and which would be the better model between the original 48k rubber-keyed Spectrum and the ZX Spectrum 128k? I might have to go with the former just because it would be so small to ship...
 
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The ZX Spectrum 16/48K has a total of five connectors: 9V DC power, RF output, two 3.5 mm jacks for EAR/MIC (cassette) and one expansion bus which is where you connect the joystick interface, printer interface, IDE interface, network interface or whatever you like.

If you don't mind a bit of modding, you can internally convert the ZX Spectrum from RF to a reasonably good composite video signal, reusing the same RCA connector. If you do it properly, you can even restore RF at a later point. I write "reasonably good" because the signal may not be of ideal strength but most TV's can display it anyway. Usually TV sets are more likely to properly display a composite video signal from a foreign region than a RF antenna signal.

The Spectrum 128 has a slightly better keyboard and more memory, but in terms of size I would just as well step up to a +2 model which has an even better keyboard. Of course the small rubber keyboard is what made the Speccy iconic so if you want one to show to your pals, it is the model you should aim for.

By the way, the Acorn Electron and BBC Micro have a 7-pin DIN connector for tape. Only a few of the pins are significant though. The Oric-1 happens to be compatible with this tape cable. This cable however is NOT the same one as you would find on a TRS-80, IBM PC (?) and a few others.

While joystick interfaces for the ZX Spectrum are fairly common and can usually be picked up cheap, an Atari-style interface for the Acorns is harder to obtain. There is a "First Byte" one for the Electron which shows up now and then, but I believe you need to load a patch program before loading one of the SUPPORTED games. It comes with instructions how to adapt other games to work with it though. The BBC has its own analogue joystick port which some games utilize. There are diagrams how to build an Atari joystick adapter but I haven't tried this yet. Rarely a commercially built adapter shows up on eBay but I've noticed they end up at remarkable prices.
 
Looks like I'll be going for a 48k Spectrum, then. Both for the iconicness and for its games. It can handle games from the late 1980's that are bigger, right?

It's audio quality compared to the other computers was less than average, correct? Didn't it have a speaker built into it? And that keyboard, did people like word process with it, or was it only good for games?
 
I'm afraid a 48K machine can only load programs written for the 48K machine. I don't know the ZX Spectrum good enough to tell how many games and utilities were 128K only. I believe the listings at World of Spectrum will tell you. A quick search reveals 441 out of 10584 commercial titles (4%) were exclusive for the 128K machine.

Quite a few of the smallest computers have built in speakers. I never figured out why, in particular those with a dedicated sound chip should just as well have managed to route it through the RF. Perhaps due to different PAL substandards and audio carriers they preferred not to, so one could import a machine from the UK to mainland Europe and use it with TV volume off.

Regarding the keyboard, I would not want to use it too long but those who grew up with it generally have fond memories. Again there were quite a few machines with rubber keyboards and out of those Sinclair may have had one of the better ones. It is similar to full sized keyboards, you have good and bad ones among those too.
 
Hope you like playing in B&W (without modification that is)... PAL machines won't show color on NTSC sets... and that includes composite video outputs. If the machine has a SCART output, or if it's available on the video chip outputs you could wire up to either take the color difference signals and adapt to RGB (or straight to a newer TV with component video I think), or the analog RGB outs to a monitor like a Commodore 1084. Then you should be able to display color.
 
The vast majority of Spectrum software will work on the 48K. The extra memory in the 128K was generally just used to load a game all in one go, instead of loading levels separately as some games did on the 48K, and to hold the music for the 128Ks sound chip.

I think the 48K only has RF output, and possibly composite (or can be modded to produce composite). Only the 128Ks had an RGB video socket.
 
geoffm3 said:
Hope you like playing in B&W (without modification that is)... PAL machines won't show color on NTSC sets... and that includes composite video outputs. If the machine has a SCART output, or if it's available on the video chip outputs you could wire up to either take the color difference signals and adapt to RGB (or straight to a newer TV with component video I think), or the analog RGB outs to a monitor like a Commodore 1084. Then you should be able to display color.
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What about a computer monitor? Or, there are converters that allow color to be shown.

I have no TV that can to 50Hz, just monitors. I get a VGA to composite cable, I plug that into the output of a PAL converter, and plug the Spectrum into that. That would be setup, unless my monitor has a PAL mode.
 
Tupin said:
What about a computer monitor? Or, there are converters that allow color to be shown.

I have no TV that can to 50Hz, just monitors. I get a VGA to composite cable, I plug that into the output of a PAL converter, and plug the Spectrum into that. That would be setup, unless my monitor has a PAL mode.
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That is something I hadn't considered. Yeah, if you got a PAL->VGA converter that would be an option.
 
What I was actually considering doing was just getting a VGA to composite cable, modding the Spectrum for composite video, and plugging it directly into the monitor using the adapter cable. It can run in 50Hz and I'm pretty sure it can auto-detect PAL and will switch to PAL mode and give me color.
 
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