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TSU Meeting SUNDAY — January 19, 2025

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David Anderson, Tim Swenson, Adam Trionfo, Carl Miles, Paul Anderson, David Green, Mike (Michael), Mowgli (Vokely), Ricardo Calcagno, Richard Burt, Larry Lorenson, Joe

Most of the meeting centred on Tim Swenson's first-ever hard-copy print run of ZXZine #11 — 75 saddle-stapled, full-colour, 22-page copies, paid for from the Bill Miller Collection fund (about $11/copy to print, ~$3/copy to ship). David contributed a feature on the TS-Pico (including the behind-the-scenes development history and Gustavo's role), and Tim wrote up Carl Miles' TS1510 cartridge-interface clone with Carl reviewing for accuracy. Tim walked through his production workflow (QL + Quill on a netbook → Quill-to-PC → LibreOffice for final layout) and confirmed the zine will continue, with code/listings shipped in a companion zip rather than printed in the magazine. Ricardo Calcagno volunteered to contribute a series on low-level / assembly programming and the TS-Pico API for an upcoming issue.

The second main thread was planning a Timex/Sinclair presence at VCF Midwest 2026 (Schaumburg, IL, September 12–13, with set-up on the 11th–12th). David committed to driving from Buffalo and getting a hotel; Mowgli (on the VCF Midwest staff) explained set-up logistics, table arrangements, attendance (~1,500), and recommended O'Hare over Midway. The Albuquerque trio (Carl, Adam, Ryan) discussed flying in together. The group agreed to coordinate on the groups.io list so members don't duplicate display items, and floated showing the machines on a period-correct CRT next to a composite monitor and an LCD so visitors can see how the TS2068 video actually looked in 1983.

Technical discussion covered the TS2068 vs ZX Spectrum character ROM — specifically the one-pixel-vs-two-pixel gap in the lowercase M and W that Tim Horner discovered while building his 2040-printer emulator, and the TrueType font he produced that captures both the Timex glyphs and the Sinclair block-graphics. The 64-column word processor M-script was discussed as an apparent solo PC-DOS-to-2068 port (likely by Mark Fendrick) that is awkward to use under emulation because of the tape-save model; it works much better on real hardware with a TS-Pico. Adam reported good results training ChatGPT on the Astrocade programming manual to help understand and debug type-in BASIC listings, noting that the context limit eventually catches up with you.

Hardware odds and ends: Carl showed a Suntronics keyboard case housing a 1K ZX81 board (silk-screened keycaps, RF-shielded interior), Mike walked through TS1500 board variants — the original 8× 16Kx1 DRAM version, the cost-reduced Portuguese 2× 4-bit DRAM version, the ULA→SCLD transition, and the buffer-chip-replaced-with-resistors variant — and described his own 1500 with a ZXVID composite mod and a Retro Computer membrane keyboard. Carl and Jeff floated the idea of adapting a Spectrum-style diagnostic cartridge to the TS2068 bus. Mike also brought up Bruce Taylor's How to Build Your Computer-Controlled Robot (ZX81-based, originally tab-published, eventually self-published using a 2068 and a Gorilla Banana printer), which David proposed reaching out to Taylor about for a future meeting talk.

Highlights

  • ZXZine #11 shipped as the project's first hard-copy print run — 75 full-colour saddle-stapled copies, funded entirely by the Bill Miller Collection sale proceeds.
  • David's TS-Pico feature and Tim's write-up of Carl Miles' TS1510 clone (Carl-reviewed for accuracy) are the headline articles in issue 11.
  • Ricardo Calcagno volunteered to write a TS-Pico low-level / Z80 assembly / API series for a future ZXZine, filling a gap not covered by the existing manual.
  • Group is organising a Timex/Sinclair table at VCF Midwest 2026 in Schaumburg (Sept 12–13) — David driving from Buffalo, Mowgli on the event staff, multiple members planning to attend.
  • Tim Horner's TrueType font for the TS2068 captures the one-pixel-vs-two-pixel M/W difference vs the ZX Spectrum plus the Sinclair block-graphics glyphs.

Projects discussed: The Bill Miller Collection · TS-Pico · TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone Topics: Newsletters & documentation · User group meetings & events · Pico / modern interfaces (UnoDos, etc.) · TS1000 / ZX81 / TS1500 · Video upgrades (composite, RGB, HDMI) · Utilities & applications

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