In this week’s meeting of our group, we were joined by Thomas B. Woods, Wes Brzozowski, Jeff Mazur, Tim Horner, Ryan Gray, Jeff Burrell and Stewart Newfeld.
Tom Woods was an entrepreneur and educator who produced software and hardware for Timex/Sinclair computers. He was also involved for several years in publishing SyncWare News, one of the more “technical” magazines for the TS computers. One of Tom’s programs, ZX Pro/File, was a database written for the ZX81/TS 1000. He wrote a version for the 2068 that improved on the original. The manuals for both programs not only taught the user how to use the programs but how the programs were coded and how to improve/customize them.
Wes Brzozowski worked at IBM for many years and had a Timex/Sinclair 2068 as his home computer. He authored a number of articles, including one that enabled 64 column mode on the TS 2068 and a five-part series about how the bank switching was intended to work.
We talked a bit about the variations in revision numbers on the TS 2068 PCB with Carl Miles, who worked on a project in the 1980s that involved testing many, many TS 2068 computers.
Following that was a brief discussion of Micro Men, a documentary about Clive Sinclair and the rise and fall of Sinclair Research.
Tim Horner showed us an Excel spreadsheet he uses to generate binary code patterns and hexadecimal numbers for fonts.
Ryan showed us a printout of a user-defined graphic editor he wrote in the 1980s (and posted the program to the groups.io email list).
Stewart showed us the microswitch replacement keyboards he has for sale. One board is for the ZX81/TS1000, the other is built for the ZX Spectrum but can be used with the TS 1500.
Jeff Mazur talked about his X10 interface projects, one of which he tried to interest Timex in making and selling.
David talked about changes to the TimexSinclair.com website that make the site more responsive.
And Carl Miles talked about the cartridges for the Timex/Sinclair 1500 and his project to reverse engineer them so others could potentially make new cartridges.