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Spectranet

GrahamGraham
in Hardware
I have been looking for information on the Spectranet and am struggling to find very much. As I understand it, a 48k Spectrum fitted with one can 'talk' to a PC on the same network for the purpose of loading program files instead of using a cassette player. Have I understood correctly? And is the Spectranet still available? (or are Eagle Files and BOM available anywhere?)

Many thanks

Comments

  • p13zp13z
    It is a decent ethernet interface that will work with any Sinclair Spectrum ( pre Vega ). A Speccy with Spectranet attached is capable of communicating / loading files / streaming, locally or over the internet. Best place, I think, for information would be: http://spectrum.alioth.net/doc/index.php/Main_Page
    SpecBAS stuff: https://www.youtube.com/user/bitemyshineymetalbut
  • GrahamGraham
    I did see that - but it seems quite out of date. The sales link just says listing closed, and many of the other links just go to blank pages, or odd bits of data that I'm struggling to put together as a coherent whole. The BOM page, for example, just says that no text is available. Really it looks like you need to already know quite a bit before going there! Either that, or I'm missing something...
  • guesserguesser
    Some of the documentation on the spectranet isn't perfect, some bits you do have to ask, or figure out for yourself... It really is a wonderful interface though :)

    The PCB layout files are on the subversion repository which unfortunately seems to be somewhat broken at the moment as far as I can tell, but the websvn interface does work: http://spectrum.alioth.net/svn/listing.php?repname=Spectranet&path=/trunk/hardware/#path_trunk_hardware_

    The files are all in the format of 'pcb' from the gEDA suite: http://pcb.geda-project.org/
    The PCB is a 4 layer board with a somewhat scary TSOP32 flash ROM so it's not really something you can make one of easily. Everything about the project is open source though, both the software and the hardware.

    I don't know if/when another batch will be produced. The creator of the spectranet is an active WoS member though so hopefully he will appear soon :)
    My rubbish website including the redrawn Amstrad schematics and the Sinclair Wiki.
  • WinstonWinston
    I'm actually in a bit of a quandry about making new ones:

    1. The magjack used is out of production.
    2. The ram chip used is no longer manufactured.
    3. The flash chip used is no longer manufactured.

    (2) and (3) aren't too much of an issue because other manufacturers exist and memory pinouts/flash programming is standardised by JEDEC. (1) is potentially more problematic because other magjacks are either three times the cost of have a different pinout which means a PCB redesign and another iteration through making a test article to make sure it still works.

    The other route is to go down the apocalypse route and go for a radical redesign and fix the things I don't like about the current design, but it's a lot of work.
  • Dan AntohiDan Antohi
    Winston wrote: »
    other magjacks are either three times the cost of have a different pinout .

    On the other hand you can have a W5100 module, with magjack and all, for 4.00 quid, landed cost. If the price drops a little bit more, which is unavoidable because newer, W5500 modules cost the same, I might consider it as attachment for the interface 1bis.
    'Interface 1bis' for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum
  • guesserguesser
    Winston wrote: »
    I'm actually in a bit of a quandry about making new ones:

    1. The magjack used is out of production.
    2. The ram chip used is no longer manufactured.
    3. The flash chip used is no longer manufactured.

    (2) and (3) aren't too much of an issue because other manufacturers exist and memory pinouts/flash programming is standardised by JEDEC. (1) is potentially more problematic because other magjacks are either three times the cost of have a different pinout which means a PCB redesign and another iteration through making a test article to make sure it still works.

    Erk. I hadn't thought about the problem of getting the components. I can see flash being a pain in the posterior since even when you can find current 5V flash parts they have different sectoring etc. To a certain extent that's a software problem, until you run out of ram to buffer the data when erasing sectors! :(
    My rubbish website including the redrawn Amstrad schematics and the Sinclair Wiki.
  • ingoingo
    edited September 2015
    Winston wrote: »
    1. The magjack used is out of production.
    2. The ram chip used is no longer manufactured.
    3. The flash chip used is no longer manufactured.

    (2) and (3) aren't too much of an issue because other manufacturers exist and memory pinouts/flash programming is standardised by JEDEC. (1) is potentially more problematic because other magjacks are either three times the cost of have a different pinout which means a PCB redesign and another iteration through making a test article to make sure it still works.
    Hi Winston,

    even not produced, one can get it from several sources:

    (1): ebay.co.uk/itm/271878519625
    (2): ebay.co.uk/itm/121187365243
    (3): ebay.co.uk/itm/221575663626

    I love this piece of hardware and hope it will be spread much more so that there will also be in future more servers for the Spectrum in the internet.

    Greetings Ingo.
    Post edited by ingo on
  • WinstonWinston
    Yeah, there's plenty of "new old stock" of any component (I'm sure including the Tyco magjack I used) - the main issue is that all the components have to be available to the factory via their normal channels. (It takes about 3 hours to hand-assemble a Spectranet, having a factory do the SMD stuff instead leaves me with only 15 minutes of finish-off to do per device - it wouldn't have been practical otherwise).
  • Shaos1973Shaos1973
    What is the status of Spectranet now? Is it still available? Supported in software?...
    I sell on Tindie: https://www.tindie.com/stores/TRC/
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