Romantic Robot is a small independent British company that publishes classical music recordings. In the 1980s it designed and produced peripherals and software for home computers.

History

Romantic Robot was founded in London in 1983 by Czech-born

Alexander Goldscheider Alexander Goldscheider (born June 22, 1950) is a Czech-born British composer, music producer, writer and computer specialist. Life and career He read music at Charles University in Prague, and received a PhD for his analysis of the music of ''The ...

and Ondřej Kořínek. The company sold hardware and software for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and later

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

home computers. After Kořínek left the company in 1990, Romantic Robot specialised in music production and publishing.

Home computer peripherals

The company's primary hardware product was the Multiface series of interface devices which allowed dumping and retrieval of the computer's RAM contents to external storage devices such as disk drives, as well as utilities for viewing and disassembling that data. The first in the series was the Multiface One for the ZX Spectrum. It was followed by the Multiface Two for the Amstrad CPC, the Multiface 128 for the Spectrum 128, the Multiface 3 for the Spectrum +3 and the Multiface ST for the Atari ST. Other peripherals developed and sold by Romantic Robot were the Multiprint printer interface and the

Videoface Videoface Digitizer is a video digitizer interface for the ZX Spectrum home computer. It was produced by Data-Skip from The Netherlands and later on by Romantic Robot UK Ltd from UK in 1987. It was originally sold for GBP 69, but the price dr ...

video capture peripheral, both for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

Home computer software

Software published by the company included utility programs and games: * ''Trans-Express'' (ZX Spectrum) - a suite of utilities for copying data between media such as cassette tape, ZX Microdrive, Rotronics Wafadrive and Opus Discovery floppy disk * ''Music Typewriter'' (ZX Spectrum) - a program for writing, editing and printing music notation * ''Genie'' (ZX Spectrum) - disassembler for use with the Multiface 1 *''Lifeguard'' (ZX Spectrum) - infinite lives finder program for use with the Multiface 1 *''Insider'' (Amstrad CPC) - disassembler for the Multiface 2 *''Rodos'' (Amstrad CPC) - alternative Disk Operating System *''

Wriggler Wriggler may refer to: *Collared wrigglers, fish in the family Xenisthmidae *Wriggler (mosquito larva) Mosquitoes (or mosquitos) are members of a group of almost 3,600 species of small flies within the family Culicidae (from the Latin ''culex'' ...

'' (ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC) - game *''Steeplejack'' (ZX Spectrum) - game

Music

The company released a double CD '' Terezín: The Music 1941-44'', followed by '' Aaron Copland: An American in Prague'' and Alexander Goldscheider's own productions such as ''Stabat Mater'' and ''The Song of Songs''.{{cite web, url=https://www.discogs.com/Alexander-GoldscheiderJaroslava-Maxov%C3%A1Jaroslav-B%C5%99ezinaRomantic-Robot-Orchestra-The-Song-Of-Songs/release/2009220, title=Alexander Goldscheider, Romantic Robot Orchestra, Jaroslava Maxová, Jaroslav Březina - The Song Of Songs, website=Discogs It also designed the website of Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek.

References

External links

Sinclair Infoseek

Spectrum Computing

Multiface One review

Multiface Two description

Romantic Robot UK Ltd advert

Romantic Robot UK Ltd advert

Gallery

File:RR Trans-Express inlay.jpg, Trans-Express File:Multiface 1.jpg, Multiface One File:Multiface Two.jpg, Multiface Two File:Multiface 128.jpg, Multiface 128 File:Videoface.jpg, Videoface File:Multiface ST.jpg, Multiface ST File:Wriggler200.jpg, Wriggler File:Music Typewriter.jpg, Music Typewriter keyboard overlay File:Terezin 1941-44.jpg, Terezín: The Music 1941-44 File:The Song of Songs.jpg, The Song of Songs File:Stabat Mater Alexander Goldscheider.jpg, Stabat Mater Home computer peripherals ZX Spectrum Amstrad CPC Atari Music publishing companies of the United Kingdom