Sinclair ZX Spectrum Introduction Manual
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Sinclair ZX Spectrum Introduction Manual

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  • Page 3 by Steven Vickers and Robin Bradbeer PDF Edition 2004 prepared by Colin Woodcock, ZXF Magazine (www.zxf.cjb.net) © 1982 Amstrad Amstrad has kindly given its permission for the redistribution of its copyrighted material, but retains that copyright.
  • Page 4 Front cover illustration by John Harris of Young Artists...

  • Page 5: Table Of Contents

    Contents CHAPTER 1 The computer and setting it up. Page 5 CHAPTER 2 The keyboard. Page 8 CHAPTER 3 Numbers, letters and the computer as a calculator. Page 11 CHAPTER 4 Some simple commands. Page 14 CHAPTER 5 Simple programming. Page 17 CHAPTER 6 Using the cassette recorder.

  • Page 7: The Computer And Setting It Up

    It must be a UHF television (in the UK); if it is not built to receive BBC2 then it is no good. As its name implies, the ZX Spectrum gives a colour signal which if you have a colour television, will produce a colour picture.
  • Page 8 Turn the power on and switch on the television. You now need to tune the television in The ZX Spectrum operates on channel 35 UHF (UK) and when it is first plugged in and properly tuned it gives a picture like this:...
  • Page 9 DC IN' plug and putting it back again. This should be the last resort because you lose all the information in the computer. WARNING. Do not try to use the ZX 16K RAM with the ZX Spectrum. It will not work.

  • Page 10: The Keyboard

    2. The Keyboard The keyboard of the Spectrum is very similar to a standard typewriter. The letter and number keys are in the same place; however each key can perform more than one function. On a normal typewriter the letters appear in lower case, and when used in conjunction with the shift key, appear as upper case (capitals).
  • Page 11 Chapter 2 in the double quotation marks onto the screen. For this command to be executed by the computer, the ENTER key must be used. When this has been done the screen should display the word Hello and some other characters. (A flashing question mark indicates a mistake somewhere.
  • Page 12 PRINT PHello" The computer would not Have recognised what came after PRINT as no quotes indicates to the ZX Spectrum that a number is expected - and it found a letter instead. It shows its confusion by flashing a at the end of the line.

  • Page 13: Numbers, Letters And The Computer As A Calculator

    PRINT can also be used with the mathematical functions on the keyboard. In fact the ZX Spectrum can be used as an electronic calculator. For example: PRINT 2+2 The answer appears at the top of the screen.
  • Page 14 Chapter 3 It is possible to combine these to give something more useful. Try PRINT “2+2=";2+2 Try some other kinds of arithmetic as well: PRINT 3-2 PRINT 4/5 PRINT 12*2 The * Is used as a multiplication sign instead of X to avoid getting it confused with the letter x;...
  • Page 15 Chapter 3 Although all you really need to know is whether one operation has a higher or lower priority than another, the computer does this by having a number between 1 and 16 to represent the priority of each operation: * and / have priority 8, and + and have priority 6.

  • Page 16: Some Simple Commands

    4. Some simple commands The computer memory can be used to store all sorts of things. We have seen, so far, that the PRINT command allows us to show letters, numbers and the results of calculations using both letters and numbers, on the screen. If we want to tell the computer to remember a number, or a string of letters, then we have to allocate some of the memory for that use.
  • Page 17 Chapter 4 we could call it (string variable names can only have a single letter, other than the $, in them). Type LET a$="Your age is " If you now key PRINT a$ back comes the string of letters on the screen. If the computer hasn't been turned off since the start of this chapter type PRINT a$;age and see what happens.
  • Page 18 Chapter 4 INPUT (b$);age is another way of entering INPUT "What is your age?"; age...

  • Page 19: Simple Programming

    That is why this manual is written specifically for the ZX Spectrum. But ZX Spectrum BASIC is not too far from a non-existent) consensus BASIC and so you should not have too much trouble adapting any BASIC program to work on the ZX Spectrum.
  • Page 20 Chapter 5 Figure 4 You may also have noticed a right facing arrow when each line has been entered. This indicates the last line entered. If you want to see the program again key ENTER again, (or LIST) You can use RUN to execute the program as many times as you like.
  • Page 21 Chapter 5 The ZX Spectrum helpfully writes on the screen (or lists) all the program lines that you have entered with a > against the last line that you entered. The computer will not execute any of these lines immediately but just stores them away, inside itself.
  • Page 22 Chapter 5 If the program is now RUN two columns should appear the first with values of x, the second with values of x*x or x squared. It is possible to label these columns by adding another line, like this 5 PRINT "x","x*x"...

  • Page 23: Using The Cassette Recorder

    We shall first go through a dry run so that you can see what happens: do not start the cassette recorder, but press a key on the ZX Spectrum and watch the border of the TV screen. You will see patterns of coloured horizontal stripes.
  • Page 24 2 Type SAVE "squares" (and ENTER) 3. Start the cassette recorder recording. 4. Press any key on the ZX Spectrum. 5. Watch the television as before. When the computer has finished (with the report 0 OK) stop the cassette recorder.
  • Page 25 Chapter 6 you can skip the next few paragraphs. Otherwise, something has gone wrong. Go through these questions to find out what. Making sure your program is saved Has the name come up? If not then either the program was not saved properly in the first place or it was, but was not read back properly.
  • Page 26 Once a program has been loaded, the command RUN will run it. It is possible to buy pre-recorded programs on cassette They must be specially written for the ZX Spectrum: different types of computer have different ways of recording programs, so they cannot use each other’s tapes.

  • Page 27: Colours

    7. Colours One of the reasons for buying the ZX Spectrum in the first place was the ability to use colour on the TV screen. The screen is divided into two areas. The outer part is referred to as BORDER, the central area as PAPER. It is possible to change the colours of these two sections at will, both directly from the keyboard and in a program.
  • Page 28 Chapter 7 colour television and it hasn't changed colour, try adjusting the colour controls on the television, and maybe the tuning control. The INK command is similar to the PAPER command and controls the colour of the characters appearing on the PAPER section of the screen. Obviously if the INK and PAPER colours are the same nothing will appear on the screen! The BORDER, PAPER and INK commands can be used in programs.

  • Page 29: Sound

    8. Sound The ZX Spectrum can make sounds of an infinite variety. The frequency of the note and its duration are under the control of the user. The command BEEP is used to tell the computer to make a sound. BEEP is an extended mode command and is obtained using the Z key.
  • Page 30 Chapter 8 programming manual for other ideas. For notes lower than middle C the number of semitones is indicated by a negative number.

  • Page 31: Inside The Case

    9. What's Inside the Case? The picture here shows what the inside of the ZX Spectrum looks like. UHF or VHF modulator (Transmits picture) PAL encoder ULA (Grand executive) (Colour mixer) Back of computer ROM (Manual) RAM (Note pad) CPU (Brains)
  • Page 32 BASIC, but in what is called Z8O machine code and takes the form of a long sequence of numbers. There are altogether 16384 (16*1024) of these which is why ZX Spectrum BASIC is sometimes called a 16K BASIC - 1K is 1024. Although there are similar chips in other computers, this particular sequence of instructions is unique to the ZX Spectrum and was written specially for it.
  • Page 34 Printed by the Burlington Press (Cambridge) Ltd., Foxton, Cambridge.
  • Page 36 Sinclair Research Limited 25 Willis Road Cambridge CB1 2AQ England...

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