The ZX Spectrum +3e is an enhanced version of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum +3 home computer that was produced by Amstrad in the late '80s. The enhancement consists of an updated operating system (in ROM) that fixes many of the bugs in the original ROM, and adds lots of extra commands to +3 BASIC. One of the most important features of the new ROM, however, is that it supports the use of a hard disk or compactflash card with your Speccy, allowing you to store vast amounts of quickly-accessible software.
For those unwilling or unable to add a hard disk interface to their +3, the +3e ROMs still represent a useful update, providing such features as text windowing facilities and the ability to access +3 disk files through the standard streams and channels interface.
To make your +3 (or black +2A) into a +3e, you need to install the new +3e ROM chips in your computer, and optionally add a suitable hard-disk or compactflash interface. The new ROMs are available from this site as free downloads together with information on the various supported hard disk/compactflash interfaces, including full instructions for building your own!
Have a look at this image to see what my original +3e setup, complete with 1Gb hard disk, looked like! I now usually use compactflash cards; either with an internal ZXCF interface (on my +3) or with an external ZXATASP interface (on my +2A).
Thanks must go to the following people, without whom this project would never have got so far: