Anyone interested in a ZS Scorpion 256 Turbo+ (ZX Spectrum clone)?
category: offtopic [glöplog]
http://zx.pk.ru/showthread.php?t=16169
This guy is producing PCBs and I'd arrange a mass order for europe if there's enough interest. I'd arrange payment to the ukraine and distribute the boards further ... that way there's less overhead when paying (moneygram fees / number of persons ordering + shipping from ukraine / number of persons ordering [~7€ when 4 people jump on]).
Keep in mind this is only a PCB, meaning you'd have to get the chips yourself. Most can easily be substituted with western 74(a)ls chips. The floppy controller chip is russian (KR1818VG93) and quite hard to get in the western world, but can be ordered for 3,50€ per chip, same goes for the transistors which have a different pinout than their western counterparts, but I'll try to get those as well (would be prolly 2€ extra per set [~10 transistors]). Keep in mind the Scorpion uses GAL chips, so you'll need a way to burn those.
Price for a single board would be $20-$30 depending on how many people order. + 7€ for handling (I'm actually earning _nothing_ there) + shipping to your place from Germany ~20€ or less for most of europe.
Let me know if you're interested. Easy to understand documents for building are available in russian (no knowledge of the language needed).
PCB color will be red. A preview of what you'll get is available here: http://i020.radikal.ru/1106/b6/1dec5d3a83b2.jpg Boards will be produced in china at a confirmed good plant (it's not the first time the guy is having PCBs produced there and never had problems so far). Short: You will get a NEW board ... rather than something that has been eating dust the past 20 years.
Keep in mind this might change slightly (get part numbers on the whiteprint, minor editing of tracks/connectors) I'll keep you updated there.
Basic description of the Scorpion: ZX Spectrum clone from russia first developed in 1992 i think with built in Beta/TRDOS floppy controller (640k per disc ... tape drives can be used as well) and AY/YM soundchip onboard. Has 256k of non-contended RAM in this configuration (runs virtually all spectrum software, those which use sinclair/pentagon based raster effects [demos!] need to be adapted or will look broken [but will run of course]) ... still one of the most compatible clones. Has 2 NEMO-Bus expansion slots which can be used for IDE adapters (Nemo-IDE), Midi Controllers, Realtime Clocks or the General Sound module player soundcard. Has a switchable turbo mode that allows to choose between 3.5 and 7mhz operation.
This guy is producing PCBs and I'd arrange a mass order for europe if there's enough interest. I'd arrange payment to the ukraine and distribute the boards further ... that way there's less overhead when paying (moneygram fees / number of persons ordering + shipping from ukraine / number of persons ordering [~7€ when 4 people jump on]).
Keep in mind this is only a PCB, meaning you'd have to get the chips yourself. Most can easily be substituted with western 74(a)ls chips. The floppy controller chip is russian (KR1818VG93) and quite hard to get in the western world, but can be ordered for 3,50€ per chip, same goes for the transistors which have a different pinout than their western counterparts, but I'll try to get those as well (would be prolly 2€ extra per set [~10 transistors]). Keep in mind the Scorpion uses GAL chips, so you'll need a way to burn those.
Price for a single board would be $20-$30 depending on how many people order. + 7€ for handling (I'm actually earning _nothing_ there) + shipping to your place from Germany ~20€ or less for most of europe.
Let me know if you're interested. Easy to understand documents for building are available in russian (no knowledge of the language needed).
PCB color will be red. A preview of what you'll get is available here: http://i020.radikal.ru/1106/b6/1dec5d3a83b2.jpg Boards will be produced in china at a confirmed good plant (it's not the first time the guy is having PCBs produced there and never had problems so far). Short: You will get a NEW board ... rather than something that has been eating dust the past 20 years.
Keep in mind this might change slightly (get part numbers on the whiteprint, minor editing of tracks/connectors) I'll keep you updated there.
Basic description of the Scorpion: ZX Spectrum clone from russia first developed in 1992 i think with built in Beta/TRDOS floppy controller (640k per disc ... tape drives can be used as well) and AY/YM soundchip onboard. Has 256k of non-contended RAM in this configuration (runs virtually all spectrum software, those which use sinclair/pentagon based raster effects [demos!] need to be adapted or will look broken [but will run of course]) ... still one of the most compatible clones. Has 2 NEMO-Bus expansion slots which can be used for IDE adapters (Nemo-IDE), Midi Controllers, Realtime Clocks or the General Sound module player soundcard. Has a switchable turbo mode that allows to choose between 3.5 and 7mhz operation.
First and only
Short writeup on prebuilt machines:
Quote:
Yup, yup ... soldering/acquiring parts seems to be a no-go for most I'm afraid :/
Saw the same phenomenon when I was offering the same service for Pentagon 128k boards. Luckily another guy hopped on who'd finish the boards for others so we got 5 orders together.
I'm currently sheduled for 2 Pentagons myself (one for myself, one for another scener) so I'm out of capacity to offer reasonable assembly services.
BUT ... if you're interested and not in a hurry. I can offer you to finish the board within 2 months of it arriving here (I'll be busy as **** in the near future, moving to a new city, starting a whole new job which is paid really, really BAD, which is why it would take so long [soldering everything is just 3-4 hours at max. + some time for testing]). Price would be 10€ for the actual assembly service + ~40€ for parts (possibly more, possibly less ... depending on what connectors you'd want, if you want all or just major chips socketed, etc). Let me know if you're interested as I will offer this to 2 persons only. (yes I know this involves a lot of trust, paying mostly in advance, etc til you get a result ... but so far I've always kept my word or at least communicated problems beforehand ^^).
But that way you will get a fully assembled Scorpion with all connectors and will only need a ZX Keyboard (+2 keyboards can be bought for cheap on eBay and pluging them in is child's play and you virtually can't break anything there anyways), a case and a PSU (any PC one should do) of course ... otherwise it's all plug and play.
Keep in mind the whole thing would become quite "pricey" then.
20€ for PCB, 7€ shipping/handling from .ru to .de, ~15€ for sending it to your place, 10€ assembly, ~40€ for parts ... which would make it almost 100€ + price for a case, PSU and keyboard
I dont mind soldering. But the manual should be in ENGLISH please.
Well, like I wrote, the schemes and soldering plans are in russian, but converting russian style chips to 74(A)LS is easy. Maybe I should post those docs on here so people can see for themselves?
Sourcing TTL parts, burning old-fashioned GALs, Russian manual - yikes! Surely there are more modern ways of getting a spectrum clone -- FPGAs anyone?
That's not the point ... if you want a comfortable solution, either get an emulator or the ZX Evolution (which is basically fully FPGA based except for some major chips [Z80, VG93, YM] and already supports a huge load of spectrum models).
so what _is_ the point?
Building old TTL shit, like back in 1992 (for myself it's fun ... I basically think of it like lego for grown-ups)
They had CMOS, even in 1992 :) But yeah, I get that building stuff is fun. I'm just too lazy to solder lots of DIP ICs.
Yup, yup ... I've already built a Pentagon 1024SL 2.2 clone in the past, which is a little more modern in terms of hardware used (as it has 2 CPLDs) but still has roughly 40 TTLs ... found that quite fun to build and debug.