TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
17 messages · 2008-01-09 → 2008-01-11 · Yahoo Group era · View archive on archive.org
Participants: M. Emrah Oral, Philip Kendall, Steven Collins, Fred, Mark Scheck, Bill Loguidice, Richard Atkinson, Adam Trionfo, William McBrine
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. 2068 Nostalgia
Mark Scheck · Wed, 9 Jan 2008 04:29:
I was fascinated when I had the 2068, it had cool
graphics, cool sound, and it looked like Dr.Who
designed it.
I was going from a Vic20 so it was a huge upgrade. I
think I remember using the circle command and was
amazed I could draw a circle. I was impressed by the
math of it, if that makes any sense. I was 13-14 at
the time ;-)
I bought another one a few years ago, but having a
house and a 50-60 hour Unix job, I didn't have enough
time to play. I loaded a tape and was like wow how did
I wait for this ;-)
Anyway enough of my trip down memory lane, time to go
to work.
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2. Re: [ts2068] 2068 Nostalgia
M. Emrah Oral · Wed, 9 Jan 2008 04:57:
What is amazing to me is, I can totally understand people being so nostalgic about the ZX Spectrum. It was so popular in Europe and Britain, it had tons of software titles written for it, there were many publications about it, it had a huge user base, etc. But it is surprising to me that a machine like the 2068 which was never as popular, problematic from the beginning, had all the software bugs, the hardware flaws and almost no software can still make people nostalgic. That is very cool. The potential that the 2068 held and how it was never really recognized in the US like it was in Europe.. It is a pity the 2068 never got the attention it really deserved. (not even from the very people who designed it) I think I will power up my 2068 with the ZX Spectrum emulator now and play Manic Miner.. Ahh, it's going to be like being 11 again :)
Mark Scheck <[email]> wrote: I was fascinated when I had the 2068, it had cool
graphics, cool sound, and it looked like Dr.Who
designed it.
I was going from a Vic20 so it was a huge upgrade. I
think I remember using the circle command and was
amazed I could draw a circle. I was impressed by the
math of it, if that makes any sense. I was 13-14 at
the time ;-)
I bought another one a few years ago, but having a
house and a 50-60 hour Unix job, I didn't have enough
time to play. I loaded a tape and was like wow how did
I wait for this ;-)
Anyway enough of my trip down memory lane, time to go
to work.
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3. TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
M. Emrah Oral · Wed, 9 Jan 2008 05:11:
Do you think if Sinclair entered the US market with the ZX Spectrum 128, improved keyboard, 3 channel sound, 128K RAM, etc. they would have done better than entering the market with the TS-2068?
I have always liked the single letter BASIC entry system of the 128 much better than the keyword entry system of the original Speccy myself. I wish the 128 had the high res screen modes of the 2068. Really, I think a high res mode or no attribute clash mode would make the 128 a much better computer.
One thing would be interested. If Sinclair (Amstrad) could enter the US market with the +3 in 1983. Which of course wasn't released until 1987 and by that time there was no way on earth the +3 could be competitive in the US market, but I wonder how it would be received back in 1983.
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4. Re: [ts2068] TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
Philip Kendall · Wed, 9 Jan 2008 13:38:
On Wed, Jan 09, 2008 at 05:11:44AM -0800, M. Emrah Oral wrote:
>
> I wish the 128 had the high res screen modes of the 2068. Really, I think a high res mode or no attribute clash mode would make the 128 a much better computer.
Not without other changes. The Z80 just doesn't have the horsepower to
move around the increased volume of data that would be required to make
games playable.
Cheers,
Phil
--
Philip Kendall <[email]>
http://www.shadowmagic.org.uk/
5. Re: [ts2068] TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
M. Emrah Oral · Wed, 9 Jan 2008 05:41:
If the 3.54 Mhz Z-80 could not deal with a resolution higher than that of the original Zx Spectrum (255X179) how could the 1Mhz CPU of the C64 deal with the 320X200 screen resolution of the C64 (at a higher color attribute reolution too AFAIK)
Philip Kendall <[email]> wrote: On Wed, Jan 09, 2008 at 05:11:44AM -0800, M. Emrah Oral wrote:
>
> I wish the 128 had the high res screen modes of the 2068. Really, I think a high res mode or no attribute clash mode would make the 128 a much better computer.
Not without other changes. The Z80 just doesn't have the horsepower to
move around the increased volume of data that would be required to make
games playable.
Cheers,
Phil
--
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http://www.shadowmagic.org.uk/
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6. Re: [ts2068] TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
Philip Kendall · Wed, 9 Jan 2008 14:04:
On Wed, Jan 09, 2008 at 05:41:25AM -0800, M. Emrah Oral wrote:
> If the 3.54 Mhz Z-80 could not deal with a resolution higher than that of the original Zx Spectrum (255X179) how could the 1Mhz CPU of the C64 deal with the 320X200 screen resolution of the C64 (at a higher color attribute reolution too AFAIK)
a) Sprite hardware. Look at (eg) Elite on the C64.
b) Comparing CPU clock speeds between two processors with completely
different architectures is pointless :-)
Cheers,
Phil
--
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http://www.shadowmagic.org.uk/
7. RE: [ts2068] TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
Bill Loguidice · Wed, 9 Jan 2008 11:13:
It would have depended upon the price. Now we're REALLY going hypothetical
here, because a 128K system really wasn't practically affordable in 1983 in
the low end market. You'd probably be looking at a close to $1000 machine
if you cut all the corners. Regardless, we do have some 128K 8-bit machines
we can look to that were released starting a few years after the 1983
point-in-time given, namely the Commodore 128, Apple IIc, Radio Shack Color
Computer 3 and Atari 130XE, as the most prominent examples. These systems
were able to offer precisely what they were able to offer simply because it
WAS several years later, but none of them was a huge success, because the
transition to PC's and to a lesser degree Amiga's and ST's were already
taking place (with of course the Macintosh carving its own niche, but not
coming into its own until several years later) and their 64K younger
brothers were still primarily in use on the low end. I think again we can
look to history to give us the answer to whether a hypothetical 128K machine
from Sinclair would have done well in 1983. Probably not due to a
relatively high cost and still no clear advantage over a much cheaper
Commodore 64. And there's still a question of whether Timex, Sinclair or
any other company that wasn't a major one having the wherewithall (financial
stability/backing) to be able to create enough systems at a low enough
price, get it into the right retail outlets, get the software, etc., to make
it work. Very daunting.
I just don't see any PRACTICAL scenario for success. I think part of the
problem was the success Timex had with the Sinclair 1000. Lots of units
were sold because they were cheap, but just as many people were turned off
by the unapproachable nature of the system and poor specs. I bet this also
hurt any of Timex's future chances, as they'd contemporarily be associated
with that turkey of a system (and I own the whole line of that class of
systems (ZX81, 1000, 1500), but they are pretty pitiful all things
considered)). You can essentially only fool people once without having a
true ace in your pocket as a follow-up.
=================================
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Armchair Arcade, Inc.
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A PC Magazine Top 100 Website
=================================
_____
From: [email] [mailto:[email]] On Behalf Of M.
Emrah Oral
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2008 8:12 AM
To: [email]
Subject: [ts2068] TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
Do you think if Sinclair entered the US market with the ZX Spectrum 128,
improved keyboard, 3 channel sound, 128K RAM, etc. they would have done
better than entering the market with the TS-2068?
I have always liked the single letter BASIC entry system of the 128 much
better than the keyword entry system of the original Speccy myself. I wish
the 128 had the high res screen modes of the 2068. Really, I think a high
res mode or no attribute clash mode would make the 128 a much better
computer.
One thing would be interested. If Sinclair (Amstrad) could enter the US
market with the +3 in 1983. Which of course wasn't released until 1987 and
by that time there was no way on earth the +3 could be competitive in the US
market, but I wonder how it would be received back in 1983.
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8. Re: [ts2068] TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
Steven Collins · Wed, 9 Jan 2008 16:50:
Sure it does. It beat the 65c02 at the time. The horsepower at the time for moving large amounts of memory around fast was to modify the stack pointer, and PUSH your data.
----- Original Message ----
From: Philip Kendall <[email]>
To: [email]
Sent: Wednesday, January 9, 2008 6:38:33 AM
Subject: Re: [ts2068] TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
On Wed, Jan 09, 2008 at 05:11:44AM -0800, M. Emrah Oral wrote:
>
> I wish the 128 had the high res screen modes of the 2068. Really, I think a high res mode or no attribute clash mode would make the 128 a much better computer.
Not without other changes. The Z80 just doesn't have the horsepower to
move around the increased volume of data that would be required to make
games playable.
Cheers,
Phil
--
Philip Kendall <philip@shadowmagic. org.uk>
http://www.shadowma gic.org.uk/
____________________________________________________________________________________
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9. Re: [ts2068] TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
Richard Atkinson · 10 Jan 2008 10:32:04 +
Both of these answers are correct in different contexts.
Some fast moving action games are already running at the limit on the
standard Spectrum screen, 6K bitmap and 0.75K attributes or a subset
thereof, and maybe couldn't be rewritten to take advantage of the extra
TS2068 colour resolution.
Other games, for example puzzle games, may have more clock cycles to spare
and so could be rewritten to use one of the new TS2068 video modes, which
effectively use a 12K bitmap screen.
As well as requiring more processor time, it is also worth bearing in mind
that Spectrum games using the 12K video modes will also require more memory
for the graphics, and may no longer fit into 48K.
Richard
On Jan 10 2008, Steven Collins wrote:
> Sure it does. It beat the 65c02 at the time. The horsepower at the time
> for moving large amounts of memory around fast was to modify the stack
> pointer, and PUSH your data.
>
>
>----- Original Message ----
>From: Philip Kendall <[email]>
>To: [email]
>Sent: Wednesday, January 9, 2008 6:38:33 AM
>Subject: Re: [ts2068] TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
>
>On Wed, Jan 09, 2008 at 05:11:44AM -0800, M. Emrah Oral wrote:
>>
>> I wish the 128 had the high res screen modes of the 2068. Really, I
>> think a high res mode or no attribute clash mode would make the 128 a
>> much better computer.
>
>Not without other changes. The Z80 just doesn't have the horsepower to
>move around the increased volume of data that would be required to make
>games playable.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Phil
>
>
10. Re: [ts2068] TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
Philip Kendall · Thu, 10 Jan 2008 11:01
On Wed, Jan 09, 2008 at 04:50:57PM -0800, Steven Collins wrote:
> Sure it does. It beat the 65c02 at the time. The horsepower at the time for moving large amounts of memory around fast was to modify the stack pointer, and PUSH your data.
I know. I've spent far too long looking at the Shock Megademo internals
:-)
However, look at the maths: with PUSH, you can shift 2 bytes every 11
tstates (even excluding memory contention, which does become significant
here). Therefore to shift 6912 bytes takes ~38k tstates, which is
perfectly doable in a ~70k tstate frame, even if you can get the data
from somewhere in no time at all.
However, shifting 12288 bytes (a Timex hi-res screen) will take you ~68k
tstates. Therefore full-screen scrolling at 50Hz is simply not possible
in Timex hi-res modes.
Cheers,
Phil
--
Philip Kendall <[email]>
http://www.shadowmagic.org.uk/
11. Re: [ts2068] TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
Fred · Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:39
On 10/01/2008, at 22:01, Philip Kendall wrote:
> However, shifting 12288 bytes (a Timex hi-res screen) will take you
> ~68k
> tstates. Therefore full-screen scrolling at 50Hz is simply not
> possible
> in Timex hi-res modes.
And yet more challenging at 60Hz with ~58k tstates/frame on the TS.
There are games with less motion that would be possible though.
Fred
12. Re: [ts2068] TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
M. Emrah Oral · Thu, 10 Jan 2008 04:54
That is right. Most games did not have full screen scrolling at the time anyway. Only a few had major parts of the screen scrolling.
Fred <[email]> wrote:
On 10/01/2008, at 22:01, Philip Kendall wrote:
> However, shifting 12288 bytes (a Timex hi-res screen) will take you
> ~68k
> tstates. Therefore full-screen scrolling at 50Hz is simply not
> possible
> in Timex hi-res modes.
And yet more challenging at 60Hz with ~58k tstates/frame on the TS.
There are games with less motion that would be possible though.
Fred
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13. Re: [ts2068] TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
Steven Collins · Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:54
Didn't the z80 have a block move instruction? It's been awhile, and my Zaks book is buried around here somewhere.
----- Original Message ----
From: Philip Kendall <[email]>
To: [email]
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 4:01:21 AM
Subject: Re: [ts2068] TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
On Wed, Jan 09, 2008 at 04:50:57PM -0800, Steven Collins wrote:
> Sure it does. It beat the 65c02 at the time. The horsepower at the time for moving large amounts of memory around fast was to modify the stack pointer, and PUSH your data.
I know. I've spent far too long looking at the Shock Megademo internals
:-)
However, look at the maths: with PUSH, you can shift 2 bytes every 11
tstates (even excluding memory contention, which does become significant
here). Therefore to shift 6912 bytes takes ~38k tstates, which is
perfectly doable in a ~70k tstate frame, even if you can get the data
from somewhere in no time at all.
However, shifting 12288 bytes (a Timex hi-res screen) will take you ~68k
tstates. Therefore full-screen scrolling at 50Hz is simply not possible
in Timex hi-res modes.
Cheers,
Phil
--
Philip Kendall <philip@shadowmagic. org.uk>
http://www.shadowma gic.org.uk/
____________________________________________________________________________________
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14. RE: TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
Adam Trionfo · Thu, 10 Jan 2008 21:44
[email], on Thu, 10 Jan 2008 at 16:54, wrote:
>>
Didn't the z80 have a block move instruction? It's been awhile, and my Zaks book is buried around here somewhere.
>>
I've got my book. The block instructions (listed briefly on page 164) are: LDD (, LDDR, LDI and LDIR. I think this is all the info you're looking for. If you need more, just ask.
Adam
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15. Re: [ts2068] RE: TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
Fred · Fri, 11 Jan 2008 18:20
On 11/01/2008, at 16:44, Adam Trionfo wrote:
> [email], on Thu, 10 Jan 2008 at 16:54, wrote:
>>> Didn't the z80 have a block move instruction? It's been awhile,
>>> and my Zaks book is buried around here somewhere.
>
> I've got my book. The block instructions (listed briefly on page
> 164) are: LDD (, LDDR, LDI and LDIR. I think this is all the info
> you're looking for. If you need more, just ask.
The Z80 has the block move instructions, but the stack pointer trick
is faster.
Fred
16. Re: [ts2068] TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
Philip Kendall · Fri, 11 Jan 2008 07:35
On Thu, Jan 10, 2008 at 04:54:12PM -0800, Steven Collins wrote:
> Didn't the z80 have a block move instruction? It's been awhile, and my Zaks book is buried around here somewhere.
As already commented LDIR (or possibly LDDR) is what you're thinking of.
However, LDIR itself isn't quick (taking 21 tstates to copy one byte)
and is extremely heavily affected by memory contention[1], meaning it
can take around 50 tstates to write one byte if you're writing to the
screen.
[1] at least on the 48K/128K. The +3 ULA applies ocntention only when
the /MREQ is active which reduces this effect a lot.
--
Philip Kendall <[email]>
http://www.shadowmagic.org.uk/
17. Re: [ts2068] RE: TS-260 vs ZX Spectrum 128K
William McBrine · Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:48
On Fri, 11 Jan 2008, Fred wrote:
> The Z80 has the block move instructions, but the stack pointer trick
> is faster.
Interesting!
I remember once I'd written some code based on the index registers (IX,
IY), and it turned out to be faster if I rewrote it to just use HL. Of
course, I was using the index registers for a reason... my new version of
the code had to be self-modifying. :-)
--
William McBrine <[email]>