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The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer.
A RAM drive is a block of random-access memory that a computer's software is treating as if the memory were a disk drive. RAM drives provide high-performance temporary storage for demanding tasks and protect non-volatile storage devices from wearing down, since RAM is not prone to wear from writing, unlike non-volatile flash memory. They are in a sense the reverse of virtual memory: RAM drive uses a volatile fast memory as if it's a nonvolatile slow memory. Virtual memory is the opposite.
The Multiface was a hardware peripheral released by Romantic Robot for several 1980s home computers. The primary function of the device was to dump the computer's memory to external storage. Pressing a red button on the Multiface activated it. As most games of the era did not have a save game feature, the Multiface allowed players to save their position by saving a loadable snapshot of the game. Home computer software of the early 1980s was typically loaded into RAM in one go, with copy protection measures concentrating the loading phase or just after it. The snapshot feature could be used after copy protection routines had been executed, to create a backup that was effectively unprotected against unauthorised distribution. Later models of the Multiface mitigated this by requiring the device to be present when re-loading the dumps into memory, making the dumps useless to people without a Multiface. Software producers also reacted to the threat by using routines that would prevent execution of the product if it detected that a Multiface was present and by loading the software in multiple parts, thus requiring the presence of the original, copy-protected media.
The SAM Coupé is an 8-bit British home computer manufactured by Miles Gordon Technology (MGT), based in Swansea in the United Kingdom and released in December 1989.
ProDOS is the name of two similar operating systems for the Apple II series of personal computers. The original ProDOS, renamed ProDOS 8 in version 1.2, is the last official operating system usable by all 8-bit Apple II series computers, and was distributed from 1983 to 1993. The other, ProDOS 16, was a stop-gap solution for the 16-bit Apple IIGS that was replaced by GS/OS within two years.
Sinclair BASIC is a dialect of the programming language BASIC used in the 8-bit home computers from Sinclair Research and Timex Sinclair. The Sinclair BASIC interpreter was made by Nine Tiles Networks Ltd.
The DISCiPLE is a floppy disk interface for the ZX Spectrum home computer. Designed by Miles Gordon Technology, it was marketed by Rockfort Products and launched in 1986.
The +D was a floppy disk and printer interface for the ZX Spectrum home computer, developed as a successor to Miles Gordon Technology's earlier product, the DISCiPLE. It was designed to be smaller, cheaper, simpler and thus more reliable.
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The ATM Turbo, also known simply as ATM is a ZX Spectrum clone, developed in Moscow in 1991, by two firms, MicroArt and ATM.
Beta BASIC is a BASIC interpreter for the Sinclair Research ZX Spectrum microcomputer, written by Dr Andrew Wright in 1983 and sold by his one-man software house BetaSoft. BetaSoft also produced a regular newsletter/magazine, BetaNews.
The ZX Spectrum's software library was very diverse. While the majority of the software produced for the system was video games, others included programming language implementations, Sinclair BASIC extensions, databases, word processors, spread sheets, drawing and painting tools, and 3D modelling tools.
iS-DOS is a disk operating system (DOS) for Soviet/Russian ZX Spectrum clones. iS-DOS was developed in 1990 or 1991, by Iskra Soft, in Leningrad, Soviet Union, now Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Beta Disk Interface is a disk interface for ZX Spectrum computers, developed by Technology Research Ltd. in 1984 and released in 1985, with a price of £109.25.
The Kay 1024 was a Russian ZX Spectrum clone introduced in 1998. Created by the NEMO company of St. Petersburg, it has 1024 KB of RAM. It was a rival to Scorpion ZS 256, having a slightly lower price. It offered a controller for a PC keyboard and HDD, but not for floppy disks. Adding a General Sound card was easy, and the CPU had a 7 Mhz turbo mode.
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few operating systems attempting to be compatible with MS-DOS, are sometimes referred to as "DOS". MS-DOS was the main operating system for IBM PC compatibles during the 1980s, from which point it was gradually superseded by operating systems offering a graphical user interface (GUI), in various generations of the graphical Microsoft Windows operating system.
The floppy disk is a data storage and transfer medium that was ubiquitous from the mid-1970s well into the 2000s. Besides the 3½-inch and 5¼-inch formats used in IBM PC compatible systems, or the 8-inch format that preceded them, many proprietary floppy disk formats were developed, either using a different disk design or special layout and encoding methods for the data held on the disk.
Romantic Robot is a small independent British company that publishes classical music recordings. In the 1980s it designed and produced peripherals and software for home computers.
References
- ↑ "Beta Disk Interface - World of Spectrum". Worldofspectrum.org. Retrieved 9 December 2018.
- ↑ Woodcock, Colin (7 May 2012). The ZX Spectrum on Your PC. Lulu.com. ISBN 9781471696121 . Retrieved 9 December 2018– via Google Books.
- ↑ Woodcock, Colin (December 2003). "TR-DOS". ZXF. No. 6.
- ↑ Pavlov, Paul; Striker (2022). "Virtual TR-DOS". Virtual TR-DOS. Retrieved 9 December 2018.
- ↑ Technology Research BETA 128 Disk Interface - User Manual. Technology Research Ltd. 1986. Archived from the original on 2016-09-23.
- ↑ "Customized ROM". speccy4ever. Archived from the original on 2016-09-18. Retrieved 2016-08-19.
- ↑ DISK INTERFACE Manual Supplement for version 4 of TR-DOS (PDF). Technology Research Limited. 1984.
