SQ Notes

Ever wonder what some of the intended functions for some of the keywords on your computer were? Like the MOVE, ERASE, CAT and FORMAT keys. Well when TIMEX came out with the 2068, there were some peripherals in the planing stage. Some were available before Timex bailed out of the computer market, like the 2020 Cassette Recorder or the 2090 so called Command Stick. Almost ready, but finally marketed by Westridge, was the 2050 Telecommunications Modem, advertised as being compatible with all Timex Sinclair computers, it was also suspose to have modem to modem communication capability!

Finally, for June 1984 there were the 2060 System Expansion Unit, the 2065 Microdrive Storage Unit and the 2080 Printer, to be released.

Lets talk about the 2060 System Expansion Unit, since most of us are familiar with what a Centronics type printer and also a Micro Drive Unit will do.

TS 2060 System Expansion Unit

(great, what ever happened to the prototype model, or was it never implemented? Someone out there either has it or it wound up in a dumpster. It may be that Timex was waiting for delivery by Sinclair, which is what I believe, since it took Sinclair quite a while to get the INTERFACE I on the market.) Well lets not dwell on something that could have been, lets talk about what the 2060 Expansion Unit was planed to be.

It was to allow expansion of the TS 2068 computer system (expansion of memory to 16 megabytes, by means of bank switching), have a standard Centronics parallel interface, RS 232 interface with selectable baud rate, 80 or 64 column, high resolution, monochrome composite vidio output, standard RGB vidio output, Interface and controller for up to 8 TS 2065 Microdrives, local area network capability, CP/M mode with optional 32K additional RAM, and finally it was to have an auxiliary level audio output on a 1/4″ phono jack.

Very impressive, but! The closest thing I came across that would implement some of those features is the Interface I.

Now let me talk about some of the keys and what each would have done if this interface would have reached the market. There are a few features I can not cover, since not even Timex had an idea on how to take care of them at the time.

There were some software modules covering the 80, 64 and 40 column display in the works and almost completed when Timex quit, but the rest, like the CP/M mode, was only talked about. All this was to go into what was called The Extended Basic Module.

Here are the planed extensions and additions to the basic already in the 2068 rom.

Streams

Streams, specified as # n where n is a number in the range of 0-15. Streams 0, 1, 2 and 3 are already used by the present BASIC. The # Chr$ is part of the keyword for the OPEN# and CLOSE# statements.

Channels

Seven types of channels were to be covered in the extended basic; the (K)Keyboard, (S)Screen, (P)Printer, (T)Text RS232 (ASCII), (B)Binary RS232, (N)Network and (M)Microdrive.

Each channel specified by its letter. The Network and Microdrive channel would have required additional information to specify the channel completely.

A network channel would need a station number in addition to the “n”, specified as "n",x where x is the station number in the range of 0-64.

A microdrive channel would have required a drive number and a file name, a microdrive channel would be specified as "m",y,"name", y would be the drive number in the range of 1-8.

Statements

• CAT y — would have given a list of all files in drive y including the cartridge name followed by the bytes remaining on the cartridge in (k) kilobytes.
• CAT# z,y — would have send the catalog of the cartridge in drive y to stream z.
• CLOSE# stream — will close any channel from the specified stream. Any buffered data is then send to the linked stream.
• ERASE "m",y,"name" — would erase the file with the specified name from drive y.
• FORMAT "m",y,"name" — would format a cartridge for use. The name would be given to the cartridge and would appear in cataloges.
• FORMAT "n",x — would have set the network station number to x.
• FORMAT "t",x or "b",x — would have set the baud rate for the RS232 interface to x, x would have been any of 50, 110, 300, 600, 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200.
• INKEY$# stream — would have returned a single chr$ as a string from stream “t” or “n”.
• INPUT# stream,variable — would have input the variable from a specified opened stream.
• LOAD* channel — would have loaded a program, data or code from the specified channel “b”, “n” or “m”.
• MERGE* channel — would have loaded as the usual Merge function.
• MOVE source TO destination — would have moved data from the source to the destination. The source or destination could have been either streams or channels. The command would terminate when an end of file marker would be encountered when a microdrive or network channel or else a stream was linked to one. Channels would have to be opened and closed.
• OPEN# stream,channel — will link the specified channel to the specified stream, this can be done presently with channels “p”, “k” or “s”.
• PRINT# stream — outputs the print sequence to the specified stream. The stream must previously have been opened to a channel.
• SAVE* channel — would have saved a program, data or code to the specified channel. Only channels “b”, “n”, or “m” could have been used.
• VERIFY* channel — would have been the same as load*, except that data would be compared not loaded.

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Big deal you may say, but what does information like that do for me now! Well some of the commands will work to some extend on your computer, and this may be of help to you. On the next page I will give you the system variables set up by the spectrum computer when implementing the Interface I, how TIMEX would have accomplished this is a question we can only speculate on.

Spectrum verses Timex mode!! Should we even argue about this? I think not, since both are available to us. The 2068 would have been far superior to the Spectrum if Timex would not have thrown in the towel, or would have done so after the system was complete.

System Variables

Notes	Address	Name	Contents
X1	23734	FLAGS3	More flags
X2	23735	VECTOR	Address used to extend BASIC interpreter
X10	23737	SBRT	ROM paging subroutine. (10 bytes)
2	23747	BAUD	Two bytes determining the baud rate (RS232)
1	23749	NTSTAT	Network station number. (Your own)
1	23750	IOBORD	Border color used during I/O. (Poke any color)
N2	23751	SER_FL	2 byte workspace used by RS232.
N2	23753	SECTOR	2 byte workspace used by Microdrive.
N2	23755	CHADD_	Temporary store for CH ADD. (23645)
1	23757	NTRESP	Store for network response code.
1	23758	NTDEST	Destination station #. (start network buffer)
1	23759	NTSRCE	Source station number.
X2	23760	NTNUMB	Network block number. (0-65535)
N1	23762	NTTYPE	Header type code. (Network)
N1	23763	NTLEN	Packet data block length. (0-255)
N1	23764	NTDCS	Packet data block checksum. (# data-bytes send)
N1	23765	NTHCS	Header block checksum.
N2	23766	D_STR1	2 byte drive number. (strt 8 byte file)
N1	23768	S_STR1	Stream number. (0-15)
N1	23769	L_STR1	Device type. (“m”,”n”,”t”,”b”)
N2	23770	N_STR1	Length of filename.
	23772		Start of filename.
N8	23774	D_STR2	File specifier, (8 bytes) used by MOVE & LOAD.
N1	23782	HD_00	Start of workspace. (SAVE, LOAD, VERIFY, MERGE)
N2	23783	HD_0B	Length of data, 0-65535. (Microdrive)
N2	23785	HD_0D	Start of data, 0-65353.
N2	23787	HD_0F	Program length, 0-65353.
N2	23789	HD_11	Line number.
1	23791	COPIES	Number of copies made by SAVE.
	23792		Start of Microdrive MAPs or CHANS.

Since TIMEX has thrown in the towel without finishing the system, my feeling has been for a long time to favor the SINCLAIR mode, since there is very little use for bank-switching, except if one likes to use the dock bank, and TIMEX has managed to re write the ROM to such an extend that many programs available to us from Britain do not run in the TIMEX mode. Considering also that the Sinclair mode will give you more RAM-SPACE and does not have some of the problems the TIMEX mode has (DELETE KEY), and besides, for the SINCLAIR there is SOFTWARE available, and the system is still somewhat supported.