# ZXATASP and ZXCF

The ZXATASP and ZXCF interfaces are two peripherals designed by Sami Vehmaa which significantly extend the capabilities of the Spectrum. More details on both are available from Sami’s homepage, but a brief overview is given here.

The real ZXATASP comes with either 128K or 512K of RAM and the ability to connect an IDE hard disks and a CompactFlash card, while the ZXCF comes with 128K, 512K or 1024K of RAM and the ability to connect a CompactFlash card. From an emulation point of view, the two interfaces are actually very similar as a CompactFlash card is logically just an IDE hard disk. Currently, Fuse’s emulation is fixed at having 512K of RAM in the ZXATASP and 1024K in the ZXCF.

To activate the ZXATASP, simply select the ZXATASP interface option from the Peripherals preferences dialog. The state of the upload and write protect jumpers is then controlled by the ZXATASP upload and ZXATASP write protect options. Similarly, the ZXCF is controlled by the ZXCF interface and ZXCF upload options (the ZXCF write protect is software controlled).

If you’re using either the ZXATASP or ZXCF, you almost certainly want to investigate ResiDOS, the operating system designed for use with the ZXATASP and ZXCF. ResiDOS provides facilities for using the extra RAM, accessing the mass storage devices and a task manager allowing virtually instant switching between programs on the Spectrum. See its homepage for more details.