Clive Drive

Your Sinclair

Phil South

RAGE HARD! A new disk system for the Speccy? Yes indeedly, as this month Phil Snout takes his magic screwdriver to Video Vault's "CliveDrive". CONTACT Video Vault Ltd [redacted] £149.95 (incl. VAT and P&P) I like any alternative to microdrives myself, long being a fan of the MGT Plus D as you well know, but it seems that there's life in the concept of other types of drive... which brings me in a roundabout and very Channel 4 linkman sort of way to the CliveDrive. Video Vault as you may know is famous for its spare parts, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. You may recall its adverts in times past for spare bits for your Speccy, rubber keyboards, power supplies, as well as fixing the dam things when they blow up. Well, now it seems its turned its talents towards making peripherals too, as any shrewd firm would at this point in the life of the Spectrum. The Speccy is one of the best centres around which to build a customised hardware setup. These days you can run C/PM and all manner of serious software. So how about the poor guys who have an early Speccy which loads from tape? DISK'LL DO THE JOB Disk interfaces have been around since the year dot, as people soon realised that the microdrive was unreliable, unstable and generally rubbish for the storage of anything, useless except as a rather small beermat. The CliveDrive is a part of a system that includes a disk interface, a quiet printer and a miniature 3" disk drive. The disks are not standard Spectrum disks, but a variant on the system used by certain professional synthesisers. Although the system isn't compatible with the +2a (the black +2), or the +3, all other models are supported, including the standard 48K and original grey finish +2. (Small techie note here: the colour of the casing isn't that important but it does actually distinguish the new updated ROM version of the +2 from the old one. Just thought I'd better clear that up.) WHAT YOU GET For £149.95 inc. VAT and p&p you get the small black interface box, which plugs right into the user port on your Spectrum, a CliveDrive disk drive, a HushPrinter thermal printer, all the power supplies and leads and stuff to get you going, a free tutorial disk (which of course you can format and use after you've run it a few times!) plus a free skateboard game on disk. The interface itself is just an unassuming little black box, with an edge connector socket to plug it onto the user port, four rubber feet underneath to keep it steady and a button on the top. Following the fashion amongst Spectrum hardware developers, the unit is flat on the table rather than upright. All the original peripherals for the Spectrum were of the upright design, but as you've probably noticed, they don't fit the newer case designs as they tend to be wider at the top than at the bottom. From the top end of the unit are a couple of wires connecting the interface to the CliveDrive and the HushPrinter. There is an LED on the unit to show when it is activated. Inside the unit is a ROM based program called KEYMASTER, which is the unit's own backup utility. What this means is that with a single keypress you can save your programs and screens to drive or printer. We're talking instant backups, and instant screen dumps of a program in memory. The only thing is that it will backup only memory resident programs, so if you need to make a disk copy of your multi-loading game, for example, you will have to do a RAM dump for every load. And this means that m order to back up a game which needs to be played through before you can move onto a different level, you will have to play through the entire game to save it onto disk. And by then you won't want it on disk, 'cos you played it already (this isn't just a drawback with the CliveDrive interface, it's the problem with ALL snapshot programs.) But it's not meant to be the pirate's dream anyway. This is a serious system with benefits for the serious user. The HushPnnter works by thermal transfer, a bit like the original Spectrum printer only without the icky foil paper. No, this one prints on nice white thermal paper, making all your listings and screen dumps crisp and black. The paper is 8.5" wide and comes on a roll, meaning you can print out an A4 sheet if you tear it off in the right place (A4 sheets are 8.5" x 11.5" in case you were wondering.) The printer handles 80 columns (or 160 columns in condensed type mode) and prints graphics and text. There is one button on the unit, and this is the paper feed. Okay, so it's a little bit basic, but from what I can see it does the job, and you won't get better for the price. The CliveDrive itself offers 100K per side of your special 3" disks, so that's 100K in all for each double-sided disk. Read/write times vary depending on the operations you perform, with about 16 seconds to save or load a standard sized memory dump. The disks themselves are not very expensive, according to Video Vault, and the drive itself responds to all the standard Spectrum Microdrive syntaxes like FORMAT, MERGE and CAT, so it can be used with programs that use those commands without the need for adaptation. THE VERDICT Well, I think Video Vault has a very strong little number here. For only 150 quid you can turn your Spectrum into a system, and a very neat and sturdy one it is too. Lots of good features and not too many bad ones. Okay, so the printer doesn't run ordinary paper. So what? if it ran ordinary paper it would put a hundred pounds on the price. Video Vault seem to have got the right balance between price and performance.

A SINGLE "CLIVE DRIVE". And all this achieved with a piece of plastic no bigger than a beermat.