Spectrum re-fit

Last updated: June 24, 2011, 7:38 p.m.

At the first British Vintage Computer Festival last week among the bits I picked up were a replacement membrane and a keyboard cover for my Spectrum. The original metal shield was beginning to go rusty, probably because of the years spent in a shed or garage before I got it at a garage sale. The keyboard membrane was also on its last legs, I'd taken the Speccy apart a couple of times and the membrane ends that plug into the main board were on the verge of breaking. Now I could take it apart again without worrying about loosing the keyboard I decided to go the whole way and rip out the modulator and just wire up a composite video output in its place. This is really simple, the input to the modulator block is power and composite video, so to get composite out all you have to do is trace the signal and connect up a suitable connector, I used a phono connector and a bit of angle aluminium to mount it. Previously I had both modulated RF and composite connections with the composite connector on a flying lead hanging out of the back of the case.