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TSU Meeting MONDAY — September 4, 2023

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David, Steve North, Tim Swenson, Ryan Gray, Jeff Burrell, Gustavo, Paul Anderson, Willie, Jay, Bob

Special guest Steve North joined the meeting to talk about the four ZX81 / TS1000 games he wrote in the early 1980s — Football, Miner's Revenge, Stormlander 3, and Super Slide — sold through Fred Nachbar's Syncware operation in Canada. Steve recounted soldering the ZX81 kit together, writing everything in BASIC as long chains of IF/THEN logic, saving to cassette, and eventually moving on from programming to a career in comedy. The group walked him through emulator demos of his own games, pointed him at archived copies on timexsinclair.com, and discussed the larger Sinclair/Timex preservation effort, the ongoing Zoom meetings, and the loss of Fred Nachbar.

Jeff Burrell gave a status update on the TS-Pico mass-storage project he's been pushing forward with Ricardo Calcagno and Gustavo (Argentina), with help from Tim Horton in New Zealand. The Raspberry Pi Pico–based cartridge talks directly to the TS2068 bus, currently stores files in the Pico's onboard flash (SD-card support is next, Ricardo just got boards in hand), and the backplane includes jumpers so it can coexist with legacy disk systems like JLO and AERCO via the bank-enable line. Hardware is essentially done and software is close; the team is aiming for a November release to coincide with the TS2068's 40th anniversary, with documentation still to be written.

Willie reported that his JLO clones — both boards plus the Centronics printer interface — are built and recognizing commands; he's waiting on a small power connector to hook up a drive, and he's working with Jay to list them for sale. Discussion turned to JLO/Larken coexistence (the Larken-off cartridge lets both run together), getting a GoTek floppy emulator working with JLO, and a long-ago Update Magazine survey of 2068 disk-system market share (JLO and Larken both ~47%, AERCO 19%, Zebra 8%). Paul Anderson talked about the public-domain library he assembled years ago for the proposed Sinclair North America User Group (SNUG); David has now read a box of Paul's old Oliger disks with a Greaseweasel and found that some of those PD disks have come full circle back into the archive.

Tim Swenson teased an upcoming ZXZine issue and a game he's writing in C for the ZX81, and asked the group for help with a ZX BASIC (Boriel) compiler bug on the TS2068 where printing floating-point numbers crashes or prints garbage — the values appear to land in VARS rather than on the calculator stack. Ryan Gray reported fixing another zmakebas bug (a Spectrum-Next parser case that dropped floating-point bytes from generated BASIC) and recommended pulling a recent build. The meeting ended with a long brainstorm — sparked by Ryan and joined by Jeff and David — on what a hypothetical "next" Timex/Sinclair machine should be: a modest 1980s-style evolutionary successor, a Spectrum-Next-style FPGA modernization, or a Pico/Pi-hosted system with an extended Sinclair BASIC that can reach modern resources. The group agreed to continue the discussion at the next Sunday meeting, keeping the KISS principle and a realistic price point in mind.

Highlights

  • 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 mass-storage board: hardware essentially done, SD-card support next, targeting a November release for the TS2068's 40th anniversary.
  • Willie's JLO clones (both boards + Centronics printer interface) are working; he's coordinating with Jay to make them available for sale.
  • Tim Swenson flagged a ZX BASIC (Boriel) compiler bug where printing floating-point values crashes; Ryan Gray fixed another zmakebas Spectrum-Next parser bug affecting ZX81 output.
  • Long brainstorm on what a hypothetical "next" Timex/Sinclair machine should be — modest 1980s-style successor vs. FPGA modernization vs. Pico-hosted extended BASIC; to be continued next meeting.

Projects discussed: TS-Pico · FPGA "Advanced 2068" Topics: TS1000 / ZX81 / TS1500 · Games · TS2068 / TC2068 · Pico / modern interfaces (UnoDos, etc.) · Disk & floppy systems (Larken, AERCO, Oliger) · Hardware projects & new boards

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