ahh, ok thanks

ahhh, i do love you MISTER BEEP!

thanks for the help, i figured it out in the end

x

Oh, man - a lot of questions.
Sure thing all the stuff works also with +3 but for detailes information you should ask on
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/

Am I able to do this with my ZX Spectrum +3? If so, what software am I able to use and whats recommended?

Also, what software am I able to use on floppy (i've made myself an external 3.5 disk drive)? I heard that I can only use SQ Tracker. And how can I format the floppy disk?

I'll be grateful if anyone can help as I know +3s arent as known about and this thread is over a month old.

Thanks

Well, yes - it's possible with this program http://zxspectrum48.i-demo.pl/k7zx.zip (also with easy possibility to make WAVs) but sadly it loads quickly only *.sna/*.z80 snapshots.

So you will be able to load any program but your own data (like songs) will be loaded and saved with normal speed (still the fastest among all 8bit computers. But still slow ).

After all. The best way is to get the CF interface. It's called divIDE.
Some systems can SAVE. I don't know any details but it works.
Infos: http://baze.au.com/divide/

The best way to get the device is from here:
http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/spectrum/ … orage.html

Greetings!

Hi there.

NOBODY never said that Amstrad Spectrums have input. Mostly because they DON'T.
+2 / +2A / +2B has NO sound input. Don't know about +3 (should have but....... who knows).

Sound must go through an _AMPLIFIER_. in 99% of case it will not work with direct mp3=>ZX way. It's too silent.

Bass/trebles on equalizer: flat.

Stereo panorama - full into left (or right, depending how it's connected - you will see the difference instantly ).

Software - the easiest (in my opiion) would be http://zxspectrum48.i-demo.pl/st_1_1.zip

For MP3-players' users: convertor TAP=>WAV is: http://zxspectrum48.i-demo.pl/tap2wav.zip
(then you code the WAV into MP3, 192Kbps should do the trick. That's what I use anyway).

The Tape Adapter for +2/a/b isn't very good. Sometimes it works - and sometimes it doesn't. Depends on air pressure in northern hemisphere or whatever else.

SON - a Spanish Spectrum or similar? That's sound OUTput only. Sadly.

Maybe for speccy, but that;s because their floppy interface was pretty bad to.

Again, with 3.5 floppies care must still be taken. I know lots of people who store them carelessly because they seem to be more rugged. This simply isn't the case. Again, the floppies of which I was speaking are 3.5 floppy disks. 5.25 disks only seem more reliable because it's easier to keep in mind proper handling. Also of note, some 3.5 drives stop reading good disks over time, because by the Amiga era the drives were becoming universal  and cheaply made. I have some high quality 3.5 drives for PC and Apple IIgs which have performed perfectly with my media for a long time.

i didn't say nothing against good old 5 1/4.

just for the record, i have a collection of ca 50 original tapes for c64, almost all funtional.
i've got a collection of about 500 5 1/4 floppies for c64, mostly copies... at least 80% are working and they have been through a lot of shit.
i've also got about 200 3.5" for amiga, both original and copies, more than 50% don't work.

that's the reality, my friends.

besides, it's a well-known fact that on speccy, loading from tape is faster than loading from floppy, if done right.

out of my 25 or so zx spectrum games about 10 work i haven't had a single floppy go wrong either.. but i also use 3M only...

Got to agree with this and every other point arfink makes. I still have plenty of my 5.25" floppies in full working order and they are like 21 years old.

That's probably because your floppies were cheap crap and were also probably stored improperly. Floppies have a lower tolerance for dirt and dampness, wheras tapes generally don't have as much of an issue with this. This is because floppies have an internal dust jacket inside of the plastic sleeve which helps them to be more reliable until the day when it gets wet and starts to get gunk on it. Stored properly, this can't happen. Barring of course delamination of the actual disk substrate, which happens to cheap disks.

I prefer 3M brand floppies (and only use 3M brand floppies) because they have the best jacket design and the best substrate. I have never had one fail which had been stored properly, and many of them are much older than I am, having been written as far back as 1984.

Also, my gripe against tapes- constant fiddling for noise levels, tensile changes which spoil your calibration from tape to tape, low data densities, and excessive load times.

Kind of difficult having in mind you have to connect it to a TV for display.

http://8bc.org/forums/viewtopic.php?id=15563&p=1

in this thread there's quite a bit of help with the loading using the mp3 tape thing which is very useful!

thanks for all the help, i'll be able to get this working i reckon

anyone got any recommendations on trackers now?

no hard words about tapes, please. they're a much more reliable medium than 3,5" floppies, to say the least. i have the 1982 demo tape that came with the original speccy (16/48k), it works perfectly fine, which can't be said for most of my 90s amiga floppies.

as for the rest, here's a couple of tricks:

first, if you use real tape, use ferro-tape. magnetic tapes don't work very well and tend to data loss (on c64,magnetic tape can actually destroy your tape drive. fortunately the speccy is more robust). same goes for cheap tapes without proper metal shielding.

i wouldn't be surprised if those ipod adapters don't work too great since they resample the audio and probably tape-head isn't shielded properly either. though i've heard several people say it works. in any case it should be easier to copy your wav to a real tape (at about max volume you can achieve without clipping) and then load from that.

ed: one more thing, the speccy is quite vulnerable to interference, so make sure you put your setup in a place far away from other electronic equipment, and don't try to listen to loud music while trying to load something.