Club Notes

The coming meeting was postponed to accommodate members who would otherwise not have been able to attend. It will be held at my house (Fred Lewis) because demonstrations that are planned will use too much equipment, including three computers, VCR etc. not easily transported.

In keeping with the traditions of our little club the next meeting will be devoted to demonstrations that will compare the performances of three computers: a Timex TS-1000, a Timex 2068 and an IBM compatible PC. It has always been my contention that the ZX-81/TS-1000 was not a toy but a truly powerful computer capable of impressive tasks even though handicapped by a slow chip and rather crude graphics capabilities. In past demonstrations I have shown an impressive spinning globe, with continents and oceans, even having dancing waves, rotating steadily at speeds up to 60 RPM – all on the unadorned TS-1000 with 64K RAM. At this next meeting I will show a program that simulates a globular star cluster, one of the most impressive members of our Universe, with orbiting stars. Real globular star clusters are light years in diameter, have millions of star members and orbit times of typically a million years. My model demos are restricted to only a few stars with dynamic, interacting orbits. This program will be run on all three computers to compare the speed and graphics. The TS-1000 does an impressive job. Also included will be demonstrations of the Mandelbrot fractals with demonstrations of very impressive 16 color fractals on the PC but also what I think is impressive are the same fractals, in 12 gray scale shades that were created on the TS-1000. A monumental accomplishment for such a tiny computer. The meeting is devoted to showing that the ZX-81/TS-1000 still lives. Directions to my house are attached as well as a couple of graphics to whet your appetite.