Date: February 6, 2023
- Paul Holmgren, former part owner of Mechanical Affinity and one half of the team that wrote the ISTUG TS2068 BBS program, joined our meeting. Paul gave us some interesting details about his intro to the microcomputers, starting with the Motorola MEK6800D2. Paul dropped a little trivia bomb: in the late 1980s/early 1990s, Supreme Court Justice David Souter was a Mechanical Affinity customer. Paul also told us a little about the problems shipping product to South America at the time.
- Dave (a Scot living in the US) joined us by way of TJ Ferreira’s recommendation and talked to us about growing up with the ZX Spectrum, a point of view we don’t often get in the US. He regaled us with stories about the Enterprise 64 and other fun stuff from the other side of the pond.
- Paul and Tim Swenson, who did an epic road trip together quite a while back, caught up a little.
- Stewart Newfeld, another former retailer, was able to weigh on the topic, too. Stewart Newfeld showed us a ZX Wespi, an open source file server/video device for the Sinclair ZX81/TS1000. Stewart is trying to build one. Larry Lorenson talked about his and some of the issues he encountered in getting it going.
- Gustavo Pane talked a bit about his TS 2068 and had some questions about various Timex products. That led into a discussion about ways FPGAs can be used to replace or supplement the Timex/Sinclair computers. Dave showed his MISTer and Gustavo talked about how FPGAs can be used to re-implement the 2068 SCLD for high quality video.
- Ryan Gray prefaced his demo by browsing the “merch store“, where you can find all sort of clothing and other items with Timex items. Ryan then talked to us about work he’s been doing over the past few weeks, including a program to turn ZX81 .P files into TAP files. You can find it here: Ryan also produced some fantastic cheat sheats for the ZX81/TS1000 and TS2068. Ryan gave an extended discussion of how his code works to reverse a program and handle the many special character codes used by the ZX81/TS1000 and TS2068 in ZMakeBas.
- Adam Trionfo showed his ZX81/TS1000 stickers on a PC keyboard. He’s learning the TS1000, preparing for his impending TS1000 and to play Grimm’s Fairy Trails.
- We talked a little bit about custom keyboards and then Keith Watson walked us through his TS 2068 system, including an AERCO disk interface connected to an Amdek III disk system.
- We talked about the upcoming meeting with Dan Ross, VP of Timex Computer Corporation. Last, we chatted about Mark Fendrick, a software author and writer who was published in Computer Shopper and ZX Computing.