Books & manuals
Books, manuals, and reference documentation for the machines and software.
138 threads · 905 messages · 2004-03-23 → 2026-06-10
Book preservation is mostly David Anderson's project on the Yahoo→groups.io transition, with bursts of community help. In 2021–2022 David rolled out a steady cadence of archive.org uploads — Timex Sinclair Color Graphics (which Adam later discovers is a relabel of Nick Hampshire's Spectrum Graphics), The Timex Sinclair 2068 Explored (Hartnell), Robert Maunder's Creative Games for the TS 2068 (scanned by Louis Florit after he volunteered his copy), Jeff Mazur's Intermediate/Advanced Guide, and the Rockmaker/Adams Beepers electronics-project book. The Yahoo era's parallel effort was Bryan Vines's 2004 push to scan the SAMS Beginner/Intermediate Guide, the Intermediate/Advanced Guide and the official user manual — the first organized PDF scanning campaign the list ever ran. David's standing call (in the Multi-Draw 2068 thread) asking everyone to dig through closets for manuals and newsletters is the policy statement behind the whole operation.
Books are also the way the group tests itself. Adam Trionfo treats almost every newly-archived book as a working spec: he types in Jeff Mazur's PSG SOUND examples and records the audio for the website, types in Richard Booth's Applied Sinclair math-subroutine programs (Jeff Burrell zmakebas-converted the core into TAP so Adam didn't have to enter all 168 pages by hand), and works through Hartnell's listings on real hardware. Richard Burt scanned the Multi-Draw 2068 manual the same day Adam asked for help. Robert 'Exile In Paradise' Murphey was pointed to 'The ZX Spectrum on Your PC' as the on-ramp from zero and reported back that the jargon finally clicked. Cross-machine books also get pulled in: Tim Swenson surfaced his own Z88 Sourcebook PDF when Greg Skuza unboxed a Cambridge Z88, and the QL contingent (Tim, François Lanciault) circulated Tim's QL-in-North-America paper.
The ROM disassembly is the era's flagship original work. David started it in 2021–22 by uploading a Google Doc that braids together the Yahoo-era disassemblies, Bob Orrfelt's and Lloyd Dreger's work, Wes Brzozowski's five-part bank-switching series, and the Timex third-party programmer's guide Jeff Mazur provided. Jeff Burrell jumped in and finished the keyboard-code table and the EXROM section. It shipped as a physical book on Amazon in January 2023 and now sits next to Sinclair's blue-cover technical manual on subscribers' shelves. Adam uses it (along with Introduction to 2068 Machine Code and Advanced 2068 Machine Code Vol. 1) as the reference set he points newcomers like Jeremiah Stoddard toward when they start writing Z80.
2026 brought an awkward newcomer: Shaun McClure's A Guide to TS 1000/1500 Games, which is a global search-and-replace of his ZX81 book — including a TS 1500 on the US cover even though everyone here knows the prevalent US model was the 1000. The book still covers ~257 games and David ordered a copy and floated inviting McClure to a Zoom session. Several threads in this topic also pull in by drift: the Yahoo-era 'questions on TS2068 carts' thread is here because Jack Boatwright's reply doubles as the canonical rarity-ranked cartridge list (and includes a sub-thread about T/S 2068 BASICs and Beyond by Sharon Zardetto Aker, of which Jack had twelve shrink-wrapped copies); 'Demos from Bratislava' is here because Adam reads Jaroslav Švelch's Gaming the Iron Curtain on its strength; and 'That Guide to Games book and a new fun toy' (April 2026) drifts most of the way into a Spectrum image-converter project that Josef Jelinek and David iterate on together.
Key threads
- TS 2068 ROM Disassembly book (#1422 on groups.io) — Origin thread for David's 2023 book — braids the Yahoo-era disassemblies, Orrfelt, Dreger, Brzozowski's bank-switching series and the Timex third-party programmer's guide, with Jeff Burrell finishing the keyboard-code table and the EXROM section.
- New books and newsletter uploaded to archive.org (#87 on groups.io) — David's first big 2021 archive.org cadence (Color Graphics, The TS 2068 Explored, OHTSUG newsletters) — also the thread where Adam discovers Color Graphics is a relabel of Nick Hampshire's Spectrum Graphics.
- TS 2068 Books (archive.org) — Bryan Vines's 2004 Yahoo-era project to scan the TS 2068 User Manual and both SAMS guides to PDF — the first organized scanning campaign the list ever ran.
- Does Anyone Own 'Creative Games for the Timex Sinclair 2068?' (#1441 on groups.io) — Louis Florit volunteers and scans the Maunder book in days, becoming the template for community-scanned book recoveries — also drifts into Paul Grosjean / Charles Babbage Institute / TS development hardware (PDS 8000).
- Jeff Mazur's Four Sound Examples from his T/S 2068 Guide (#1487 on groups.io) — Adam types in and audio-records Mazur's PSG examples (tremolo, vibrato, comparison) so they're attached to the book's page on the website — the canonical 'book as living spec' workflow.
- Math Subroutines Book by Richard Booth (#3782 on groups.io) — Group preps for Booth's guest Zoom by recovering the missing tape — Jeff Burrell zmakebas-converts the main listing, Adam plots Demonstration 2.4 from the BASIC.
- A new book (#9217 on groups.io) — April 2026 announcement of Shaun McClure's A Guide to TS 1000/1500 Games — David flags the awkward ZX81→TS1500 search-and-replace problem (US prevalent model was the 1000, not the 1500) and floats inviting the author to a Zoom.
- Multi-Draw 2068 - How to Use it? (#909 on groups.io) — Adam asks for the missing Multi-Draw manual, Richard Burt scans and sends it the same day — and David appends the standing 'call for manuals, newsletters, magazines, books' that has driven submissions ever since.
- Beepers: 21 Electronics Projects Book (#3630 on groups.io) — Adam surfaces a still-unarchived 1984 hardware-projects book and finds a sibling title (20 Simple Electronic Projects for the ZX-81) already on archive.org — Jeff K confirms he sent a hardcopy to David earlier, illustrating how scanned books surface inventory.
- Cambridge Z88 (#7166 on groups.io) — Greg Skuza's Z88 unboxing pulls in Tim Swenson's self-authored Z88 Sourcebook and the Z88 EPROM newsletter archive — clearest example of cross-machine book references the group uses for any related Sinclair-family hardware.
All threads (138)
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