Hardware projects & new boards
DIY hardware projects and newly-made boards — PCB/KiCad/Gerber, CPLD/FPGA/GAL, expansion and interface boards.
263 threads · 2229 messages · 2002-06-17 → 2026-06-29
Hardware projects is one of the most generative corners of the list, with clear continuity across both eras. The Yahoo years (2001-2019) were dominated by single-builder hacks and one-off EPROM swaps; the groups.io era (2020 onward) turned that same DIY energy into cheap small-batch PCB fabrication (JLCPCB / PCBWay, roughly $4-7 for five boards) and shared KiCad / EasyEDA / Gerber projects. The clearest cross-era thread is the switchable HOME ROM mod: Richard Garrod-Atkinson documented it on his blog in 2013 (burn Spectrum and TS2068 ROM images to EPROMs, drop them into the HOME and EX ROM sockets, repurpose the channel 2/3 switch as a ROM-select) and offered the mod as a paid service to the list (#1003508) — that exact mechanism is what David Anderson's modern Spectrum-ROM switcher generalizes, and what Carl Miles is now integrating into his TS2068 Interface 1 / Microdrive clone (#8607). A 2014 Yahoo-era query about getting a Spectranet adapter for the 2068 ("the project page isn't under proper maintenance") sat unresolved and reappears in the recent era as part of the broader push to make the TS2068 a first-class peer of the ZX Spectrum hardware ecosystem.
Recurring tradecraft circulates freely: order oversized 80/100-pin edge connectors and cut them down, 3D-print keyways and glue them in, clone and re-route EasyEDA/KiCad projects collaboratively, and design around the fact that 27C256 EPROMs are now "unobtanium" (David had to redesign his Twister board around a different ROM for exactly this reason, #640). David Anderson is the de-facto batching/distribution hub, ordering runs of boards and 3D-printed parts on behalf of the group. A persistent background concern — and one that already had a 1989 UPDATE magazine warning behind it — is the TS2068's marginal 5V 1-amp regulator, which struggles once Twister boards, divMMCs, and other modern peripherals are hung off the expansion bus (#699).
The flagship success story is Carl Miles's TS1510 Command Cartridge Player clone, which began as David's eBay listing of an original and turned into a fully built, documented, redesigned, and sold product (#5854). The community reverse-engineered the obscure 1510, Carl spun fresh PCBs and programmed a 256K flash with the four original cart ROMs, Ryan Gray wrote the p2ts1510 utility to generate cartridge ROM files, and the v2 redesign added beveled cartridge connectors and a 512K cartridge (#7339, #7631); boards now ship at cost ($40 interface, $25 cart) to buyers internationally and have appeared at VCF. That momentum carried into Carl's TS1000 to TS1500 conversion project (using genuine TS1500 ROMs Alan supplied, so 1510 carts auto-run as a real TS1500 would, #5664), and his 2025 TS2068 Interface Zero board that combines a clone of the ZX Interface 1 ULA+ROM with Wes Brzozowski's SINCUS v3n5 Interface Zero network/RS-232 circuitry plus David's Spectrum-ROM switcher — though Jeff Burrell flagged that the IF1 ROM places system variables where they collide with TS2068 ones, likely requiring a reworked IF1 ROM (#8608). FPGA / CPLD work is the other major axis: Jeff Burrell's TS2068 FPGA emulator underpins both a proposed video-upgrade board (mirroring VRAM writes out to VGA, with room for ULAplus, #306) and his UnoDos / esxDOS SD-storage experiments (#874), where the consensus design suggestion was to reuse the Interface 1 / Microdrive command syntax (François Lanciault's public-domain Interface1bis precedent). Several people independently tackled CP/M-capable memory boards: Eduardo Fuentes designed a Larken-RamDisk-inspired expansion that maps RAM across the full 0-64K in 8K chunks (the ULA always reads display from HOME RAM, sidestepping the video-RAM problem) with port-7 bank switching for up to ~560K, paired with Gustavo Pane's CP/M 2.2 implementation matching the original Timex floppy format (40T SS DD / 80T DS DD, 16x256-byte sectors, #4074, #4100). Reproduction main boards were debated too — Don Dindang's Timex-Harlequin-2048 clone supports home+ext ROM but not yet DOCK banking, and Claudius raised the sharp open question of whether a "perfect" Timex clone should replicate the real TC2048/2068 /INT timing (shifted 15 T-states from the Spectrum's 14336, which crashes top-border demos) or just match Spectrum timing (#6932, #6971).
Smaller projects round it out and show the group's range. Tim H restored a ZX Printer (3D-printed drive belt) and drove it from an Arduino Mega via a custom ZX edge-connector shield (#1912). A newsletter-scanning thread drifted into collaboratively routing a KiCad PCB for the Timex video digitizer described in SMUG, with Willie Jones learning board layout under Tim H's mentorship and the design shrunk to fit a 100x100 mm budget panel (#1654, #1799). Willie's request for a 2068 relay board produced two routed EasyEDA designs from David — original prototype and a simpler 74x688/HCT redesign — with Jim Stephens's Powerful Projects with Your Timex/Sinclair (an early-1980s book the Yahoo era treated as gospel) cited as the standard if error-prone reference (#1589, #1637). Jon designed a resin-3D-printed TS Pico enclosure styled after the TS2068 case, sized to slot 1 of the expansion board, with David proposing a sprayed-and-painted batch (#5213); Joao's OpenSCAD/STL printable 2068 cartridge shells (kicked off by a Randy Kindig / Adam Trionfo "why isn't there one?" question) closed a long-standing gap (#4144). The TS2068 typeface repo on GitHub fixes a 1-pixel m/w width difference from Spectrum fonts that Tim H spotted, with Ryan Gray contributing a softer rounded variant (#6907). Carl's TS2050 modem refurbishment + serial conversion thread (spanning two years) keeps producing usable BBS-capable serial ports for real hardware — the canonical answer being to just tap the 8251's RX/TX pins 3 and 19, no need to disconnect the pulse-dial circuit (#5417, #9033). The Timex Computer 3256 prototype thread drifts in here as the imagined "what an upgraded 2068 would have looked like in 1986" reference point that hardware designers keep circling back to (#5103).
Key threads
- Switchable Timex Sinclair 2068 ROM modification (archive.org) — Yahoo-era (2013) precursor: Richard Garrod-Atkinson's blog-documented EPROM-in-HOME/EX-ROM mod with the channel 2/3 switch repurposed as a Spectrum/TS2068 ROM select — conceptual ancestor of David's modern Spectrum-ROM switcher and Carl's IF1/Microdrive clone integration.
- TS1510 on ebay (becomes Carl Miles's TS1510 clone) (#5854 on groups.io) — An eBay listing turned into the group's flagship hardware project — Carl Miles's built-up, documented, redesigned-and-sold TS1510 cartridge-player clone, with Ryan Gray's p2ts1510 ROM-creation utility.
- New batch of REDESIGNED TS1510 CLONE Interface and Cartridges (#7339 on groups.io) — The v2 redesign with beveled connectors and 512K cartridge — proof the TS1510 project has matured from prototype to repeatable small batches shipped internationally (France, NJ, VCF).
- First steps in getting Microdrives running on a TS2068 (#8607 on groups.io) — Carl's 2025 TS2068 Interface Zero board (IF1 ULA+ROM + Brzozowski's SINCUS Interface Zero + David's Spectrum-ROM switcher) — with Jeff Burrell flagging the IF1-vs-TS2068 system-variable collision that frames the work still to do.
- UnoDos and the TS2068 (#874 on groups.io) — Jeff Burrell's FPGA dev-board work booting the 2068 as a Spectrum with UnoDos / esxDos ROMs in the correct memory map — also where François Lanciault makes the case for reusing Interface 1 / Microdrive command syntax for SD storage.
- Video Upgrade Board for TS2068 (#306 on groups.io) — Jeff Burrell's FPGA-mirrored-VRAM video upgrade (VGA out, LROS/AROS-compliant boot ROM, room for ULAplus) — the architectural sketch the later FPGA work builds on, with ZX-VGA-JOY/ZX-HD/Spectrum-SE-on-Uno prior art mapped out.
- Real CP/M on TS-2068 (#4074 on groups.io) — Eduardo Fuentes's 8K-banked memory board for a clean 0-64K plain-RAM window (ULA always reads display from HOME RAM, so video survives) paired with Gustavo Pane's CP/M 2.2 implementation matching the original Timex floppy format.
- Any TS 2068 main PCB updates? (#6932 on groups.io) — Josef Jelinek's call for a cleaner 2068 main PCB, Claudius's WiP redesign, Don Dindang's Harlequin-derived TC2048 clone, and Claudius's catch of the 15-T-state /INT offset that breaks border demos on real Timex hardware — the 'do we want a perfect Timex clone?' open question.
- Timex 2050 Modem and Serial Port Conversion (#5417 on groups.io) — Two-year arc of converting the 2050 modem to RS232 — Carl's case-repaint and proper TIMEX label work, plus the canonical 'just tap 8251 pins 3 and 19' answer from David.
- Larken 256K RamDisk (#576 on groups.io) — Long reverse-engineering thread on the Larken — Neil C.'s screenshots from Eric Johnson's collection, then ChazzMan trying to reconcile the schematic's 'no order' A0-A14 labels with a buildable double-sided PCB (answer: wire straight through).
- 2068 relay board (#1589 on groups.io) — Willie Jones's request that turned into two routed EasyEDA boards from David (original prototype and a simpler 74x688/HCT redesign) — illustrates how the group does collaborative hardware, with Jim Stephens's Powerful Projects book as the standard reference.
- Timex Digitizer (Willie Jones / Tim H) (#1654 on groups.io) — Recreating the SMUG-newsletter digitizer in KiCad: Tim H schematic, Willie Jones routing as apprenticeship in PCB layout, shrunk to a 100x100 mm budget panel — preservation by re-fab.
- TS Pico Enclosure (#5213 on groups.io) — Jon's resin-3D-printed TS Pico enclosure styled after the 2068's case, sized to slot 1 of the expansion board, with David proposing a sprayed-and-painted batch — clear example of the community productizing each other's work.
- Printing from Arduino to a ZX Printer (#1912 on groups.io) — Tim H restores a ZX Printer with a 3D-printed belt and drives it from an Arduino Mega via a custom ZX edge-connector shield — small but emblematic of the group's range.
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