TSU Meeting MONDAY — November 6, 2023
David Anderson, Tim Swenson, Lewis Cordoba, Carl Miles, Adam Trionfo, Ryan Gray, Jeff Burrell, Mark, Jay, Paul Anderson, Bruno, Johnny, Hugo, Alvaro, Gustavo
Tim Swenson opened with the rescue of Bill Miller's collection. Bill, a longtime Bay Area Timex/Sinclair user (and meticulous journaller — the group marvelled at his tiny-print "Sync Link" mailings, post-it inventory system, and draftsman handwriting), had passed away; his family found the groups.io list by Googling Timex/Sinclair and reached out. Tim and Lewis sorted the garage, kept the Sinclair material, and passed Osbornes/Apricots and dumpster leftovers to a Bay Area vintage-computing collector. Tim has now priced and emailed buyers, with shipping via Pirate Ship; popular items included the cart, the States and Capitals cartridge, A&J/Exatron/Waffa stringy-floppy drives and media, ZX81 software (some still shrink-wrapped, including a possibly-undumped title "Popstar"), and a 2068 with an unusual stacked keyboard overlay. Compatibility between Exatron and A&J 1000/2000 drives and their differing tape formats was worked out on the call so the right media ships with each drive.
Lewis Cordoba (long-absent) reappeared and recounted the Unixville-hosted pre-Yahoo 2068 mailing list and website, and how he first got hold of a 2068 in 1980s Argentina after Timex dumped US inventory there — which threaded into a longer discussion with Johnny, Hugo and Alvaro (joining at ~3 a.m. from Portugal) about Timex of Portugal continuing production after the US shutdown, the slightly different cartridge-port pinout and ROM-CS behaviour on the Portuguese 2068, the lost SCLD logic diagrams (PAL reverse-engineered locally, NTSC still missing), the Terminal 3000 (same case, keypad in place of the cartridge slot, used with FDD3000/CP/M), and the lost injection-mould tooling. Argentinian developers Ricardo and Gustavo continue work on their FDD3000-derived disk system, and Gustavo joined live.
David showed Lon Hildreth's Timex notebook and supporting paperwork — Lon's job had been porting CP/M to the 2068, and the notebook documents 2068 init, ROS-cartridge behaviour, system-config tables, a proposed 32K ROM expansion, plus Carol Corcoran enhancement/bug-fix memos and 2060 bus-expansion docs. Everything is being scanned (including VAX/VMS green-bar Pascal source listings) and uploaded to Archive.org. The 2060 expansion document and the bank-switching chip notes are already up. The group also discussed making new 2068 cases: scan an original, then either silicone-mould small runs or do an injection-mould run of ~50–100; Mark offered to get a Shapeways quote, and Carl proposed a modular base PCB for a reimagined 2060 with two 2068 expansion ports plus a Spectrum edge.
Jeff/Tim/Ricardo/Gustavo's TS-Pico got a detailed walk-through: Raspberry Pi Pico brain, 512K SRAM, 512K flash holding Gustavo's modified Timex OS plus a lightly-patched Spectrum ROM, SD-card slot, MicroPython user extensions loaded at boot. Gustavo explained that the new ROM supports LOAD/SAVE/VERIFY/MERGE and DATA arrays with full Timex-OS compatibility, can mix tape and SD in one session, uses TAP as its native format (chosen over TZX for size — one byte free in ROM), and handles headerless blocks the way many games need. Wi-Fi is planned but awaiting the original Timex TS-NET command spec. Adam reported on the Albuquerque mini-meet (he, Carl and Ryan all live in the same town), Lewis demoed and plugged the new community Discord (with Brett as co-admin), Tim talked through his QL IRC client (now polished up by Dylan Jones, shipping a v2) and the QL community's size, and David showed his Affinity-Publisher-laid-out TS-Pico manual. Next meeting: Sunday Nov 19, 2 p.m. Eastern, picking up the 2060 / next-2068 design discussion.
Highlights
- Bill Miller's Timex/Sinclair collection rescued, catalogued and being shipped out to buyers; Tim Swenson coordinating pricing and Pirate Ship logistics.
- Lon Hildreth's Timex-era CP/M notebook, 2060 expansion docs and Carol Corcoran bug-fix memos scanned and uploaded to Archive.org.
- TS-Pico walk-through: Pico + 512K SRAM + 512K flash, modified Timex OS, SD card and tape in one session, MicroPython extensions, Wi-Fi planned.
- Portuguese contingent (Johnny, Hugo, Alvaro) joined at 3 a.m. and detailed the surviving Timex Portugal hardware story, Terminal 3000 and lost SCLD/case tooling.
- Community Discord server launched (admins Lewis Cordoba and Brett); next meeting Sunday Nov 19, 2 p.m. Eastern to pick up the 2060 / next-gen 2068 design.
Projects discussed: The Bill Miller Collection · TS-Pico Topics: For sale, wanted & collections · Pico / modern interfaces (UnoDos, etc.) · Tape & library archiving (TAP/TZX) · Timex Computer (European: TC2048/3256) · Cartridges, EPROM & dumping · Hardware projects & new boards
Summary generated from the meeting recording; the full transcript is kept in the group's private archive.