TSU Meeting SUNDAY — December 17, 2023

David, Adam Trionfo, Ryan Gray, Carl Miles, João, Johnny, Gustavo, Eric, Jeff Burrell, David Solly, Rich, Mark M

Last meeting of the year, opening on Christmas BASIC programs. David typed in a Yule Log program and Ryan cleaned up the UDGs (the right candle was sharing graphics with the left); Ryan also demoed his new font editor, which toggles UDGs into the A–U slots, shows byte numbers for quick DATA-statement entry, and supports copy-paste — release targeted before Christmas. Ryan then ran his own 1984 Christmas scene from tape, rebuilt to fill the snow hill from a sine wave (faster than the original arc/point-check), with a packed reindeer UDG and a cowboy-hat Santa. David noted timexsinclair.com returns 141 hits on "Christmas," including Bob Swogger's Christmas-label programs.

João (Museu de Informática) gave a long update from Portugal. The SCLD documentation is still held up waiting on Hugo's interview with Alvaro (the SCLD recreator) to be finalized. The revamped Timex Computer World site — covering TC3256, the Argentine machines, and the test ROMs referenced in the Portuguese service manuals — is set to launch early in the new year. The museum has just delivered a one-hour documentary on Timex Portugal (watches, Ugin Suida POS systems, the Swedish-company work, the IBM projects) to Portuguese national TV (RTP) for 2024 air; rights sit with RTP, so a public release depends on convincing them to subtitle it. A four-episode "Indiana Jones"-style mini-series about the museum is also in production. Upcoming events: the Spectrum Game of the Year ceremony around 10–17 February, and an international demo-scene gathering in April/May around the Spectrum's birthday. Jim Bagley (Cabal / Midnight Resistance ports, Spectrum Next team) recently visited to mentor local game devs, and Rui demonstrated an industrial robotic arm driven from BASIC on a ZX Spectrum over a custom RS-232 board (built with Alvaro) plus divMMC — shown at Lisboa Games Week with a suction gripper for a tic-tac-toe demo. Gustavo separately confirmed that a Portuguese FDD3000 document João shared finally pins down the nibble-vs-byte mode protocol of the M397 interface, and João/Johnny walked through the known FDD3000 hardware variants (with vs. without the secondary flip-flop board).

The bulk of the meeting was Q&A on the TS-Pico, which has been shipping for about a month at v1.0. Gustavo and Jeff fielded questions: 32 GB FAT32 micro-SD works fine (HC, not XC); reset isn't available on the 2068 cartridge port and the Pico boot time exceeds the 2068's, so a cartridge-format Pico isn't viable today — a BEU-style expansion is the more realistic near-term path. TAP is the only supported tape format (no TZX, since TZX is mainly needed for non-standard/copy-protected loaders and the Pico uses a separate I/O port instead of 254). Save currently writes each save to its own TAP rather than appending to an open one — flagged for v1.1, along with "bumper-bowling" input forgiveness. High-soft Pascal's native tape save likely won't work through the Pico. Spectrum-mode boot is being prototyped by Ricardo: a Spectrum ROM in one of the Pico's flash slots, with OUT-command glue and an auto-switch after loading. Updates are done by holding the Pico's button while plugging USB, then dragging the new firmware to the virtual pendrive. The dock-bank mapping gives access to the full flash/SRAM (chunk 3 must stay put for stack/system vars, chunks 0/1 for ROM), and a directory can already be loaded into a numeric+string array — opening the door to a Norton-Commander-style file browser. Eric described his in-progress 2068 GUI (compiled C, joystick-mouse, UDG icons per file extension, screen-stream wallpapers) and discussed how to host it from Pico flash. Willie has the Pico working alongside his JLO disk + printer system; David and Rich's Larken systems should also work with config tweaks Ricardo provided.

Other items: Jeff Burrell demoed his new Pico-based video board — a cheaper alternative to the FPGA route — with VGA out, and confirmed both 32-column and 64-column Timex modes are working. Carl and Ryan recapped an in-person Atari-focused meetup in Albuquerque with Rick and Brian (Rick showed a modem he'd built back in the day; reminiscing about Ernie and his Dymo-labeled gear). New attendee Mark M introduced himself — TS2068 in his bedroom as a kid, now weighing whether to start his 10-year-old on an Apple II, an Arduino/Pi, or BASIC on a classic. David proposed using GoFundMe money to set up a paid GitHub organization as a common home for community TS2068 projects (Pico, Eric's GUI, Ryan's fonts and programs, etc.), with the next meeting on New Year's Day, 1 January 2024 at 9 p.m.

Highlights

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
Ricardo prototyping Spectrum-mode boot on TS-Pico via a Spectrum ROM in a flash slot with auto-ROM-switch after load
Museu de Informática delivered a one-hour Timex Portugal documentary to RTP for 2024 air; GOTY ceremony in Feb and demo-scene event in Apr/May
Jeff Burrell demoed a lower-cost Pico-based VGA video board with 32- and 64-column Timex modes verified
David proposed a community GitHub organization (funded via GoFundMe) as a shared home for TS2068 projects; next meeting 1 Jan 2024, 9 p.m.

Projects discussed: TS-Pico Topics: Pico / modern interfaces (UnoDos, etc.) · TS2068 / TC2068 · BASIC programming · Video upgrades (composite, RGB, HDMI) · Timex Computer (European: TC2048/3256) · Disk & floppy systems (Larken, AERCO, Oliger)

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