TS1510 cartridge interface
The TS1510 Command Cartridge Player interface for the TS1000/1500 and its cartridges/clones.
33 threads · 276 messages · 2004-06-29 → 2026-05-24
The TS1510 Command Cartridge Player and its four known dark-gray cartridges (Chess, Flight Simulator, States & Capitals, Super Math) were first systematically cataloged on the Yahoo Group around 2004, when Jack Boatwright rated all four TS1000/1500 titles as confirmed-to-exist and noted the reader itself as uncommon (#1000332). Beginner-level questions trickled in — e.g. RAND USR 8192 plus a reminder to add the 16K RAM pack (#1001300). The decisive Yahoo-era work happened in 2009, when zxbruno first asked to borrow original cartridges to send to a friend in Spain for study (#1002105) and then announced, together with Don Dindang, a working schematic to dump dark-gray cartridges into a 2764 EPROM and to build a homemade 1510 adapter from scratch, cross-referencing the fruitcake.plus.com Interface 2 ROM-cart work for the Spectrum as the same underlying idea (#1002322 / #1002346). A 2010 thread already framed the long-term goal that finally landed a decade later: load original cartridge ROMs from a multi-cart or flash chip while keeping the original hardware in the loop (#1002524).
Those schematics sat largely unexploited until 2022, when Adam Trionfo and Carl Miles photographed an original 1510 adapter and brought Will Collum — the ex-Timex programmer who actually wrote the cartridge-probe code in the TS1500 ROM — onto a Zoom meeting to talk through how the probe works from the inside (#1036). That direct line back to the original engineer reframed the project from blind reverse-engineering into modernization with the designer's blessing, and produced a polished collection video that became the public-facing record of the platform.
The practical breakthrough came in 2024. Carl picked up Claudius's 2020 redesigned cartridge PCBs and worked out why the older Yahoo-era / Spanish designs only ever ran 8K carts: A14/A15 were swapped into the chip-select logic and there was no Chip Select 2 output for the second 8K ROM in Flight Simulator, so 16K titles silently failed (#7353). After a major revision (and a second silkscreen/diode-orientation fix at #7278) he started shipping assembled interface + cartridge PCBs at $40/$25 (#7339), with Ryan Gray writing the p2ts1510 utility to convert .p tape programs into cartridge ROM images. Larry Lorenson hit Windows-only bugs caused by an strncpy that wasn't null-terminating; Kevin Steinhaus patched it and the fix shipped as p2ts1510 1.0.5 (#7470). Larry's later deep-dive forced Carl to publicly walk back the simplified explanation that A13/A14 wire straight to the EPROM — in reality they go to the DIP switch that selects which of four programs the cartridge presents, while a diode-OR of two address-space outputs drives /CS (#7741).
The library now goes well beyond the four original Timex titles — Krazy Kong, Robotron, 3D Monster Maze, Frogger, Kong's Revenge, Rocket Man, Sponzy, MemoCalc, ASDIS and the Timex Store Demo all run from the clone (#7278, #6987, #6724). A 512K cartridge variant and a rotary-encoder version that selects from up to 32 ROMs are now in customers' hands (#7631, #8411). Carl is brainstorming a TS1560 bus-expansion unit that would accept the clone cartridges alongside programmable joystick, battery-backed 64K and HRG support (#7715). At VCF Southwest 2026, Spinnetti demoed a custom 3D-printed TS1510 running Zonkey Kong, Brian Lewis's Pacman, Miner Forty Niner and 3D Monster Maze (#9396) — cartridge software that simply did not exist for the platform during the Yahoo era.
Key threads
- questions on TS2068 (and TS1500) carts (archive.org) — Yahoo-era (2004) systematic catalog of TS1000/1500 cartridges and rarity ratings — first time the four dark-gray TS1510 titles were documented as a set in this community.
- TS1510 clone (archive.org) — Yahoo-era (2009) announcement that TS1000/TS1500 users can now build their own 1510 adapter and dump cartridges into 2764 EPROMs — Don Dindang's schematic + zip of pictures is the original cloning artifact that everything later built on.
- Need: TS1510 cartridge/s (archive.org) — Yahoo-era (2009) origin of the cloning effort — zxbruno publicly seeking real cartridges to send to a friend in Spain so they can be studied and digitally preserved without destruction.
- TS User Group Meeting with Will Collum / Timex 1510 Cart Adapter video (#1036 on groups.io) — 2022 Zoom session with Will Collum, the original Timex programmer who wrote the 1510 cartridge-probe code in the TS1500 ROM, plus Adam & Carl's photo session of an original 1510 adapter — the moment recent-era work reconnected with the original engineer.
- TS1510 on ebay (#5854 on groups.io) — Sparked Carl Miles's 2024 build of working TS1510 clone interfaces and 256K-flash cartridges; long thread documents the design choices, sourcing and assembly that turned the 2009 schematic into a kit people could actually buy.
- redesigned ts1510 clone (#7353 on groups.io) — Carl's clearest written explanation of why earlier designs (Claudius's 2020 PCBs and the Yahoo-era schematic) only worked for 8K carts — A14/A15 swap into the chip-select logic and no Chip Select 2 for Flight Simulator's second 8K ROM.
- New batch of REDESIGNED TS1510 CLONE Interface and Cartridges for purchase (#7339 on groups.io) — Sustained 2024–2026 thread covering the redesigned PCBs going on sale, international shipping, the 512K cartridge variant, and customer reports — the practical 'how do I get one' record.
- p2ts150 (p2ts1510 utility) (#7470 on groups.io) — Ryan Gray's
.p-> cartridge-ROM converter being debugged on Windows: Kevin Steinhaus traces the missing null-termination instrncpy, fix ships as p2ts1510 1.0.5 — the toolchain piece that lets non-Timex software become 1510 cartridges.
All threads (33)
↳ marks a thread where this topic begins mid-conversation — the link jumps to the message where it starts.
| Thread | Msgs | Activity | Started by |
|---|---|---|---|
| ⭐ TS1510 on ebay 📎 | 81 💬 | 2024-03-18 | Carl Miles |
| ⭐ New batch of REDESIGNED TS1510 CLONE Interface and Cartridges for purchase... 📎 | 34 💬 | 2026-03-09 | Carl Miles |
| ⭐ TS1510 clone 📎 | 21 💬 | 2009-07-22 | Luis Alberto D'Ardis |
| ⭐ Timex Computer Collection Video; was: Re: Timex 1510 Cart Adapter ↳ #1065 📎 | 12 💬 | 2022-03-22 | Adam Trionfo |
| ⭐ p2ts150 📎 | 10 💬 | 2024-12-27 | Ryan Gray |
| ⭐ To Carl re: TS1510 games 📎 | 10 💬 | 2024-09-26 | Ryan Gray |
| ⭐ VCF Southwest ↳ #9405 📎 | 9 💬 | 2026-05-24 | Don Crawford |
| ⭐ Starting to design a TS1560 "Bus Expansion Unit" for the ZX81/TS1000/TS1500 - Br | 9 💬 | 2025-02-10 | David Anderson |
| ⭐ redesigned ts1510 clone | 7 💬 | 2024-12-15 | larry lorenson |
| ⭐ Redesigned TS1510 Clone Cartridge & Interface PCBs have arrived... 📎 | 5 💬 | 2024-11-11 | Carl Miles |
| ⭐ ts1510 cartridge 📎 | 4 💬 | 2025-02-18 | larry lorenson |
| ⭐ Some TS1510 resources | 2 💬 | 2024-02-07 | David Anderson |
| ⭐ P file to TS1510 cartridge ROM image converter | 1 💬 | 2025-05-05 | Ryan Gray |
| ⭐ New batch of RESDESIGNED TS1510 CLONE External Eprom | 1 💬 | 2026-03-12 | larry lorenson |
| questions on TS2068 (and TS1500) carts | 18 💬 | 2004-06-29 | Jack Boatwright |
| Albuquerque Timex User Group Meeting (Monday, June 24, 2024) 📎 | 14 💬 | 2024-07-07 | Adam Trionfo |
| TS1510 Clone from Carl 📎 | 7 💬 | 2024-07-05 | andy |
| For all ZX81 / TS1000 and TS1510 users | 4 💬 | 2010-02-26 | zxbruno |
| update regarding the TS1510 cartridge adapters, to Carl | 3 💬 | 2024-07-11 | RichJ |
| for Carl Miles | 3 💬 | 2025-08-27 | RichJ |
| USR command for TS 1510 | 2 💬 | 2007-06-22 | george.orr1 |
| TS1510 cartridges. | 2 💬 | 2024-10-26 | RichJ |
| Question for Carl Miles | 1 💬 | 2025-07-03 | RichJ |
| TS1510 new system and info on the ZX81NU build PCB I sent to you. 📎 | 1 💬 | 2025-01-03 | RichJ |
| TS1500 cartridge systems | 1 💬 | 2024-12-19 | RichJ |
| TS1510 Clone cartridges | 1 💬 | 2024-07-05 | RichJ |
| The right Time for Looking into the Timex 1000 Game Changer Interface to the Ata | 1 💬 | 2023-10-18 | kevin.personal |
| To David Anderson and Carl Miles. | 4 💬 | 2024-09-06 | RichJ |
| Carl Miles | 3 💬 | 2026-03-08 | RichJ |
| Need: TS1510 cartridge/s | 2 💬 | 2009-03-31 | zxbruno |
| TS1000 ZEBRA JOYSTICK / TIMEX SINCLAIR 1510 CARTRIDGE PLAYER 📎 | 1 💬 | 2025-01-01 | Luis D'Ardis. |
| TS1510 cartridges | 1 💬 | 2024-11-30 | RichJ |
| New 2068. 1510 from Carl. | 1 💬 | 2024-11-11 | RichJ |