*** M E M O R U M ***

Hi all,

I wish to keep the dust from gathering in and on my MTX, so I thought I'd go for one of the old-school dust covers that were ubiquitous in the 80s.

Given that the MTX was "niche"; which of the other more popular micros might have a cover that would fit? The MTX's well furnished and extensive keyboard is probably the problem as many of the common micros just don't have as many keys.

• I immediately thought of the CPC range, due to the built in cassette, but whilst they have the right width, they lack depth (by depth, I mean front to back measurement as opposed to height - the Z axis, if you imagine a typical cartesian 3d axis, with XYZ).
• The Commodore breadbin machines have the depth and height but are not wide enough, as is true for the Acorn Electron and Atari XL range.
• The later Spectrums and QL are also neither wide enough nor deep enough.
• Then there are the big machines, the BBC B, the Master and the Amiga and Atari ST. All too deep and not wide enough.

I wondered if the ZX Spectrum Next might be wide enough, but I can't find dimensions anywhere, even in the online manual.

Any ideas or other machines I haven't considered?

Steve

The BBC master is about the same width, but way deeper, and probably equally hard to find.

The original IBM PC keyboard would have been a similar size, but i whether that's similar enough, it also has the same availability issue.

Or there's the outside of the box thinking - and cut down a patio set waterproof cusion cover. if it's waterproof it should be distproof too!

Or just clingfilm it. You should still be able to type without removing the "cover"

I don’t know about now, but some years ago there was a guy that would make custom sized dust covers. Some on the World of Spectrum forums asked for dust covers for the ZX Spectrum +3. I jumped on the same bandwagon

If you search the U.K. eBay site for “dust cover zx spectrum” you will find similar dust covers. But I don’t know if this is the same person. But you could ask the eBay seller...

And even though the Memotech MTX machines were ‘niche’ as you put it, I have a couple of dust covers made back in the day for MTX500 / MTX512 machines.

Mark

Well, Martin, I did consider getting some material and having a go on my wife's sewing machine, but I'm banned from using it as I broke the needle trying to sew a thick leather patch onto some favourite gardening/workman trousers, once.

Actually, Mark, that is not a bad idea. There's an ebay seller in the UK that sells dust covers for many of the more popular micros and their name is "sewready", so I have contacted them to ask if they'd be willing to run up some custom covers.

I'll post back when I get a reply.

Edit: I have also found a seller in Portugal that makes custom dust covers for 80s synths and some micros. So I'll update when/if I hear back.

Ok, so the nice lady known as 'sewready' on Ebay.co.uk, Maggie, says she only makes covers from the original machine and not dimensions, to ensure there is absolutely no problems with fit. Thus can't help.

I bought an original MTX dust cover BITD, I think it was £4.99

There is one on eBay at the moment for £29.99 !

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/184775700784?ul_noapp=true

I know Dave, I saw that auction and might have purchased it (what is wrong with me, ATM?) if he shipped outside the UK.