exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

The thing I hate about mail order is the waiting... or rather the lack of control/information about the waiting time, especially if it's untracked "in the post" type delivery.

So, the keyboard membrane was ordered on Monday and shipped on Tuesday "by cheapest Royal Mail" with an estimated delivery of 2-4 days (and no option for any other delivery method). I really hate the uncertainty, especially Royal Mail 2nd class post which can take weeks.

stephen_usher wrote: 10 Feb 2022 09:47 The thing I hate about mail order is the waiting... or rather the lack of control/information about the waiting time, especially if it's untracked "in the post" type delivery.

So, the keyboard membrane was ordered on Monday and shipped on Tuesday "by cheapest Royal Mail" with an estimated delivery of 2-4 days (and no option for any other delivery method). I really hate the uncertainty, especially Royal Mail 2nd class post which can take weeks.

Defintiely with you on this. Are you having general postal issues there, like we are? I've had stuff days late simply because there is no postie coming our way.

I've not noticed much difficulty. However, one of the MPs in the area did raise the issue with Royal Mail as parts of Oxford didn't get a delivery for almost a month at the end of last year. (He was given a raspberry and effectively told to sod off by the way.)

stephen_usher wrote: 10 Feb 2022 10:05 I've not noticed much difficulty. However, one of the MPs in the area did raise the issue with Royal Mail as parts of Oxford didn't get a delivery for almost a month at the end of last year. (He was given a raspberry and effectively told to sod off by the way.)

There was a similar problem in Chelmsford, supposedly as a result of major revisions to 145 routes and changes to sorting, plus staff shortages due to covid. No real impact on us, but we did have a local postal worker strike a few weeks back, though they are back now, but still having irregular deliveries due to lack of staff. People have retired, left due to illness, or simply had enough of doing multiple rounds.

This evening fitted a reset switch, which doesn't quite fit the case, so had to modify the case a bit, and the composite video out mod using a 470uF capacitor instead of the modulator. (Desolder the input signal to the modulator and the internal resistor connected to the centre pin. Solder -tive side of capacitor to centre pin and +tive side to the signal hole on the motherboard.)

So as to test the upper memory and in lieu of the keyboard membrane's arrival, fitted the board into a manky old rubber key case and wrote a quick upper memory test program in BASIC. All good.

The keyboard membrane and case screws arrived today.

I had to fabricate the two membrane ribbon compression bars from plasticard as the originals were missing and borrow four of the case screws. The keyboard won't work without them as the design relies upon the pressure to make the contact between the layers.

Anyway, all back together and working.


I just need the replacement key post for the "TRUE VIDEO" key and I'm going to see if I can fix the sticking Return key (design flaw) with some micro springs I have on order.

I quite fancy getting a speccy, but I'm torn about which to get. I like the look of the 128k ones, but have fond memories of the rubber key version.

I can't remember where I got this one from. I think that it was given to me a while ago. I can't remember who gave it to me.

I've a couple of other working Spectrums and a 128K, plus, somewhere, a dead Issue 7, which is what I was originally looking for to fix. If you'd like this one once I finished I'll happily send it to you (no PSU with this I'm afraid).

I sort of want a broken one, I quite enjoy the repairing :lol:

I know what you mean. :-)