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TSU Meeting SUNDAY — April 26, 2026

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David, Ricardo Calcagno, Ingo, Adam Trionfo, Mike Hart, Jeff Burrell, Jeff K., Mowgli, Ryan Gray, Joe

David opened with a long trip report from VCF East in Wall, NJ (held at the InfoAge Science/Computer Museum), where he and Ricardo Calcagno staffed the Timex/Sinclair table — apparently the first time Sinclair/Timex machines had been shown at that event. Foot traffic was heavy on Saturday, and several show organizers thanked them for filling the gap. The weekend ended with the whole site being evacuated by police (a swatting call, cleared by bomb-sniffing dogs after a two-hour wait in the rain). Ricardo and David spent some bench time at the table working on the TSPico, and the broader VCF picture turned to VCF West (Aug 1–2 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View): Ingo wants to attend and is hoping others — Tim Swenson included — can join him for a KiloZed table.

Ingo gave a long KiloZed update: he and his brother are within striking distance of releasing all the open-source files (STLs and Gerbers) for the case and keyboard. He showed prototype prints (PLA, fast-mode, intentionally rough), demonstrated the threaded-insert mounting, the new Westby carrier-board pocket, and the reduced heat sink. A second design, the "KiloZed E" emulator keyboard, is in prototype: a USB keyboard housing the KiloZed PCB and key caps, with a microcontroller buffering keystrokes so the Zeddy never drops them. The keycap Kickstarter (ending in about a week) is adding four bonus keys: ZX81-style RUB OUT and NEW LINE, a red ZX81 legend key, and a "Zedhead" key. Ingo and the group also kicked around hinged-display add-ons, plexiglass windows for showing internals, Ryobi/M18-style tool-battery power for a portable Zeddy, and how to package a real "kit" without becoming Heathkit's repair desk — the leading idea is a parts-bundle-plus-printed-case rather than a true beginner kit.

On the disk-archiving front, David has been working through a large box of 5.25" floppies sent by Paul Holmgren (and others), with Joe doing the imaging. The disks span Larken, Oligar (both the slot-numbered v1 DOS and the later filenamed v2), AERCO/RPM, and even some Sinclair QL disks, with oddball 41/42/43-track variants. David has been using Claude to reverse-engineer unknown formats from raw images (typically 30–40 minutes per format) and to build a desktop browser/extractor — including export of TS2068 custom fonts to OpenType and extraction of Zebra Pixel Print–style icon graphics. Ricardo suggested using the font tooling to swap the default font flashed into the TSPico's Pico ROM. Ryan recovered his 1984 banner program off a user-group tape and posted an updated version that now handles inverse and UDG characters.

On TSPico debugging, David and Ricardo think the intermittent fault sits on a single data line during the hand-off from SD-card access back to the 2068: if the line is in an indeterminate state when Gustavo's ROM samples it, the ROM resumes too early and the next Pico command lands as garbage. They suspect subtle differences between official Raspberry Pi–sourced Picos and the China-sourced batch (the LED brightness is a giveaway) may matter. They walked through a Claude-assisted PIO solution that uses one PIO program across ports 14 and 15 with a local register to trap D6 — fitting inside the PIO's 32-instruction budget. Ricardo and David each have their own preferred fix and will see which holds up. Ingo also reported that Jay Mundy has volunteered to join him and Carl on troubleshooting the 1068 v2 board, and Ingo will be shipping Jay one of the boards Carl handed out at VCF Midwest. The next meeting is Monday May 4 at 9 p.m.; David flagged a Czech-made Spectrum Paint Studio JavaScript app and will try to get its author to come present.

Highlights

  • VCF East recap: David and Ricardo ran the first-ever Timex/Sinclair table there; show evacuated Sunday for a swatting call.
  • KiloZed nearing open-source release of case + keyboard files; "KiloZed E" USB emulator keyboard with a keystroke buffer is in prototype.
  • Keycap Kickstarter gains four bonus keys (RUB OUT, NEW LINE, ZX81 legend, "Zedhead") with about a week left to back.
  • Floppy archiving with Joe is producing tooling for Larken/Oligar/AERCO/QL disks, with Claude-assisted format reverse-engineering and OpenType font export.
  • TSPico fault traced to a D6 hand-off race; a Claude-designed PIO program covering ports 14+15 is the leading fix, and Jay Mundy joins the 1068 v2 board team.

Projects discussed: TS-Pico · "1068" — Enhanced TS1000 · Library Tape Archiving Process Topics: User group meetings & events · Hardware projects & new boards · Pico / modern interfaces (UnoDos, etc.) · TS1000 / ZX81 / TS1500 · Disk & floppy systems (Larken, AERCO, Oliger) · Tape & library archiving (TAP/TZX)

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