Why are you still wasting time with that toy? Why don’t you get a Mac, an IBM, or one of the clones? We have all heard these questions many times. Don’t you get tired of it? Of course you do, and so do I. Let me give you a few of the responses I give to people who down grade our TS computers.
The Kardokas Family computer is a TS1000 with a Byte-Back UM-64K Ram Pak and a Memotech full-size keyboard. The printer is a TS2040. In addition there is a Zebra joystick interface. We have a complete assortment of software ranging from entertainment to serious applications. The software was obtained from a number of sources, and includes both original Timex titles and packages from third party sources.
One of my favorite pieces of software is a word processing program called ‘Fast Word’ which was published third party by International Publishing & Software Co. IPS published quite a bit of software including ‘Packrabbit‘ and ‘Krakit’. For those of us who have only TS2040 printers and do not want to invest in printer interfaces and 80 column printers, ‘Fast Word’ is a great word processor. Beside the ‘normal’ features found in word processor programs, ‘Fast Word’ has the ability to produce printouts that run sideways on the paper. By taping the strips of thermal paper together and running them through a photo copying machine, a normal 80 column page can be produced (I’ve seen the results. It may be a little extra work, but the final product looks ok.-ed.).
Our system’s mass storage device at present is still a cassette tape deck. Planned additions include a floppy drive and the Oliger Video Upgrade. The floppy disk drive is not an urgent matter because we have not had any serious problems with cassette loading and saving. Our system is completely relaible. A few minor problems have occured with the various interfaces stacked behind each other in a string. They do occasionally loosen up, causing some strange things to happen, but that is part of the adventure of TS computing.
Every new computer which comes out has a superfast processor running it and amazing amounts of RAM. I have a home computer system. I am not running a major corporation. Home computerists don’t need that amount of speed or a half or full megabyte of RAM. In our world, 64K is enough for our needs.
Will our family keep on using our Timex computer? Sure we will! Will we continue to expand and enlarge the system? Naturally we will. As long as the people and companies we hear about in publications such as ‘SyncWare News’ and ‘Computer Updates‘ continue to provide us with a way to compute with our small systems. We are doing things with our systems that people tell us can’t be done. They say our machines are too small for serious computing. What is serious computing? Serious computing is whatever the user wants it to be. With companies like IBM and Apple, the manufacturer tells you what your limits are. With our systems, we define our own limits. Our only limit to what can be done is our own imagination. To slightly parapharse the old Timex slogan, “THE POWER IS IN YOUR MIND.” If it can be done, one of our users will do it. Once they’re successful, another small TS business will be born. If the product proves to be good, the Kardokas family will buy and enjoy it. Computing is fun. It is an adventure.
To boil it all down, the reason that we use our Timex computers is that they are fun to use. They are easy to use. The hardware add-ons and the software are inexpensive. The software and hardware has been designed to get the most out of our small systems, especially since the crash of the Timex Computer Corporation. It allows us to do things that other people are spending huge sums of money to do. When you are limited to an absolute maximum of 64K of usable RAM, you have to be more efficent. You can’t be as wastful with your resources. We have seen that great programming and hardware design can overcome all the problems caused by the small size of our systems. Our systems are as good as any other home computer in spite of their size.
Let’s keep doing it gang. Let’s keep the fun in computing!
Patricia Kardokas is married and the mother of two children. Patricia, her husband, children, and TS Computer reside in Worcester, Massachusetts.