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Meeting Recaps

Summaries of the 109 Timex/Sinclair Online User Group meetings (monthly Zoom calls). Each recap captures the project updates, technical answers, demos, and announcements from that meeting. (Full recordings/transcripts are kept in the group's private archive.)

2026

  • June 1, 2026 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Bill Miller fund used at VCF Southwest to rescue another walk-up Timex donation for preservation · TS-Pico, The Bill Miller Collection, Library Tape Archiving Process
  • May 17, 2026 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Jeff Burrell: 2060 BEU rev-2 in testers' hands, rev-3 to fab in June, first boards back late fall/winter · FPGA "Advanced 2068", TS-Pico
  • May 4, 2026 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — David unboxed a Spain-ordered Ngo (ZX Spectrum Next clone) live on camera and compared it to the 2068. · TS-Pico, ZX-Wespi / Wespi-Nano
  • April 26, 2026 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — VCF East recap: David and Ricardo ran the first-ever Timex/Sinclair table there; show evacuated Sunday for a swatting call. · TS-Pico, "1068" — Enhanced TS1000, Library Tape Archiving Process
  • April 6, 2026 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — KiloZed keycap Kickstarter funded ~7x in five days; 42-key option added so buyers can choose TS1000 or ZX81 layout · "1068" — Enhanced TS1000
  • March 15, 2026 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — David finished indexing 15,731 articles across 1,753 newsletter/magazine issues using a Claude skill · Library Tape Archiving Process, TS-Pico, The Bill Miller Collection
  • March 2, 2026 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Ingo unveils UV-printed KiloZ key caps; Kickstarter targeting April launch (~$50 CAD/set). · TS-Pico, "1068" — Enhanced TS1000
  • February 22, 2026 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Meeting marked the 42nd anniversary of Timex's Feb 22, 1984 exit from the computer market. · The Bill Miller Collection
  • February 2, 2026 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — BytePower First Class Magazine archive on archive.org is now essentially complete (tape images + indexed articles) · "1068" — Enhanced TS1000, TS-Pico, ZX-Wespi / Wespi-Nano
  • January 18, 2026 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Special guest Chris Boisvert (co-creator of BytePower First Class Magazine, 1986–89) is donating all 12 issues plus 2+FAST, Print Factory and raw WAV captures for archiving. · Library Tape Archiving Process, TS-Pico
  • January 5, 2026 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Jack joined as a newcomer and is donating a box of QZX (ham-radio Sinclair) newsletters to the archive

2025

  • December 21, 2025 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Peyton typed in two holiday listings from Sync-Set Dec '83 and submitted a BASIC snowflake to the Vintage Compute Challenge (iterated with Gemini for compactness) · "1068" — Enhanced TS1000, FPGA "Advanced 2068"
  • December 1, 2025 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — ZX Spectrum ROM source listing dated 11-23-1982, preserved by Lon Hildreth, has been posted to archive.org — first public release
  • November 16, 2025 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — David is researching a book on the Timex/Sinclair community, tracing newsletters and user groups from 1983 through the Yahoo Groups era · TS-Pico, FPGA "Advanced 2068", TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone, ZX-Wespi / Wespi-Nano
  • November 3, 2025 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Jeff Fetta demoed his ZX81 CompactFlash adapter (8-bit IDE-mode CF, 64K RAM, Shoulders-of-Giants ROM, FAT driver hooking LOAD/SAVE to P-files) and a Wilf-Rigter-based ZonX sound clone shown at VCF Midwest · ZX-Wespi / Wespi-Nano, TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone, "1068" — Enhanced TS1000
  • October 19, 2025 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Carl Miles walked through a "1520" TS1000/ZX81 super-expansion — AY sound, programmable DB9 joystick, 512K RAM, shadow-ROM region, and both a TS1510 cartridge port and a (keyed) ROM cartridge port on one stacked board. · TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone, TS-Pico, "1068" — Enhanced TS1000, FPGA "Advanced 2068"
  • October 6, 2025 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Alger Salt joined for the first time and described the VOTEM analog interface (AD531 V-to-F into the ZX81 cassette port); one shipped on the Columbia shuttle logging cargo-bay temperature. · "1068" — Enhanced TS1000, ZX-Wespi / Wespi-Nano, TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone, TS-Pico
  • September 21, 2025 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — VCF Midwest 2025 debrief: Timex/Sinclair group ran a multi-table exhibit in Schaumburg with attendees from across the US plus Tim Horner from New Zealand. · TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone, "1068" — Enhanced TS1000, FPGA "Advanced 2068", TS-Pico
  • September 1, 2025 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Asa Gordon asked the group to retype his TS2068 BASIC listings from his NASA satellite-position paper plus his "Gotcha" UDG game · "1068" — Enhanced TS1000, TS-Pico, TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone, Library Tape Archiving Process
  • August 10, 2025 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Guest Asa Gordon (NASA Goddard astrodynamicist) presented how he ran professional-grade satellite orbit theory on a TS2068 in the mid-1980s
  • August 4, 2025 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Guest interview: Steven Reid (Read for Fun blog) on 20 years of monthly ZX81 posts, learning Z80 as an adult, and his in-progress Ultima clone "Jim Quest" · TS-Pico, ZX-Wespi / Wespi-Nano, "1068" — Enhanced TS1000, TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone
  • July 20, 2025 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — ZX Spectrum Next third (and reportedly final) Kickstarter launched July 19; Phil backed it for QL emulation · TS-Pico
  • July 7, 2025 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — James Martin powered up his TS2068 for the first time in ~37 years; every command produces identical output, pointing at stuck-bit RAM · FPGA "Advanced 2068", TS-Pico, TAP-to-Cart — TS2068 Cartridge Conversion
  • June 22, 2025 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — David has Pico W → 2050-modem-emulator PCBs arriving Monday — designed with AI help, will present as a 2050 modem but take Hayes AT commands over WiFi. · TS-Pico
  • June 2, 2025 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Book Nook compared the perfect-bound vs wire-bound ZX81 manual and traced the small US/UK differences through to the TS1000 revision.
  • May 18, 2025 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — New member Philip — co-founder of the South Florida Timex/Sinclair user group — joins and is reviving two QLs. · TS-Pico, DEF FN & BASIC Technique Deep-Dives
  • May 5, 2025 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Jeff Burrell unveiled the first prototype of his 2060 board — a modern take on Timex's never-shipped TS2068 Bus Expansion Unit, integrating Pico storage/video plus a user expansion slot. · TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone, TAP-to-Cart — TS2068 Cartridge Conversion, TS-Pico, "1068" — Enhanced TS1000
  • April 13, 2025 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Jeff Burrell unveiled the "2060" — an FPGA-based TS2068 expansion board with VGA, RS-232, AY stereo sound, SD storage, USB keyboard and optional Wi-Fi. · FPGA "Advanced 2068", TS-Pico, ZX-Wespi / Wespi-Nano, TAP-to-Cart — TS2068 Cartridge Conversion
  • March 31, 2025 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Carl & Ingo unveiled a new TS1000-replacement motherboard prototype — 8-layer, ESP32 WESPY + joystick + 512K RAM + DB9 breakout, currently at JLCPCB · "1068" — Enhanced TS1000, ZX-Wespi / Wespi-Nano
  • March 16, 2025 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Albuquerque member scored a pile of QLs at a local estate sale · "1068" — Enhanced TS1000, TS-Pico
  • March 3, 2025 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — David archived the BytePower cassette-magazine backlog (TS2068/Spectrum, late 1980s) onto the website — listings, spreadsheet, word processor, games. · TS-Pico, TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone, "1068" — Enhanced TS1000, ZX-Wespi / Wespi-Nano
  • February 16, 2025 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Carl Miles previewed his "TS1560" — a stacked TS1000/ZX81 expansion with 64K RAM, TS1510 cartridges, ROM replacement, programmable joystick, RS-232 (modeled on the TS2050), and an AY-3-8912 with SD-card storage. · "1068" — Enhanced TS1000
  • February 3, 2025 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Jeff Burrell demoed his FPGA/Pico multi-core board running a Spectrum core from SD card, with a 2068 core in progress · FPGA "Advanced 2068", TS-Pico, TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone
  • January 19, 2025 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — ZXZine #11 shipped as the project's first hard-copy print run — 75 full-colour saddle-stapled copies, funded entirely by the Bill Miller Collection sale proceeds. · The Bill Miller Collection, TS-Pico, TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone
  • January 6, 2025 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Guest Dave Franson (ex-SMUG, author of Extended Paint for TS2068) recovered a cassette of his program and will get it digitized. · TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone, TS-Pico, TAP-to-Cart — TS2068 Cartridge Conversion, "1068" — Enhanced TS1000

2024

  • December 15, 2024 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Jim Baumgartner guest talk: bought a TS1000 in 1982 to generate random numbers for a John-Cage-inspired tape-loop composition; reconstructed the lost piece in FFmpeg+Python · The Bill Miller Collection
  • December 2, 2024 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Boreal Basic TS2068 port: reclaim/CLS/STR$/VAL issues worked around by replacing Spectrum ROM calls with local routines or 2068 equivalents · TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone, TS-Pico, ZX-Wespi / Wespi-Nano
  • November 17, 2024 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Teardown of the rare Timex 2090 "command stick" joystick (Channel F lineage, Zircon-built); David ordered Zircon sticks for comparison. · TS-Pico, Library Tape Archiving Process
  • November 4, 2024 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Hugo Pinto demoed the museum's restored TENET classroom network live — teacher TC2048 controlling pupil stations over 2.5mm jacks · TS-Pico
  • October 20, 2024 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Michael unveiled his 5th-revision FujiNet board for Spectrum/TS2068 using a Tang Nano 20K FPGA, targeting hardware handoff by early 2025. · TS-Pico, FPGA "Advanced 2068", ZX-Wespi / Wespi-Nano, The Bill Miller Collection
  • October 7, 2024 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Jeff Burrell's Blur 68E FPGA board: 5 built, Spectrum 48K core running on USB keyboard + VGA, ~$100 BOM, TS2068 core with dual AY stereo and possible Apple II/IIe core to follow. · TS-Pico, FPGA "Advanced 2068", Library Tape Archiving Process
  • September 15, 2024 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Ingo Truppel demoed the KiloZ: 3D-printed ZX81 with mechanical keyboard, 32K RAM, ZX-Wespi Wi-Fi storage, and clean VGA output. · TS-Pico, ZX-Wespi / Wespi-Nano, Library Tape Archiving Process
  • September 9, 2024 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Joe found Ryan Gray's own 1983 "Word Wizard" (plus a "Merry Christmas" snow demo) on a Fort Worth TS public-domain library tape — and Ryan was on the call to see it. · Library Tape Archiving Process, TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone, TS-Pico
  • August 18, 2024 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Main topic: viability of an American Timex/Sinclair museum — group concluded preservation + working replicas beat a dedicated physical museum · TS-Pico, FPGA "Advanced 2068", ZX-Wespi / Wespi-Nano, "1068" — Enhanced TS1000
  • August 5, 2024 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Carl's TS1510 clone: diode-OR bodge fixes Flight Simulator's 16K paging; Joe iterating his EDA version next · TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone
  • July 21, 2024 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Johan Kuhlman ("Dr. Beep") debuts a new ZX81 "Character Display" routine in Mushroom Man — swaps characters every two scanlines via LD H,D / LD L,E to get quarter-character graphics; works on real hardware and finally gives the Lambda 8300 clone advanced graphics. · TS-Pico, Library Tape Archiving Process
  • July 1, 2024 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Joe demos a ZX81 modded with a community 16K "Spectrum-ish" ROM and 16K static-RAM upgrade — running Harlequin TAP files off SD card · TS-Pico, "1068" — Enhanced TS1000, Library Tape Archiving Process, The Bill Miller Collection
  • June 23, 2024 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Joe finished a redesigned TS1510 reconstruction cartridge in EasyEDA — SMT baseboard, socketed EPROM, original-style 3D-printed case to follow · TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone, TS-Pico, Library Tape Archiving Process, "1068" — Enhanced TS1000
  • June 3, 2024 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Guest Jack Boatwright recounted his collecting history (FWD Computing buyout, RMG Enterprises rescue) and the fire that destroyed most of his archive; surviving cassettes are being shipped to David for testing. · TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone, Library Tape Archiving Process
  • May 19, 2024 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — TS-Pico firmware release targeted for mid-summer; Joe's 3D-printed cases for TS-Pico and Pico Video are nearly final. · TS-Pico, TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone, Library Tape Archiving Process
  • May 6, 2024 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Paul gives away his last spare TS2068 SCLD chip (with socket) to Joe for a board repair. · TS-Pico, TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone
  • April 21, 2024 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Carl ripped Tom Bent's revised TS1000/ZX81 ROM from Paul's EPROMs — the actual binary (skipping the RAM check) is now in hand. · TS-Pico, TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone, Library Tape Archiving Process, The Bill Miller Collection
  • April 1, 2024 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Eduardo unveiled a TS2068 CP/M board (port-7 bank switching, 64K paged RAM, EEPROM boot ROM for Larken/JLO/AERCO); Ricardo offered TS-Pico integration as the storage backend. · TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone, TS-Pico, The Bill Miller Collection
  • March 17, 2024 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Bawd Day (Mar 12) recap: Carl, Ryan, Adam, Rick and Brian dialled BBSes with a 2068 and an Atari 600XL; Adam reached a UK ZX Spectrum BBS via telnet/SyncTerm. · TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone, FPGA "Advanced 2068", "1068" — Enhanced TS1000
  • March 4, 2024 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Joe demoed his ZX81 tape-archiving workflow in Audacity — invert, rectivert, silence stray noise pulses at -50 dB to preserve bit spacing · TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone, TS-Pico, ZX-Wespi / Wespi-Nano, Library Tape Archiving Process
  • February 18, 2024 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Carl Miles + Paul Farrow cracked the TS1510 cartridge header format; a .p-to-cartridge utility is in the works · TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone, Library Tape Archiving Process
  • February 5, 2024 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Jeff Burrell led a long debate on a next-gen 2068 ("2068E") — FPGA hardware vs. software emulation — ending with a call for a written feature spec before picking an approach. · FPGA "Advanced 2068", "1068" — Enhanced TS1000, TS-Pico
  • January 21, 2024 — TSU Meeting Sunday — Carl and Ryan are building a Spectrum-to-2068 converter that rewrites Spectrum ROM calls to 2068 equivalents from a Syntax-newsletter ROM-call table · The Bill Miller Collection, "1068" — Enhanced TS1000, TS-Pico
  • January 2, 2024 — TSU Meeting Monday — Survey of oddball industrial/scientific uses of TS machines: Votum on the Shuttle, TS1000+Votum sterilising artificial kidneys, TS1500 HVAC controller for Carrier, ZX81 potentiometric analyzer, QLs running an office network · TS-Pico, The Bill Miller Collection

2023

  • December 17, 2023 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Deep TS-Pico Q&A: 32 GB FAT32 SD limit, no cartridge form factor yet (reset line + boot time), TAP-only, save-to-open-TAP and bumper-bowling slated for v1.1 · TS-Pico
  • December 4, 2023 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Carl and Ryan presented a concrete design for a modern TS2060 expansion unit — internal slots, Spectrum bus, switching PSU, horizontal card-cage option. · TS-Pico, FPGA "Advanced 2068"
  • November 19, 2023 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — TS-Pico demo: SD load/save, ROM/DOCK bank mapping, flash-erase working, snapshot/NMI and DCK writing on the roadmap. · TS-Pico, The Bill Miller Collection, Library Tape Archiving Process, FPGA "Advanced 2068"
  • November 6, 2023 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Bill Miller's Timex/Sinclair collection rescued, catalogued and being shipped out to buyers; Tim Swenson coordinating pricing and Pirate Ship logistics. · The Bill Miller Collection, TS-Pico
  • October 15, 2023 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Tim showed a gray Spectrum +2 128K acquired via a watch-for-Sinclair swap with a UK contact · TS-Pico, ZX-Wespi / Wespi-Nano, FPGA "Advanced 2068"
  • October 2, 2023 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Oral-history interview with Jeff Street (OS-64 cartridge author) and Stewart Newfeld (Zebra Systems founder) · TS-Pico
  • September 17, 2023 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Joe's 3D-printed American-sized TS2068 cartridge case (adapted from Claudius's Portuguese-cartridge STL) plus David's matching 128K multi-ROM cartridge PCB with rotary image selector and write-protect switch. · FPGA "Advanced 2068"
  • September 4, 2023 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Guest Steve North on writing four ZX81/TS1000 games (Football, Miner's Revenge, Stormlander 3, Super Slide) for Fred Nachbar's Syncware in the early 1980s. · TS-Pico, FPGA "Advanced 2068"
  • August 20, 2023 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Jeff Burrell demos the working TS-Pico board — loads Frogger from SD card via LOAD TPI: · TS-Pico, FPGA "Advanced 2068"
  • August 7, 2023 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Ingo demoed a homebuilt Z80 diagnostic rig single-stepping the ZX81 ROM via a desoldered TR2 and a 555 clock · FPGA "Advanced 2068"
  • July 16, 2023 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — David walked through his tape-archiving workflow: tzxtools (tzx-wav), Fuse audio-to-tape, manual per-program extraction in Fuse, and the Fort Worth header-reader trick for load addresses. · Library Tape Archiving Process
  • July 3, 2023 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Guest Clark Calkins recounted writing the A&J Microdrive stringy-floppy driver for the ZX81/TS1000 and his ZCPM port of CP/M 2.2 · Library Tape Archiving Process
  • June 18, 2023 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Guest Richard Booth presented on his 1985 self-published math/numerical-methods book Applied Sinclair. · FPGA "Advanced 2068"
  • June 5, 2023 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Jeff Burrell's TS2068 FPGA video board is feature-complete: dual VGA, 256x192 256-color high-res, TMS9918 core, attribute-capable 64-column mode, demo written in Z88DK in ~6 hours. · FPGA "Advanced 2068", Library Tape Archiving Process, TAP-to-Cart — TS2068 Cartridge Conversion
  • May 21, 2023 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Jeff Burrell demos his FPGA video board for the TS2068 — VGA out, 80-column mode, 256×192×256-color hi-res with hardware blitter; beta units shipping in days. · FPGA "Advanced 2068", ZX-Wespi / Wespi-Nano, Library Tape Archiving Process
  • May 1, 2023 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Diamond Mike, a 40-year-old John Coffey TS2068 game, recovered from a tape in the late Bob Swoger's collection and returned to its author · Library Tape Archiving Process, "1068" — Enhanced TS1000
  • April 16, 2023 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Guest Chuck Durang — author of the original American ZX81/TS1000/TS1500/TS2068 manuals — recounted how he got the job from Nigel Searle and delivered finished, typeset manuals to Sinclair and Timex. · Library Tape Archiving Process
  • April 3, 2023 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Guest Robert Fischer details his TS1000/TS2068 gradebook: 1-byte grade storage pushed capacity past 232 students; machine-code routines from Tom Woods' Profile dropped class-average updates from 40s to ~1s.
  • March 19, 2023 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Claudius demoed "Timmy" — a from-scratch TC2048 clone board with AY sound, Atari-polarity joystick, Bluetooth tape input, and a switchable 80K RAM mode · FPGA "Advanced 2068"
  • March 6, 2023 — TSU Meeting MONDAY — Guest: George Grimm, former software manager at Timex Computer Corporation, who handled all third-party software submissions for the TS line.
  • February 19, 2023 — TSU Meeting SUNDAY — Danny Ross (Timex Computer VP/COO 1982–84) joined as guest and told the inside story of the company's rise and exit
  • February 6, 2023 — Timex Sinclair User Group Meeting — Paul Holmgren (Mechanical Affinity / TS2068 Disk Update / Indiana Sinclair-Timex BBS co-author) joined the group for the first time · ZX-Wespi / Wespi-Nano
  • January 15, 2023 — Timex Sinclair User Group Meeting with European Friends — Tim Swenson demoed two Sinclair QL emulators (SQL UX, SMSQ Emulator) and his Structured Super BASIC preprocessor · FPGA "Advanced 2068", Library Tape Archiving Process
  • January 2, 2023 — Timex Sinclair User Group Meeting — Tribute to Bob Swoger, who kept Sir Clive Alive going for ~12 years and passed away just after the Dec 18 meeting. · FPGA "Advanced 2068", Library Tape Archiving Process

2022

2021