I recently returned from a trip to California. Sinclair computing is alive and well in that large west coast state, and I was able to visit with some interesting T/S enthusiasts (in-person and a few on the phone). Jerry Chamkif, president of Aerco in Austin, Texas was also in California on business (and vacation) at the same time as I was, but unfortunately our paths never crossed. Jerry demonstrated his new 2068 Disc System at the San Francisco Users Group meeting. There were some problems with the disk software and the system crashed a few times. This has been corrected with some help from Jack Dohany of Menlo Park, CA. Aerco started shipping Disc Systems and Interfaces on April 12.
My first stop was Sunset Electronics down by the waterfront in San Francisco, to meet with owner and proprietor John Warburton. This is one of the few actual stores in the U.S. that deal in Timex Computer Equipment and Accessories. I even found Time Designs Magazine on the book rack there. Sunset Electronics also does a large mail order business (32 page catalog available upon request. Write to: 2254 Taraval St., San Francisco, CA, 94116). John and some other T/S users in the Bay Area were preparing for the annual West Coast Computer Faire on March 30-April 2. Arrangements had been made with Sinclair to show a QL there.
Down the Peninsula a few miles, in the Silicon Valley I found the manufacturing and operating facility of A & J Micro Drive. Jim Howell is the “man-in-charge” here, and they have recently introduced a stringy-floppy system for the stock T/S 2068. Along with Jim, there are 10 other employees who assemble and test the drives and wafers. A & J’s biggest business is drives and interfaces for various models of electronic typewriters on the market. While I was there, Jim told me that he had purchased the rights and equipment of the wafer technology used in the T/S 1000 Micro Drive from Entrepo (the inventors). A & J will now incorporate the model 1000 style wafers (version 0) and drives into the model 2000 for the T/S 2068. The original model 2000 used a different wafer (version 2) and are not compatible with the new units being shipped. On the outside the model 2000 Micro Drive will remain the same.
Before heading south, I chatted on the phone with Bob Orrfelt of Redwood City, CA and also Rita Carr, who is the chairperson of the Silicon Valley T/S Users Group. Bob Orrfelt has his own cottage industry and offers a 64 Col. Word Processor for the 2068, and some nifty new EPROM Cartridge Boards. Among some other things he has been working on is fixing up the “bugs” in the 2068’s ROM. Bob may be contributing some information for Time Designs readers in an upcoming issue.
Down in Los Angeles, home of congested freeways, smog and Mickey Mouse…I met with Sinclair computer expert Dave Clifford. Dave wrote a review in our last issue on the Z-Link interface card. He is also very knowledgeable on telecommunications using the Westridge 2050 Modem and MTERM II Software. Dave demonsrated his Sinclair Microdrives on the 2068 for me. They are very compact little units, but also very fast!
Well here we are back “home”. And before closing, I want to say thank you to all of you who have mentioned or shown your copy of Time Designs to other T/S users. It is appreciated and benefits us all. Not only does it increase our circulation, but it will also enable us to add more pages and articles to the magazine for you.
See you next issue!
