There is an oft quoted law that describes my situation. It shall remain un-named in case it offends anyone! However, when I say I was all geared up to post lots of info on this site and suddenly, things many and varied popped up, seemingly out of nowhere to occupy my time.

I have decided to post a few quick lines to assure anyone who has managed to find the site that there will be more ‘stuff’ here in the near future.

I can mention a few. I have designed an updated Composite Output PCB, details of which are on the Projects Page. The newer board simply adds a switch so that you can build all three options on to the board and see which one works best with your monitor/TV without any re-soldering. I haven’t had the new board fabricated but I’m willing to publish it since it’s a very small upgrade.

Spectrum Composite Video Mod v2.00

I have also designed Spectrum +3 Composite Output board which I have successfully taken to prototype. When attempting to try it out, I have found that my +3 has some other sort of video fault which prevents it from working correctly. More investigation requred.

Sticking with +3s; A long time ago (2002) I came across a design for an IDE interface for the +3e. I loved this idea, a Spectrum with a Hard Drive, even if this particular interface only gave you half the capacity of the drive. At the time, I was just getting into PCB design and with a dodgy version of Ares/Proteus, I designed a gosh-awful board covered in links (since I couldn’t produce a double-sided PCB at home). However, it worked! I was very chuffed with myself and sent the design, along with an internal version to Garry Lancaster who kindly published it for me. I included images of my interface captured with the then brand new Casio QV-10 Digital Camera! You can still download the original archive from the WOS page. Having gotten first into Eagle and recently KiCad, I have updated the design and Garry has once again published it on the same page.

8-Bit IDE Interface by Pera Putnik and Garry Lancaster

So, there are a few things going on. Even more behind the scenes, all of which will appear in due course.