Mebrane fix or LOAD"" Poke equivelant

Pyjamarama · May 2007

Hi!!

I bought a rubber speccy from a guy on Ebay.
Well,lots of buttons dont work,including J :(

Two questions...
*Is there a way to have a quick mebrane fix for this button?
*Is there a POKE that mimicks the LOAD"" command?

Thanx in advance

icabod · May 2007

You could try MERGE"" then RUN, tho' there are a couple issues with that...
The LINE of a program may not be the first line (hence RUN wouldn't work), and also the program may be protected (so MERGE"" wouldn't work).
It should work in some cases, tho'.

DEATH · May 2007

RWAP will have you working again soon - he'll even fit it for you.

Follow the RWAP link from my site - link in my sig.

Pyjamarama · May 2007

Thanx guys for the responses!!
I live in Greece so a RWAP solution it is a bit expensive for me right now(I have 6 speccys that play fine ;) ) but I will surely use it in the near future.
I just want to test the machine to see if,apart from the obvious mebrane hell,there are other problems with it
Merge is one of the keys that does not work either. agrrrr
A Poke may save me :D

DEATH · May 2007

No, I don't think there's a poke that'll do the same as LOAD ""

You could work out which lines on the membrane have to be switched to give you the right keyworks though, and that'll just be a few bits of wire - wouldn't reccomend it tho :)

Actually, if you have lots of patience and a little luck, you could take the membrane out of the computer, find the break. If you're lucky and it's on the actual ribbon, you could try laying a very thin length of bare copper wire down the printed trace and the sticking it down with a length of sticky tape. If the break is "inside" the key area tho, then it's beyong repair IMO

zub · May 2007

icabod wrote: »

You could try MERGE"" then RUN, tho' there are a couple issues with that...
The LINE of a program may not be the first line (hence RUN wouldn't work), and also the program may be protected (so MERGE"" wouldn't work).
It should work in some cases, tho'.

Workaround: MERGE"" and then RUN a program that consists of just LOAD"". Of course, you'll need to save the LOAD"" program somehow, first, probably with an emulator.

My sister and I did something similar to this ? we transferred LOAD"" to the Spectrum using the SAM Messenger, and then pressed ENTER on the Spectrum. :)

Pyjamarama · May 2007

pitty that Merge button is also non-working :(

yomlogs · May 2007

How about:

10 PRINT ""

POKE 23759,239
RUN

...though if the key with MERGE on doesn't work, RUN might not either... in which case, GO TO 10 :-)

zub · May 2007

Pyjamarama wrote: »

pitty that Merge button is also non-working :(

You could try entering 10 PRINT"" or 10 REM"" and then POKE 23759,239: RUN ? there are probably better ways to do this, but it seems to work. :)

zub · May 2007

zub wrote: »

You could try entering 10 PRINT"" or 10 REM"" and then POKE 23759,239: RUN ? there are probably better ways to do this, but it seems to work. :)

Oops. Seems yomlogs beat me to it! Sorry about that. :)

Pyjamarama · May 2007

Sorry for the fuzz but the Speccy is collapsing...
Now not even RUN works!!!
DAMN!!!!

Thanx a lot for your clever hints ;)

zub · May 2007

Pyjamarama wrote: »

Sorry for the fuzz but the Speccy is collapsing...
Now not even RUN works!!!
DAMN!!!!

Thanx a lot for your clever hints ;)

If both RUN and GO TO don't work, the next trick would be POKE <something>,247:NEW, or something along those lines. <something> would be the address where the "NEW" statement is held. I'm not sure exactly what that is, yet, though. :)

Pyjamarama · May 2007

ahaaaaaaa!!!
The help in WOS is neverending :D

Thanx!

zub · May 2007

Pyjamarama wrote: »

ahaaaaaaa!!!
The help in WOS is neverending :D

Thanx!

Oops! :D

Anyway, what I eventually came up with is:

10 PRINT ""

POKE 23759,239
POKE 23787,247:PRINT

The first POKE turns the first PRINT into a LOAD. The second POKE turns the second PRINT into a RUN. :)

Pyjamarama · May 2007

zub awesome trick!
it worked!!! (although I needed to plug in my Interface2 in order to input the numbers using the 2 ports and the joystick :D)

thanx!!!

zeem · May 2007

I was laughing enough at the extent of the POKEs needed just to load something, but then going on to say that the numbers had to be entered using two joysticks had me laughing my head off!

yomlogs · May 2007

You could even do just:

POKE 23779,239: PRINT ""

(assuming a freshly-reset Speccy and no IF1)

zub · May 2007

zeem wrote: »

I was laughing enough at the extent of the POKEs needed just to load something, but then going on to say that the numbers had to be entered using two joysticks had me laughing my head off!

Owww! My sides! :D

Skarpo · May 2007

Have you tried opening up the Speccy and looked at the membrane? Is it a physical break or perhaps "old" liquid-remnants? Moisture can sit between the membrane(s) for a long time. I remember back in ... erm ... '88 I spilled a glass of milk (true story) over my little 48k ... I cleaned it up the best I could, dried hours on end (never opened it up though) ... for a few months the keyboard did work aside from a couple of keys I didn't use, something like "g" and "b" ... but then other keys started acting up. After a few weeks of the machine not working at all I was forced to opening it up and lo and behold there was still some moisture in the membrane. After a careful wipe-off I had my Speccy working again. Mind you that was after a few months (+ a few weeks) of the Great Milk-spill of '88.

If you decide to open it up then be VERY, VERY careful when you take the membrane out of its connector on the board as it may be brittle by now. Avoid Bending The Membrane At All Cost.

Good luck and all that jazz
Skarpo
:-)

zub · May 2007

Pyjamarama wrote: »

Sorry for the fuzz but the Speccy is collapsing...
Now not even RUN works!!!
DAMN!!!!

BTW, you could always use CONTINUE. (If that key works, anyway :))

DEATH · May 2007

yomlogs wrote: »

You could even do just:

POKE 23779,239: PRINT ""

(assuming a freshly-reset Speccy and no IF1)

Are you sure this works? It doesn't on my 128 in 48K mode! It's one thing to print on the screen the command you are trying to execute, but to actually execute it is quite another.

ZUB's trick worked great tho - what a brilliant bit of trickery!

zub · May 2007

DEATH wrote: »

Are you sure this works? It doesn't on my 128 in 48K mode! It's one thing to print on the screen the command you are trying to execute, but to actually execute it is quite another.

ZUB's trick worked great tho - what a brilliant bit of trickery!

yomlogs's even better trickery worked fine for me (in Fuse). :)

Are you typing it without spaces? They would alter the required address.

Dunny · May 2007

DEATH wrote: »

Are you sure this works? It doesn't on my 128 in 48K mode! It's one thing to print on the screen the command you are trying to execute, but to actually execute it is quite another.

ZUB's trick worked great tho - what a brilliant bit of trickery!

Works here too (in SPIN, 48k mode, all 128k models also in 48k mode). You sure you're typing it in right?

The idea there is not to PRINT the command, but to POKE the PRINT command so that it becomes a LOAD "" command. Simple, and very, very elegant.

D.

Winston · May 2007

Self modifying code at its finest :-)

I used to write self-modifying code in assembler. I still feel the temptation to do so (particularly to change the 'd' in ix+d instructions). Fortunately, I'm usually writing ROM code so spend the time finding a better solution than self modifying code :-)

DEATH · May 2007

Must have typed something wrong, cos it does work now - wonder where I screwed up then......

Yes, very elegent!

zxbruno · May 2007

If most of the keys don't work, what would you achieve by loading something?

Skarpo · May 2007

zxbruno wrote: »

If most of the keys don't work, what would you achieve by loading something?

If the numbers work (in menus, for choosing control method) then he can use a joystick in games (???)

Sonic · May 2007

In our electronic parts stores one can buy a conductive glue. You can find such a thing, it perfectly fits for rubber keyboards repair. I used such a glue to repair rubber contacts on my Amiga keyboard. Very good thing if you remember two rules:
1. Never try to wash the rubber with water! It covers the graphite conductors with some kind of non-conductive tape after drying (this covering consists of non-organical substances solved in the water). It will be rather difficult to remove that covering. Use an alcohol to clean contacts!
2. The rubber contacts with pads on the PCB. They also can be covered with graphite or something else like this. Never try to remove this covering even if you think it's damaged! Naked metal tends to be covered with oxyde with time, this will prevent your keyboard from working.
During my first experiences i've violated both rules. Please beleive me, it's a pain to restore the things after that. And it never worked flawlessly after that, requiring maintenance every several months. :-(

Pyjamarama · May 2007

If the numbers work (in menus, for choosing control method) then he can use a joystick in games (???)

Exactly!!! :D

I will order a mebrane...I am too old for being a MacGyver :)

zx128k · May 2007

You can buy a new membrane and many more Sinclair related items from Sintech (Germany):

http://sintech.hitech.cz/

Mebrane fix or LOAD"" Poke equivelant

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