I finished refurbishing a Spectrum +2a that my dad found in the attack. The +2a is black, rather than grey, so IMHO looks a lot better than the +2. However, it has a massive power supply, and won't work with the Micro drive.
This +2a booted straight into test mode (ie colours, and 1987 across the screen). Presumably this was just a stuck key - I dismantled it, cleaned it all, and it booted fine. However, a lot of the keys didn't work. I then trimmed the end of the keyboard ribbon (I find 9 times out 10 this fixes a dead Sinclair keyboard, although you can only do it so many times before the ribbon gets too short).
The final problem was it wouldn't load tapes. This was fixed by cleaning the heads with rubbing alcohol and cotton buds, and then realigning the heads. This is done by inserting a screw driver into the hole below the tape deck and turning slowly until it loads better.
All sorted and ready to play some early Ultimate classics...
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The ZX Spectrum remained popular as the platform was embraced by games developers, but also due to the fact anyone could create programs for it using the included BASIC language. In fact, the ZX Spectrum has a library of over 23,000 software titles, and new ones are still being produced by enthusiasts working with the hardware. The fact any programs written for the ZX81 also worked on the Spectrum helped, as did Spectrum magazines including type-in programs and tutorials on a regular basis.
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