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TSU Meeting SUNDAY — June 21, 2026

David Anderson, Jeff Burrell, Jeff Coleman, Carl, Greg, Joe, Tim, Peyton, John Mark Mobley

David opened with TS-Pico software news. The team now has Gustavo's TPI protocol working on the Pico across both ports: port 15 for control and port 14 for data. That work is on a GitHub branch, which also runs zmakebas so that a plain-text .bas file uploaded to the repo is compiled to a TAP file automatically. Multi-file TAPs such as Ryan's test suite still need work. David also showed some AI-assisted experiments. One is a fig-Forth that now runs on the 2068 as a cartridge. Another explores a Pico-aware Pascal based on HiSoft Pascal; Timex's cartridge specs had reserved an LROS slot for a Pascal that never shipped. As a first step, the 2068's slow ROM floating-point calculator (RST 28h) routines would be moved onto the Pico. He also demoed an early Defender/Choplifter-style side-scroller in Fuse that uses the 2068's 8×1 high-colour mode and checkerboard UDGs to get extra shades. A member added a caveat about copyright and AI-generated code.

Hardware updates: Jeff Burrell showed revision 3 of his FPGA "2060" board, which he expects to be final, plus a smaller, cheaper companion board. He is recording YouTube tutorials on writing cores for it. Joe is rebuilding the rotted keyboard wiring on a donated TS1000, restoring the Lucite-cased ZX81 from Bob Swoger's estate for display at VCF Midwest, and has refurbished several ZX81 boards with composite mods as demo machines. Greg plans to sync music to his ZX81 music-video project by using the ZXpand+ joystick port as a serial trigger for an Arduino audio player. David offered to build him an Openspand (RP2350-based, with a UDA1334 stereo I2S DAC) instead. Carl diagnosed a 2068 that boot-loops showing only the copyright line: moving the SCLD into a fully socketed test machine proved the SCLD itself was faulty, probably after a Spectrum DivMMC was plugged in. David noted that a European developer has a pin-for-pin SCLD replacement working in TC2068s and is now adapting it for the TS2068. Carl plans to get back to debugging the memory/M1 circuitry on his 1560 expansion, which feeds into the 1068 project.

Other discussion covered Carl's scanned-and-retouched Timex model-number nameplate file for replacing missing badges; Don Crawford's 1510 replica and cartridge work; the Chroma 81/80 and Spectra FPGA add-ons; and Dan Roy's never-produced ColorSinc 81 (TMS9918A), published in SYNC in 1983, along with the later Oliger/Nachbauer 9918 interface. Tim showed a Time Works 'control center' console from the Bill Miller collection that could go on display at shows. David also demoed the new archive website, which indexes the groups.io and Yahoo Groups history (about 13,000 messages since 2001) plus Whisper transcripts of 109 Zoom meetings, into topic and project pages.

Announcements: David has booked 24 feet of tables at VCF Midwest (September) and invited members to send projects for him to show. Jeff Coleman has passed his VCF Southwest donation box (a 2068, ZX81, TS1000, 2040 printer and a possible modem) to Joe and Ryan. The next meeting is Monday, July 6, when David Stevenson will talk about his ZX81 Xevious port and keyboard module.

Highlights

  • TS-Pico: Gustavo's two-port TPI protocol now works on the Pico, and GitHub builds TAP files from .bas source with zmakebas
  • Jeff Burrell showed the rev 3 FPGA 2060 board plus a smaller, cheaper board with core-writing tutorials on the way
  • Carl traced a boot-looping 2068 to a bad SCLD; a pin-for-pin SCLD replacement is being adapted from the TC2068 to the TS2068
  • David booked 24 ft of tables at VCF Midwest and invited members to send projects to show
  • Next meeting is Monday, July 6, with David Stevenson on his ZX81 Xevious and keyboard module

Projects discussed: TS-Pico · FPGA "Advanced 2068" · "1068" — Enhanced TS1000 · Openspand · TS1510 Cartridge Interface Clone · The Bill Miller Collection Topics: Pico / modern interfaces (UnoDos, etc.) · Hardware projects & new boards · TS1000 / ZX81 / TS1500 · Repair & restoration · TS2068 / TC2068 · Video upgrades (composite, RGB, HDMI)

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