Timex Sinclair 2000 Picture and News from "Creative Computing" (April
1983)
3 messages · 2019-08-22 → 2019-10-17 · Yahoo Group era · View archive on archive.org
Participants: Adam Trionfo, camiles68, Luis Alberto D'Ardis
Attachments in thread: 1 (see the archive.org item)
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. Timex Sinclair 2000 Picture and News from "Creative Computing" (April 1983)
Adam Trionfo · Thu, 22 Aug 2019 16:59 · 📎 1: file
In the April 1983 issue of "Creative Computing" magazine (Vol. 9 No. 4) an article called "1983 Winter Consumer Electronics Show: Creative Computing presents the Short Circuit Awards" by David H. Ahl and Betst Staples gives a brief mention of the soon-to-be-released Timex Sinclair 2000. There is also a picture of the unit (which looks like a re-badged Spectrum). You can read the article on archive.org, here:
https://archive.org/details/CreativeComputing198304/page/n45
[https://archive.org/services/img/CreativeComputing198304]<https://archive.org/details/CreativeComputing198304/page/n45>
Creative Computing Magazine (April 1983) Volume 09 Number 04 : Creative Computing Magazine : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive<https://archive.org/details/CreativeComputing198304/page/n45>
Creative Computing Magazine (April 1983) Volume 09 Number 04
archive.org
I've a picture of the "2000" from the magazine.
Here is what the magazine said about the computer:
"If you've been reading Creative Computing faithfully, you saw our in-depth review of the Sinclair Spectrum introduced in England about a year ago. Now, Timex has brought it to the U.S. as the Timex 2000. It carries a list price of $149 for the 16K model and $199 for the 48K one.
"The 2000 is an outstanding computer with 40 real keys, eight-color high resolution display (256 x 192 pixels), ten-octave sound channel (one of us can’t hear that much!), upper and lower case, and 16 graphics characters. Our only disappointment is that it does not have a space bar and thus, like the Aquarius, cannot be used for touch typing.
"Timex also announced the 2040 printer, a 32-column thermal unit that uses white paper (not the silver stuff of the previous Sinclair printer). It works on both the 1000 and 2000 and costs $99."
Is this computer just a mock-up? When did the "2000" become the 2068?
Adam
2. Re: Timex Sinclair 2000 Picture and News from "Creative Computing" (April 1983)
camiles68 · 22 Aug 2019 15:53:38 -
The Timex Sinclair 2000 was introduced at WCES 1983 (early 1983) but when Timex actually went to put it into production, it failed the FCC requirements that they don’t have over in the UK. I was going to take about 6 months to get FCC certification so Timex decided that they could add some enhancements to the T/S 2000 and that is obviously happened eventually. They added in the sound chip, the joystick ports, Timex’s own custom SCLD chip (to replace the Spectrum’s ULA chip and to add in enhanced support for more graphics modes and bank switching for the cartridge port as well as the Bus Expansion Unit (BEU or T/S 2060), among other enhancements and changes (like getting the video to support the NTSC North American Standard). There were going to be two models, the T/S 2048 (with only 16K of system RAM) and the T/S 2068 (with 48K or System RAM). Ultimately, Timex corporate wanted to get the computer out for the holiday season of 1983 but the engineering was not quite complete on the T/S 2068 (they probably needed another 6 months or so to get it they way engineering wanted it) so Timex engineering put together what they had at the time for production and dropped the T/S 2048 model and focused on the T/S 2068. And the rest is history.
They did actually use that T/S 2000 Spectrum case in a Timex product, the T/S 1500! This was of course basically a T/S 1000 with 16K of RAM built-in and used the ZX Spectrum case and keyboard (case was updated a bit and the color scheme was changed to the Timex Silver color like the T/S 2068) and Timex actually had a custom SLCD chip made for this model as well to replace the T/S 1000 / ZX81 ULA chip. I have seen two motherboards for the T/S 1500 as well, the original one with eight 16Kx1 RAM chips and the later revision one with only two 16Kx4 RAM chips.
See this YouTube video of Dan Ross (Timex Computer VP at the time) where he introduces the T/S 2068 and other new products to the Boston Computer Society, Timex/Sinclair Users group. He explains about the T/S2000 as I mentioned above.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBsxK2yLyGo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBsxK2yLyGo
Hope this enlightens folks on the history of the T/S 2000 series.
Regards,
Carl
3. Re: [ts2068] Re: Timex Sinclair 2000 Picture and News from "Creative Computing" (April 1983)
Luis Alberto D'Ardis · Thu, 17 Oct 2019 17:17
ty for this data and info, i was looking since long time ago some colour pict about timex 2000 prototype.
1000 times ty!!
El 22/8/19 a las 19:53, [email]<mailto:[email]> [ts2068] escribió:
The Timex Sinclair 2000 was introduced at WCES 1983 (early 1983) but when Timex actually went to put it into production, it failed the FCC requirements that they don’t have over in the UK. I was going to take about 6 months to get FCC certification so Timex decided that they could add some enhancements to the T/S 2000 and that is obviously happened eventually. They added in the sound chip, the joystick ports, Timex’s own custom SCLD chip (to replace the Spectrum’s ULA chip and to add in enhanced support for more graphics modes and bank switching for the cartridge port as well as the Bus Expansion Unit (BEU or T/S 2060), among other enhancements and changes (like getting the video to support the NTSC North American Standard). There were going to be two models, the T/S 2048 (with only 16K of system RAM) and the T/S 2068 (with 48K or System RAM). Ultimately, Timex corporate wanted to get the computer out for the holiday season of 1983 but the engineering was not quite complete on the T/S 2068 (they probably needed another 6 months or so to get it they way engineering wanted it) so Timex engineering put together what they had at the time for production and dropped the T/S 2048 model and focused on the T/S 2068. And the rest is history.
They did actually use that T/S 2000 Spectrum case in a Timex product, the T/S 1500! This was of course basically a T/S 1000 with 16K of RAM built-in and used the ZX Spectrum case and keyboard (case was updated a bit and the color scheme was changed to the Timex Silver color like the T/S 2068) and Timex actually had a custom SLCD chip made for this model as well to replace the T/S 1000 / ZX81 ULA chip. I have seen two motherboards for the T/S 1500 as well, the original one with eight 16Kx1 RAM chips and the later revision one with only two 16Kx4 RAM chips.
See this YouTube video of Dan Ross (Timex Computer VP at the time) where he introduces the T/S 2068 and other new products to the Boston Computer Society, Timex/Sinclair Users group. He explains about the T/S2000 as I mentioned above.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBsxK2yLyGo
Hope this enlightens folks on the history of the T/S 2000 series.
Regards,
Carl