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TSU Meeting MONDAY — August 3, 2026

David, Ingo, Carl, Stuart, Joe, Mowgli, Ryan, Peyton, Willie, Paul, Charlie, Mark

Ingo gave a KiloZed update. 3D Keycap (Loic) has shipped free replacement keycaps to the Kickstarter backers, in 3D-printed slide-open cases. Seven keys in the original run were wrong. The new set uses the original checkerboard 'dithered grey' pattern instead of flat grey, with the white squares shrunk about 10% so they print cleanly. Ingo also redesigned the keyboard PCB in KiCad. The case screws now come in from the bottom through threaded inserts, the board takes hot-swap receptacles so switches can be changed without desoldering, and the 3D-printed bezel holds the switches square while you solder. A new ZX-Wespi carrier board puts the VGA connector directly on the board and fits inside the KiloZed case. Next steps are publishing open-source files on GitHub, ordering boards in larger quantities, and surveying backers on whether they want a kit or a finished keyboard. Full KiloZed kits are waiting on the 1068 motherboard.

David showed Don Crawford and Dave Smanette's 'Timex Sinclair 1526'. It is a 3D-printed console built around the OpenSpand board and an Olimex Pico 2XL, with a joystick port, composite video, an audio jack with a MAX98357 I2S amplifier, and a reset button. Its cartridges are about the size of TS1510 cartridges and hold a microSD card. It is for sale on Tindie for about $150. The group also talked about how OpenSpand makes video from the expansion bus without a ULA video output. Carl laid out his plan for the 1068 ('Enhanced TS1000'): strip it down to a basic 16K machine to track down the RAM and M1-NOT problems, then add features back in time for VCF Midwest. Later, the AY chip's I/O port could switch memory banks and M1-NOT in software.

Stuart (Zebra Systems) showed 4-chip and 6-chip Zebra Talker boards built around the SC-01 speech chip. He described his assembly-language version of the NBS text-to-phoneme rules and said he wants all Zebra documentation and schematics online and open. He may also reissue the keyboard beeper and possibly the Talker as new boards. Joe will try to get a Zebra Talker running for VCF Midwest. Items pulled from storage included a Zebra/FDD-3000 disk interface ('twister'), an AERCO Centronics printer interface, a Group Technology FDZX1 I/O board for the TS1000, a SMUG TS2068 video digitizer board, and a Spectrum ROM 'twister' board from Doug Dewey's Interlingua. Willie has spare Oliger Kempston-style joystick boards and is building more Oliger disk-drive sets. Other topics were Bill Peterson's 256K RAM and bank-switching material, and a German Sinclair QL book that Mowgli found at VCF Europe.

Ryan demonstrated ULA Plus palettes on Jeff's Pico video, using new utilities in the TS-Pico 'no file' menu. ULA Plus uses 3-bit red and green and 2-bit blue, and the flash and bright attributes select one of four palette groups. Ryan arranged the groups as dark/bright ink on dark/bright paper, which gives a muted 16-colour text palette that includes brown, orange, and purple. He also showed a palette editor and plans routines you can MERGE into programs and a way to save palettes to TAP. Announcements: the next meeting moves to the 23rd, and the group is coordinating attendance at VCF Midwest (about September 12).

Highlights

  • KiloZed: free checkerboard replacement keycaps shipped to backers; new hot-swap keyboard PCB and ZX-Wespi carrier board fit in the case
  • Timex Sinclair 1526: Pico-based OpenSpand console with microSD cartridges, ~$150 on Tindie
  • Stuart plans to put all Zebra Systems documentation online and may reissue the Zebra Talker and keyboard beeper
  • Old hardware pulled from storage: Zebra Talker variants, SMUG 2068 video digitizer, Interlingua Spectrum ROM twister
  • Ryan demoed ULA Plus palettes and a palette editor on Pico video through the TS-Pico utility menu

Projects discussed: ZX-Wespi / Wespi-Nano · Openspand · "1068" — Enhanced TS1000 · TS-Pico Topics: Hardware projects & new boards · TS1000 / ZX81 / TS1500 · Pico / modern interfaces (UnoDos, etc.) · Video upgrades (composite, RGB, HDMI) · Disk & floppy systems (Larken, AERCO, Oliger) · TS2068 / TC2068

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