Timex/Sinclair’s Timely Update

Projected and actual release dates for new computers seldom coincide, and the Timex/Sinclair color computer fell prey to that ‘arrival gap.”

The seven-month delay, however, was worth the wait: the T/S 2068 far exceeds the specifications of the originally announced model.

The 2068 is more than just an Americanized Spectrum, Clive Sinclair’s upgrade of his popular ZX-81 computer. Based on some heavy market research and lots of user input, Timex has come up with an exceptional computer for only $199.95.

The Outside

The 2068 is a sleek, silver unit; the top right-hand portion of the computer casing flips up for inserting cartridges. The joystick ports are placed on each side; the peripheral (for now, the printer) port is at the back, as are jacks for power, TV and monitor connections and ear/mic plugs for the tape recorder.

The 42 full-travel keys are surprisingly comfortable to work with: they are well-spaced and provide both audio and tactile feedback. In addition to changing from the T/S 1000’s much-maligned membrane-style keyboard, the 2068 has the added improvements of two shift keys in the expected positions, a full space bar and a separate break key. The legends for each key are clear, which is quite an accomplishment because each key serves six different functions. Also worthy of note, because of its absence in the 1000, is the 2068’s power on/off switch.

The Inside

The 2068, with its Z80A CPU, runs at 3.5 MHz. Like the Spectrum, the Timex is designed for savings, not speed: out of its 48Kb, 38652 bytes are available for Basic programming. (By comparison, 38911 are available from Commodore’s 64Kb.)

There is 24Kb of ROM. Although the RAM is not immediately expandable (there are no memory modules available) or even planned, the 2068 does have bank-switching capabilities.

For those familiar with T/S 1000 programming, it’s interesting to note that in the 2068 memory, the display file doesn’t move around according to the length of the Basic program; it— actually, they—have permanent memory addresses. There are two display files, each with its own attribute file to keep track of character and background colors and flash and brightness controls for each character space.

The addresses in the display files correspond not to character spaces on the screen but to the bytes of the characters; the bytes aren’t stored in character groups, or in order of rows or columns, but according to the scan lines on the screen. This makes display file peeking and poking impossible, or, at the very least, impractical.

The Displays

The normal display mode, only one of four possible, is 32 x 24, with the bottom two lines reserved for input information. Characters are crisp and clear on a monitor; they are a little thicker, but still clear, on the TV screen. While commands appear in uppercase letters, the keyboard immediately defaults to lowercase; the character design is noncomputerish and easy to read.

A 64-column mode can be achieved with machine code; that is significant, since that makes 80 columns with two eight-character margins—does the phrase “word processing’ ring a bell? This mode uses the two display files at one time, with one handling the odd-numbered columns and the other the even-numbered columns.

Both display files are also utilized in the alternate display mode, which lends itself to animation because it flashes first one display and then the other on the screen. The fourth display mode allows you to assign attributes to individual pixels, instead of to character spaces; this is referred to as the enhanced mode.

Normal resolution is 256 x 192; in the enhanced and 64-column modes, the horizontal resolution increases to 512, very impressive for a low-end computer.

Working With the 2068

The 2068 is advertised as having one-key commands. Because double-shifting is sometimes required, as many as three keys must be pressed to enter some commands. This is still faster than having to type in three different letters, since the shift keys are conveniently located, and you won’t have to hunt for them no matter how much of a hunt-and-peck typist you are.

Each key has a main letter or number on it, as well as a shifted symbol, a keyword or graphics symbol and commands printed above and below it on the keyboard. Getting at the different items available is a matter of which cursor is on the screen and which shift you press—besides the regular shift key, there is a black symbol shift key. In order to minimize confusion, the symbols accessed by the symbol shift are in a black bar on each key.

Cursors change automatically, as well as in response to shifting. Inverse K, L, C, G and E are the possible cursors for keywords, letters, capitals, graphics and extended commands. I was prepared to find the double-shift system unwieldy and not worth the one-key command entry; actually, it is easy to get used to and comfortable to use.

Editing was never a comfortable operation on the 1000; although it is improved by the repeat-key capability on the 2000, it is still awkward.

It is particularly annoying that the delete function is a shifted key. Editing a program line can only be done with left and right cursor controls; if you have to move back to the beginning of a four-line program entry, you have to do it one character at a time.

On Sinclair computers, each program line is typed in at the bottom of the screen; when it is entered (and approved by the syntax editor) it jumps to the main portion of the screen. To edit an already-entered line, the vertical cursor controls are used to place the program cursor at the desired line, which is brought back to the bottom of the screen by the Edit command. The cursor controls are also shifted functions.

While line editing is not convenient, there are some extras that make it easier. A built-in delete function will remove specified lines from a program; pressing enter will automatically list a program; List will list from the beginning or from a specified line. When the program is longer than a screen page, the listing stops, and you’re asked if you want it scrolled; if so, the next page is shown. I find this preferable to listings that automatically scroll, usually past the line you’re searching for.

The Character Set

Besides the usual alphanumerics and expected punctuation, the character set includes square brackets and braces, a backslash and the @ and copyright symbols. If you own a T/S 1000, you’ll be happy to find an apostrophe and an exclamation point on the 2068, both sorely missed on the 1000.

The graphics characters available from the keyboard are eight (16 with their inverses) boxes with various quarters darkened. There are 22 spaces reserved for user-defined graphics, although the entire character set can be redefined if more space is needed.

Sinclair Basic

Sinclair Basic is a joy to work with and easy to learn. It is exceptionally well-suited for beginners and sophisticated enough for a more experienced programmer.

Since all keywords are automatically spaced, a listing is easy to read; another feature that makes for easy-toread listings is that parentheses aren’t needed as often as in some other Basics.

The Commands’ Performance

While Sinclair Basic has some uncommon—even unique—commands, they’re all easy to understand and to work with. Here is a simple list of Sinclair Basic commands:

Color: The color commands for character, background and border are Ink, Paper and Border. The Bright command changes the shade; Flash makes the character automatically switch ink and paper color back and forth until the flash is turned off. Inverse will permanently switch the paper and ink colors for that character.

String Handling: String slicing techniques are nonstandard, but easier to work with than the usual. Compare Sinclair’s A$(3 TO 5) with the more common MID$(A$,3,5).

Formatting: The inclusion of a Print At command makes formatting screen output simple; it specifies the line and column at which the print position should be, just as the Locate command does in some other Basic languages. Commas move the print position a half-screen, while the apostrophe acts as a linefeed.

Graphics: The Plot command darkens pixels according to the x,y coordinates stated. Unlike the 1000, there is no Unplot available; that function is achieved by plotting over the same section in paper color.

The Circle command uses center coordinates and a radius size. The Draw command has a rather odd argument: two numbers that signify the number of pixels up and to the right that should be darkened, figured from the last plotted or drawn point. To go down or to the left, negative numbers are used. A third number can be added to the Draw command in order to draw arcs, the third number describing (in radians) the angle covered by the arc.

Printer: Commands to send information to the printer are the straightforward Lprint and List; there is also a Copy command for a screen dump.

Other commands that should be noted because they were not available on the 1000 are Read, Data and Restore, Def Fn and Fn, On Err and Bin(ary).

Some commands are unique to the 2000, such as Screen$. Since the display file cannot be peeked, Screen$ is used to check any character space on the screen; it returns the string appearing there. Other screen-reading commands include Attr and Point. The first will return, in code, the attributes (paper and ink color, flash and bright on/off) of any character space; the latter checks to see if a specified pixel is on or off.

Perhaps the most unusual of all the commands is Over. When Over is in effect, you can print one character over another without the first disappearing. The immediately apparent application is with the underline character, but with programmable characters and a little imagination, you can umlaut your German and accent grave your French, just for starters.

There is a full set of mathematical and trigonometric functions; numbers are stored to nine or ten places. Array, string and For-Next control variable names are limited to a single letter, but numeric variables can be of unlimited length. String array storage is procrustean.

Color and Sound

Although the 2068 is advertised as having eight colors, that is a modest claim. The Bright command makes such a difference that the computer has, for all intents and purposes, 16 colors: red and pink, white and light grey, black and dark grey, and so on. It takes quite a bit of fiddling with color and contrast controls on a TV or monitor to get the true colors, and when all the others are set, the yellow is still more of a pleasant peach than a primary. With colors at normal brightness, just about every paper/ink combination is easy to read. A light ink on light paper is, of course, a strain on the eye, but there is no smearing of the character against the background.

The easiest access to sound on the T/S is with the Beep command, used with one number (.002-10) to signify its duration in seconds, and a second number (—60-69) for pitch. A zero pitch is middle C, and every number above or below represents the number of semitones beyond middle C.

The Sound command is used with pairs of numbers that represent registers and contents. Thirteen registers are used for tuning each of the three channels, setting channel volumes, enabling noise and/or tone on each channel, setting noise pitch and controlling the ADSR envelope. The Beep command can be used at the same time as Sound, so, in effect, four channel sound is available.

The overall range with the sound command is ten octaves. While the range of sound is nice, the quality is not exceptional. The sound comes from an internal speaker, not through the TV or monitor, and all but the mid-range pitches have a thin, almost tinny quality to them.

Savings Plans

The 2068 isn’t as picky about its tape recorder as the 1000 is; Timex is not packing a list of compatible recorders as it finally did with its 1000. The transfer rate is 1200 bits per second—a reasonable speed, not as fast as some of the tape systems available, but an improvement over the 1000.

There are various methods of saving programs. Aside from the normal mode, there are also: Save Line, which runs the program automatically on loading, Save Screen$, which saves the screen display, and Save Code, which saves a machine code routine starting at a specified address. Any Load except the Screen$ can be checked with the Verify command.

A special loading option is the merge command which can combine a taped program with the resident program; if any line numbers coincide, the new ones take precedence.

During saving and loading procedure, the border of the screen displays a flickering lined pattern, and the computer notes on screen the name of each program that it passes while looking for the one you want loaded—use a dummy program name and you’ve got a tape directory.

Author, Author!

Most authors of computer manuals remain in protected (and deserved) anonymity. However, the 2068 manual is a gem; it explains things clearly and in logical sequence. While it doesn’t cover some of the more intriguing capabilities of the 2068’s, such as alternate display file animation techniques, those techniques are pretty sophisticated and don’t demand inclusion in what is meant to be a beginner’s manual. Author Charles Durang deserves recognition and congratulations. I hope Timex commissions him to do the Advanced Manual mentioned in the text.

Planned Peripherals

As of this writing, the only peripheral available is the 32-column printer, which has received favorable reviews.

There are many peripherals in the planning and development stages. If the Timex timetable is correct, both the $120 modem and an 80-column printer should be available this spring. Timex is also putting out its own tape recorder for $49.95.

The most needed peripheral, of course, is an alternative to tape storage. In early November, a Timex spokesman said that a decision had not yet been made whether to go with a microfloppy or a wafer drive.

Software, Anyone?

Timex has, of course, its own line of software for the 2068, both in cassette and cartridge form. I was provided with a few cassettes, and I have to admit I was impressed with them, especially with the quality of the graphics.

The two games I tried were easily on par with many third-party programs made for other computers; of the two educational cassettes, one was a simple, but nicely done States and Capitals game, while the other was a thorough, well-designed grammar tutor.

As for third-party support, there isn’t much (if any) right now, and whether there will be in the future remains to be seen. Softsync, Inc., a company that began as a TI specialists, is releasing 2068 versions of its programs designed for other computers. Most other publishers are more cautious than optimistic, so it will probably be at least a year (if at all) before third-party programs proliferate. It was the same story with the Commodore-64; I hope the Timex story will have as happy an ending.

For the Future

There are commands available on the T/S that you can’t use yet: Open#, Print#, Cat(alogue)…all drive-oriented commands, as you may have noticed. When the 1000 came out, there were printer commands that couldn’t be used because the printer wasn’t available; the Timex plans ahead. When they finally put something on the market, it is good; unfortunately, the delay cause by perfecting the product can kill sales. The drive, whichever one they decide on, should be finished and rushed to the market. (Of course, I would also like to see the Timex version of Sinclair’s thin-screen monitor; however there are no plans for that at Timex, at least not that they’re admitting. Somebody there must be thinking about it, and it would be nice to see Timex forge ahead with something new instead of always playing catchup.)

For Now

The Timex 2068 has promise, it has potential. ..but will it have buyers? Well, I already bought one. If you’re looking for immediate applications, you might be disappointed with the software support for this computer. But, if you want to design your own programs, ones that won’t need vast amounts of data handled and saved, this is a good system; if you, or your kids, want to learn to program, this is a great system. And, if Timex does some aggressive marketing, you may find an explosion of third-party support available by next year.