Hi folks. Looks like I'm the new guy.
3 messages · 2004-07-07 → 2004-07-07 · Yahoo Group era · View archive on archive.org
Participants: bryankvines, Philip Kendall, Jeff
Preserved from the Timex/Sinclair 2068 Yahoo Group (2001–2019), which is no longer online. Text reproduced from the archive.org archive; email addresses masked.
Messages
1. Hi folks. Looks like I'm the new guy.
bryankvines · Wed, 07 Jul 2004 04:16
Greetings, everybody.
I wanted to say "hi", and also that I'm glad the group is here. It's tough finding *active*
sites or information devoted to the 2068 on the internet. Sometimes it seems I'm about
two or three years too late -- most sites were last updated around 2000 or 2001; a lot of
links are dead; and the Internet Archive Wayback Machine is missing a lot of information
from the dead sites.
Anyway, as an introduction, I'll tell you all a little about myself and my TS 2068.
I got started with my 2068 back around Christmas 1984 after having had a ZX-81 and TS
-1000 for about a year before that. I stopped using my 2068 around 1985 or 1986 when I
went off to tech school. I don't remember *why* I didn't take it with me to school, I only
remember that I didn't.
Almost all the software I had for the thing was stuff I had written myself. I did buy Flight
Simulator and Androids. But mostly I just wrote software for it -- games and stuff. I think I
tried writing a word processor in BASIC once, but gave up. It was too slow. :) I never got
around to learning Z80 assembler, though I wanted to.
A friend of mine had a 2068 as well. He had a Ramex floppy drive controller and a quad-
density 5.25" drive. I eventually inherited the Ramex board, but he kept the floppy drive.
So my 2068 went into storage as I moved on to Apple ][s and Macs.
Fast forward to about three weeks ago, when I found the FUSE (Free Unix Spectrum
Emulator) project on SourceForge. Along with various Spectrum flavors, it also emulates a
TC2068 which, as I understand it, is more or less the TS2068 with PAL rather than NTSC
video.
Starting up FUSE, selecting the 2068, and seeing the twin copyright notices at the bottom
of the screen brought on a fit of nostalgia that has so far resulted in the rescue of my
2068 from the attic, along with the 2040 printer.
I had my Androids tape and a tape of stuff I had written in the 2068's box, so I had to go
out and buy a cassette tape recorder. Would you believe you can't buy one of these for less
than about $25? I would have figured they would be $5 by now, but oh well. I got a nice
Sony from Circuit City and started cataloging my tape.
It turns out that Androids won't load anymore. R: Tape Loading Error. Bleah. Most all of
my other software will load, though. One of the items on the tape was my "Sci Fi" font. You
know that 60's "Computer" font? The kind the bank uses for the numbers on the bottom of
a check? I did an entire uppercase font for the 2068 -- poked the values in and changed
the memory pointer that controls whether to use the characters from the ROM or
elsewhere. I also did a "Cursive" font, but I can't find that anywhere.
I guess those were the good old days, when I could spend six hours a night for a week
working on a software project. Not having a girlfriend or much of a social life contributed
significantly to this. :)
So anyway, I've got my 2068 set up with a 16" color TV, the 2040 printer, and my Sony
cassette tape recorder. I found a utility called "PlayTZX" that will play a TZX file through the
sound output port of a modern desktop computer. A lot of you are probably familiar with
it -- It's a command-line utility available for Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows. I wrote a nice
Mac OS X GUI for it, to make it a little easier to use. As a test, I downloaded MScript as a
.TZX file, played it out to tape, and loaded the tape on the 2068. It worked, I was happy.
Once I get the documentation written, I may post it in the Files section if anybody is
interested.
Okay, I'll stop typing now and let you get back to whatever it was you were doing. I've got
a few questions about TS2068 video, but I'll wait a few days before I post them.
Thanks for being here, y'all!
--
Bryan K. Vines
2. Re: [ts2068] Hi folks. Looks like I'm the new guy.
Philip Kendall · Thu, 8 Jul 2004 00:58:
On Wed, Jul 07, 2004 at 04:16:38AM -0000, bryankvines wrote:
>
> Fast forward to about three weeks ago, when I found the FUSE (Free Unix Spectrum
> Emulator) project on SourceForge. Along with various Spectrum flavors, it also emulates a
> TC2068 which, as I understand it, is more or less the TS2068 with PAL rather than NTSC
> video.
</lurk>
3. Re: Hi folks. Looks like I'm the new guy.
Jeff · Wed, 07 Jul 2004 22:46
Hey Bryan.
I too messed around with a ZX81 for a while. When I was in the Air
Force I helped a security police buddy of mine write a program for
tracking crimes for the ZX81. That is where I first learned machine
language and the arcana of using the "little black doorstop."
I moved on to a 2068 when another friend sold it to buy a CP/M
machine. I had a lot of good times with that machine until I blew up
the SCLD. Luckily Jack Boarwright had an extra I was able to
purchase at a very reasonable price.
I haven't been too active with it for a few years because of job
pressures but I do roll it out every now and then to play around with
it. It is still surprising just how good this little machine is even
after all of these years.