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Timex Sinclair User Group Meeting with European Friends — February 20, 2022

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David, Adam Trionfo, Scott Hardin, Joaquin, Jay Siegel, Jeff Burrell, Joao, Keith, Richard Burt, Stewart Newfeld

Round-robin introductions brought in two newcomers — Scott Hardin (a returning Timex fan who now restores UK Spectrums for the US market) and Joaquin from France (long-time ZX Spectrum user, now a software engineer) — alongside regulars Adam Trionfo, Jay Siegel, Jeff Burrell, Joao (Portugal), Keith, Richard Burt (Ontario), Stewart Newfeld, and host David. Much of the meeting was a tour of David's recently-published reference book on Timex/Sinclair products — a ~500-page Volume 1 catalog that emerged from his website database and documents more than 900 companies and 3,000+ products; he is also working on a 2068-specific follow-up and a bibliography volume.

Joao walked the group through the Portuguese scene: the Planeta Sinclair blog (founded 2016 by Andre Leao), its companion museum effort, and the upcoming "Portuguese Programmers for the ZX Spectrum, Sinclair and Timex Machines" book launching 23 April on the Spectrum's 40th anniversary. He explained how the Portuguese community has grown the catalog of known native software from ~30 to ~1,000 titles, how he routes any tapes he acquires to Andre for preservation (including unwrapping sealed copies), and how the "Gothic" ZX Spectrum game-of-the-year ceremony has evolved into a streamed live event. He also discussed Timex Portugal's role assembling Spectrum hardware, the lack of serial-number records, why both Timex and Sinclair badges circulated in Portugal, and the proliferation of Soviet/Eastern-European Spectrum clones (~150 city-by-city variants).

On hardware, David demoed two Harlequin Spectrum-clone boards (Don Lekei's TTL re-implementation of the ULA) — a 48K variant and a 128K "Nuvo" with built-in DivMMC, IDE, AY sound, and switchable NTSC/PAL via the AD724 — and warned that build success depends on using exactly the specified HC/HCT chips because of video-timing sensitivity. Rick showed a no-ULA ZX81 replacement board from Germany plus a reproduction ZX81 case sourced from Portugal. Stuart announced he has ~100 surplus ZX81 membrane keyboards and a blister-pack of channel-36 Aztec RF modulators he is trying to move to European buyers, and is reselling Carl/Ginger Electronic's tactile ZX81 keyboard kits (~$15). The group discussed Eastern European Spectrum clones (Pentagon, Leningrad, Hobbit) and how they replaced the Ferranti ULA with discrete TTL.

Software/usage topics: the OS-64 cartridge and the quirks of the 2068's 64-column mode (the OUT command enables it but actually displaying 64 columns requires custom machine-code rendering since the second display file overlays system variables); David typing in BASIC listings using a text editor plus Tim Swenson's shell script that maps full-word keywords to TZX via Fuse (Stud Poker, Clover, Obstacle Run, an in-progress Super Star Trek port); Andrew Owen's SE BASIC and his open-source ESXDOS alternative; AERCO/Larken DOCK-bank cards and a CAI Instruments I/O interface Keith found. Closing discussion centered on storage replacements for the ZX81 — ZXpand (Charlie/Sir Morris, supply-constrained) is the current consensus, and Jeff Feta has a CF-card save/load board in development.

Highlights

  • David's ~500-page Timex/Sinclair products reference book (Vol 1) documents 900+ companies and 3,000+ products
  • Joao detailed the Planeta Sinclair preservation effort and the Portuguese-programmers book launching 23 April on the Spectrum's 40th anniversary
  • Demo of two Harlequin Spectrum-clone boards (48K and 128K Nuvo with DivMMC/AY/IDE) and discussion of TTL chip-family sensitivity
  • Stuart offered ~100 surplus ZX81 membranes and Aztec RF modulators to European buyers, and is reselling Ginger Electronic's tactile ZX81 keyboard kit
  • OS-64 enables 64-column mode on the 2068 but full 64-column rendering still requires custom machine code — the tech-manual example reportedly was never debugged

Topics: User group meetings & events · Tape & library archiving (TAP/TZX) · ZX Spectrum · Timex Computer (European: TC2048/3256) · TS1000 / ZX81 / TS1500 · Hardware projects & new boards

Summary generated from the meeting recording; the full transcript is kept in the group's private archive.