There's been a major update over at old-computers.com, with increased information on 4 Sinclair machines (Spectrum, Spectrum+, ZX81, and QL). Updates to the standard Spectrum page are listed as "Motherboard explained, Inside Microdrive, Inside microdrive cartridge, Discovery FD, Inside Discovery, Printer Floyd 40, Wafadrive, Inside Wafadrive, Wafadrive cartridge." Should provide a good opportunity to get... inside the Spectrum.
Ooh and look, the computer of the day (for the next 15 minutes-or-so) is the ZX Spectrum +3. It really is a good day.

A few notes here, so that I can get some sleep sooooon:

• Glukalka : I don't usually mention non-Windows/DOS emulators (this will soon be changing), but I thought I'd mention this open-source emu' for *nix. Partly coz the name's rather sweet. Mebbe I'll download it for use at work.
• TZX-Vault : There's been another huuuge update of this neat TZX tape archive. An additional 500-or-so files for you to grab, along with a new section called "The Games That Time Forgot" trying to locate unpublished game-parts.
• Sprinter : Peters Plus have updated their site with more information on the Sprinter (FAQ additions focussing on VRAM and using ISA cards). They've also updated the main SP2000 page, tho' I'm not sure what with. Tsk.

Nite-nite.

A little update on the news that there's to be a sequel to the MB-02+. In an email from FBI/Sintech, he confirmed a that one of the features of the new MB-03 will be integrated IDE support. As for General Sound, it's uncertain.
And if you want to add IDE support to your current MB-02+, a DIY upgrade kit is available from his site.

Well I got a response from Mac Buster about the article of a couple days ago about dual-AY systems. He says that a hack (sorry, I mean an addon) existed a few years ago, made by MagiC. He'd successfully modified the player from Sound Tracker to work with it.
I'm also informed that he once attached a SID to the Speccy. That's fine, but I want to know... did it work??? <g>

It must have only been about half-an-hour after I posted the MB-03 news that I received a mail from FBI/Sintech. He's confirmed that "the MB02 is now out of production." He also confirmed that plans are ahead to build the a fully-compatible MB-03. There's no mention of General Sound support, tho'.
Oh, and I didn't mention earlier, although I had noticed it, but the Sintech site has had a redesign, including more information about the hardware they have on offer. Check it.

Apologies to Andrew Owen for the slight delay in posting this. Hey, I'm slack.
He's made updates to a couple websites, both updates focusing on BASIC, in particular his new SE BASIC.
First up we have a (new?) site dedicated to the various versions of Sinclair BASIC, hosted over on WOS. Aside from providing various patched versions of the standard ROMs, it's quite an interesting read from a ZX-History point of view.
Next up is a large update to the ZXSE page, covering mainly SE BASIC, a bug-fixed, enhanced version. Something that's looking intruiging is that Andrew is working with Peters Plus to ensure the new version works on the Sprinter.
Anyway, on the page is some interesting techie-info you may like to look at. I'd copy it to here, but that'd just be silly.

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I've also received a beta-release of SE BASIC, which is currently going through compatibility testing (yes some problems do exist due to "empty" area of the ROM now containing code). I'll have a play with it when I get more spare time (I want to ensure "Viking Raiders" will run <g>). Until then, here's a couple of the large list of changes:

• New text-mode (42-column) along with replaced system font.
• Some commands renamed.
• Fixed loads of bugs.
• Keyboard decoding routine rewritten.
• Oooh, loads of others.

According to a post on comp.sys.sinclair 8Bit Company, developers of the MB-02+, are working on the sequel to this remarkable piece of hardware.
The post from Jan Werner states that the MB-03 will include General Sound, among other things. I'm just looking at the homepage and at Sintech now, and I can't see anything to confirm this, so it'll stay as just a rumour. But a good rumour, anyway.

Well, I think 2 is multiple. It's certainly more that one.
POS have posted a couple screens describing the wirey layout (check out the techie-speak I'm using) to allow you to have two AY-chips attached to one Spectrum. So 6-channel sound. It's an interesting idea which could produce some fantastic pieces of music. In fact I'm surprised we've not seen this around before. The only problem is... it'd need to catch on.
Perhaps the next step is to have software-mixable stereo. Imagine the possibilities if you could pan one of the channels. So, who's a wizard with a soldering iron?

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While we're on the subject, POS have also posted the source code for "The Pusher." I like this time. Everything's becoming open-source. It's good.

It seems that the guys over at ZX GFX-scene site ZpiXel have teamed up with GFXZone to produce an article and gallery on the... ZX GFX scene.
The article can be found on both sites (in English, hurrah!), and looks quite well written (I'm reading it now, in fact). It'll certainly help explain a few things to people who don't understand the Spectrum. It covers the graphical limitations we face, discusses a couple of the extra "software hacked" modes. Worth a read. Certainly.
The gallery has a whole heap of fantastic images for you to look through, with work by Demiurge Ash, Gas13, et al. Again, well worth a look.
Thanks to Scenergy where I spotted this news first.

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Can you believe there's been loads of stuff going on at ZpiXel that I've missed? All due to me using odd settings on WSW. My own fault, it's now corrected.

Space-saving and time-saving. Who could ask for more? Apart from a huge salary.

• Sprinter : Over at the Peters Plus homepage you can download a new tool to allow you to create .EXE's for the Sprinter. It creates them from TASM .LST files.
• Follindrome : In case you happen to like Atari music, playable on Sergey's fine AY-Emulator, VORC reports on an update at the FollinDrome, a site dedicated to the famous Follin brothers.
• Emulators : WOS mentions a couple new emulators, both replicating the Pentagon 128. I don't have any URLs, but you can grab both Emuz and Zephyr over on WOS.
• Sweary : A mail from Unbeliever/x7m points out that the recently deceased Bla'dskie news site was a kinda joke site. Heh, the things you miss when translating. "Blad" is a kinda Russian slang word/insult. He also sent me a link to the Alternative Russian Dictionary. Should prove handy when watching the latest demo's.
• Sweary 2 : Haha. Just had to mention "obossat's'a mozhno". The Dictionary says it means "I'm so excited that I'll piss in my panties." Oh, I like that <g>.

Following on from the mail from Unbeliever, do non-English people find this site difficult to read sometimes? I expect it doesn't help when I start talking bollocks. Perhaps a "straight news" option could help. Hmm.