TSU Meeting SUNDAY — May 21, 2023

David, Adam Trionfo, Ryan Gray, Paul, Jeff Burrell, Ingo, Gustavo, Dario, Stewart, Tim, Larry Lorenson

The third-Sunday meeting opened with Adam recapping an Albuquerque get-together with Ryan and Carl, where Carl replaced a failed modern composite-video mod in Adam's TS1000 (the board's pot-adjustable section had died on a second machine too, so Carl is working on a fix). David then walked through PDFs Carl had recently uploaded — handwritten Z80 listings of a 2068 hardware-test cartridge Carl wrote as a teenager for a guy named Art, a Spectrum-ROM-in-2068 mod, and the discovery that "M&B Software" was Carl Miles (M) and John Brown (B). Adam, working from David's contact list, had just tracked down several local New Mexico Timex figures — John Brown, Dan Tanberg, and Alex Barber (publisher of the long-running QZX-flavored ham newsletter) — and urged others to try reaching people local to them.

Jeff Burrell gave the main demo: his FPGA-based video board for the TS2068. It snoops the Timex bus, captures display files into FPGA SRAM, and outputs VGA (640×480). Working modes include standard Timex video on either output, a built-in 80-column text mode (demonstrated with MScript), and a new 256×192×256-color high-res mode with a hardware blitter (rectangle fill, copy, XOR, transparent foreground/background compositing against the Timex layer). A VDP 9918 core is in place; ULA-plus and 9958 cores are partly done. He plans to ship beta units in a few days. Gustavo and others probed raster sync, Aquaplane-style border tricks, aspect-ratio handling on 16:9 monitors, and whether a blitter for standard Timex memory would be worth adding.

Ingo showed a 3D-printed oversized ZX81 case his brother modeled in Pro/E, sized to fit a full mechanical keyboard, with room inside for a switching 5 V PSU (or 9 V to keep the existing Traco regulator) — and, Jeff noted, easily enough room to drop the FPGA video board inside. Ryan dug into how Keith Watson's hacked .dck for the Vario(us) emulator gives a 2068 microdrive support: it bundles a modified "Series 1" interface ROM (a Sinclair Interface 1 work-alike) with part of the Timex home ROM, with the emulator's TSR hook servicing the I/O. The goal is to make the same approach work on real hardware (likely via the BackBit cart, which has shown some cartridge-loading quirks), eventually pointing at an SD-backed fake microdrive. David hinted that an SD-card device for native 2068 save/load (TAP-based, not Interface 1 syntax) is already in the works.

David reported on the avalanche of cassettes now in his hands: boxes from Bob Swoger's collection (via John), more tapes from Jim, and a banana box of Syncware News submissions that Basil Worthington had passed to Paul — eight inches of cassettes, including unpublished programming-contest entries, Zebra-Systems titles (Tech Draw, Zebra Paint, 80-column print utility), commercial Data Asset software, the supporting tapes for the Fred Nachbaur / John Oliger TMS9918 add-on, John Coffee's lost 2068 game Diamond Mike, Keith Watson's compressor-horsepower program, and Wes Brzezowski's 64-column BASIC routine. He's using FUSE plus tzx-tools to extract from WAVs and is open to sharing raw recordings via Google Drive so others can help process them. Stewart checked in (mostly off Timex lately, exploring ChatGPT as a Spanish tutor). Ingo and others compared notes on ChatGPT for Z80 assembly — useful as a brainstorming partner but unreliable on flag behavior (it kept apologizing and reversing itself). Dario shared images of Quicksilva-branded TS2068 tapes whose provenance doesn't match David's Quicksilva tapes, opening a new mystery. Tim said his cross-platform emulator-setup guide (Windows / Linux / DOS for Vario) is ready to publish. Next meeting: Monday June 5, 9 PM Eastern; June 18 guest speaker is Robert Booth on his TS1000/2068 mathematical-applications book.

Highlights

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.
David uncovers that "M&B Software" was a Carl Miles / John Brown collaboration from Carl's teenage years, via handwritten Z80 listings Carl just shared.
Adam tracks down several long-lost local New Mexico Timex figures (John Brown, Dan Tanberg, Alex Barber) by cold-calling from David's contact list.
Massive cassette influx: Bob Swoger's collection plus a banana box of Syncware News submissions (via Basil Worthington/Paul) — including the recovered lost game Diamond Mike.
Ryan dissects Keith Watson's Series 1 / Interface 1 .dck hack with an eye to running microdrive emulation on real 2068 hardware; David teases an in-progress native SD-card device.

Projects discussed: FPGA "Advanced 2068" · ZX-Wespi / Wespi-Nano · Library Tape Archiving Process Topics: TS2068 / TC2068 · Hardware projects & new boards · Pico / modern interfaces (UnoDos, etc.) · Video upgrades (composite, RGB, HDMI) · Tape & library archiving (TAP/TZX) · Machine code, Z80 & assemblers

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