Hello, I’m glad you could join us this month! This is the premier issue of TS-HORIZONS, probably the best computer magazine on the market for the Timex line of personal computers. TS-Horizon’s owner Rick Duncan has asked me, Tracy Norris, to write a few columns each month for the Horizon and I heartily agreed for several reasons. 1) TS-Horizons is staffed by people who put their pants on one leg at a time, just like you and me. 2) Since it is a new publication we all have a chance to put our 2-cents in as far as the kind of magazine it should be. 3) Rick has selected the choice few who know what they are talking about to write regular columns in this magazine. Note: This does not exclude YOU! Obviously, if you have the intelligence to order a subscription to such a fine publication then you have the quality it takes to write for it. Let me tell you a little about myself. My name is Tracy Norris, owner/operator of T-tech Industries, a subsidiary of Norris Radio and Electronics. My firm specializes in only one line of computer, the Timex 1000 & 2000 series of personal computers. I repair, modify and offer advice on the Timex. If your computer falls apart you know where to send it for a repair!!! Enough of the talkity-talk, lets get on with what this article is really about.
This column “HELP!” is for you, the Timex user to get your questions about the Timex answered. All you have to do is send me a question and I will do everything possible to publish it in TS-Horizons along with an answer. If you do not feel like waiting every month for an answer, just send your question with a SASE and I will send a speedy reply back to you. I am sorry to say that I am only an intermediate program so I think it would be best to keep “HELP!” related to hardware questions only. You may think that your question is too small or too large for me to answer. HOGWASH! I don’t mind sending an answer one page long or 3000 pages long (in the latter case you supply paper & pencils!). As for your questions being answered in this column, I think it would be best to ask for pertinent information only, due to the limited space available. Here’s a good question sent from a regular customer of mine:
Question:
Tracy, I am having major problems trying to SAVE and LOAD on my TS-1000. I am using a CTR-31 tape deck from Radio Shack, a Timex 1016-16K RAM, and the ZX printer. Can you give me a clue as to what might be causing my problems?
Don Hughes, Erie, Colorado
Answer:
Yours is not the first question of this sort that I have come across. There are a few things that must be kept in mind when trying to SAVE and LOAD. A portable tape recorder is a device that is intended for voice or music recording and playback. The unit need not be very precise to accomplish that particular task. But nowadays the small inexpensive tape recorders are being used to SAVE and LOAD computer programs, a highly precise task indeed! Did you know that one bad bit in 16000 being read from tape can destroy a LOAD? That bad bit can be caused by several things, for instance: piece of dirt or smudge on tape caused by touching the tape with the fingers, something magnetic may have been placed near the tape causing a portion of the data to be erased, a wobbly tape head not positioned at the right READ or WRITE angle on the tape (azimuth adjust out of whack), 60 Hz hum coming from a bad filter circuit in the recorder (need to run unit on batteries), clock noise coming from the ZX printer (need to place 5mfd capacitor across 5 volt line on the edge connector), using inferior tapes, or leaving the MIC and EAR plugged in at the same time when SAVEing or LOADing causing feedback to be recorded on the tape with the data. I hope that of these causes you can find your problem.
T. Norris