Planet Sinclair

 

x CONTENTS
   
x The Machines
x Machines: 1980s
   
x C5
x FM Wristwatch Radio
O Interfaces One and Two
x "Loki"
x Microdrive
x OPD
x PC200
x QL
x RAMpacks
x Timex Sinclairs
x TV80 (Pocket TV)
x ZX80
x ZX81
x ZX Printer
x ZX Spectrum /
128 / +2 / +3
x Z88


Last updated
7 Jan 1998


sinclair@nvg.ntnu.no

Interfaces One and Two

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Sinclair's main contributions to the vast market for Spectrum peripherals, apart from the Microdrive, were the imaginatively-titled Interface One and Interface Two. Interface One was a well-designed communications port for the Spectrum, which allowed it to be connected to Microdrives, local area networks and standard RS232 printers. Interface Two (right) was a combination of joystick and ROM cartridge ports. It disappeared without trace inside a year. The cartridges were simply too expensive (at £19.95 each), especially when compared to tapes which sold at only a third or a quarter of that price, and less than a dozen titles ever appeared on ROMs.

Sinclair also produced a joystick, in tasteful matt white, to plug into the Interface Two's non-standard ports; despite Kempston having set the most widely-used standard, Amstrad incorporated Sinclair joystick ports into its later Spectrum Plus 2 and Plus 3 machines.

*   Microdrive and Interface 1 finally arrive
(Your Computer, September 1983)
     
*   The development of the Interfaces
(from Sinclair and the Sunrise Technology, chapter 7)