Peripherals

8 devices

Devices that extended the Spectrum: loading and printing, joysticks and storage.

Sinclair ZX Printer — a black unit labelled “sinclair ZX PRINTER” with a roll of silver aluminium-coated paper on top; a spare roll beside it
Jbattersby · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
1981

ZX Printer

Sinclair Research · United Kingdom

Sinclair’s compact spark printer: prints on aluminium-coated paper, 32 characters per line.

Sinclair ZX Interface 1 — a black wedge-shaped module with the “sinclair” logo and “ZX interface 1” label, its edge connector exposed
Mauricio González · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
1983

ZX Interface 1

Sinclair Research · United Kingdom

An add-on that clips under the case: microdrive controller, an RS-232 port and the ZX Net local network.

Sinclair ZX Microdrive — a black drive with the “sinclair ZX Microdrive” logo, the rainbow stripe, a cartridge slot and a red indicator light
Scott Telford (derivative work: Ubcule) · CC BY 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons
1983

ZX Microdrive

Sinclair Research · United Kingdom

A tape loop cartridge drive — faster than cassette, driven through the Interface 1.

Sinclair ZX Interface 2 — a black module with two joystick ports, a cartridge slot and the “ZX Interface 2” label
Mauricio González · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
1983

ZX Interface 2

Sinclair Research · United Kingdom

A slot for ROM game cartridges and two joystick ports.

Kempston Joystick Interface — a black ribbed cartridge with embossed “Kempston Joystick Interface” lettering, a joystick socket and an edge connector
StuartBrady · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
1983

Kempston Joystick Interface

Kempston Micro Electronics · United Kingdom

A joystick interface whose addressing scheme became the de facto standard supported by games.

Rotronics Wafadrive — a black unit with two cartridge slots and an edge-connector ribbon cable; two ROTRONICS “wafer” cartridges lie in front
Middleman 77 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
1984

Rotronics Wafadrive

Rotronics Ltd · United Kingdom

A dual stringy-floppy “wafer” drive with built-in Centronics and RS-232 ports — a Microdrive rival, though slower.

MGT DISCiPLE — a black wedge-shaped interface with a red “DISCiPLE” label and an edge connector; above, an end-on view showing its ports
Miguel Durán · CC BY-SA 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons
1986

MGT DISCiPLE

Miles Gordon Technology · United Kingdom

A wedge-shaped under-case interface: a floppy-disk controller, a parallel printer port, two joystick ports and the ZX Net network.

Multiface One — a black module with the red “multiface one” logo, a red button on top, a side port and an edge connector
AGRR · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
1986

Multiface One

Romantic Robot UK Ltd · United Kingdom

A “magic button” utility: one press snapshots the machine’s memory to cassette, Microdrive or disk — how players saved their place in games.