I have a Timex Sinclair 2068 in the box with the cables and the manual two casettes, all sitting next to my desk right now. I loved that computer as a kid. And now that I'm an adult, I can have my childhood computer again. Warts and all.
Wow, that makes vi/emacs look downright friendly :D It would take a lot of this type-in self flagellation before those key combinations burned into my muscle memory. Thanks for the overview!
@@colinstu This is what happens when your primary input device is developed by people who've never previously used a computer keyboard to operate a home computer, AND when your keyboard designers' prior experience is in remote controls, AND when they mistakenly believe every significant function of the machine needed to be found on the actual input device, just like in eighties remote controls _- because those had such great usability._ :-/.
A Timex 2068 was my very first computer. No one else near me had one, and not much software to be found but I was able to write my own programs and save them to tape. Fun memories!
Timex did show a prototype of a ZX Spectrum that was simply converted to NTSC with no other changes, called the TS2000, but after it received a poor response at CES in January 1983 they cancelled it and started working on the improved TS2068. But the 11 month delay to get it out the door was an eternity in the computer market in 1983, and if Timex had gone ahead with the TS2000 anyway and released it with a large library of Spectrum software, it may have been a better success than the TS2068 ended up being -- or maybe not, since Americans hated chiclet keyboards and every machine released here with one was a flop, including the IBM PCjr, Mattel Aquarius, SV-318, Panasonic JR200U, etc.
If it had the original Spectrum's full game library and price point, the public might have tolerated it. Those are probably the only reasons anyone put up with the Spectrums (Spectra?) in Europe either.
Yeah, it's difficult to know if the TS2000 would have done better than the 2068. It really couldn't have done worse, I suppose. And being out in the market earlier at a lower price surely would have helped somewhat. Especially if they got it out early in 1983 while the C64 was still priced up at $595 or at least $350-$400, before Commodore kept slashing it down $299, $249 and finally $199, totally squeezing mostly everyone else out by late 1983 / early 1984. And yeah, being compatible with most/all the games from the UK surely would have been a big boost if there was good distribution, whether legal or illegal :)
The lack of joystick ports and sound chip were factors but the decision to make the 2068 goes back before the January CES. Gary Grimes was hired at the end of 1982, started in January and immediately began design work on the 2068 case.
That was a real journey!! I feel like there was key-shortage in 1980s that led to them needing to combine everything into as few keys as possible! Appreciate that walk-through Robin, v entertaining :)
In the UK, the single key entry went out of the window with the Spectrum 128K. And good riddance. I don't think there was a 128K version released in the US.
@@csbruceWhile it is possible that the... ahem "quality" of the keyboard on both the ZX80 and the Zx81 may have played a minor role in deciding to have this - rather unusual - input metod, a probably more important reason was the limited memory of the two machines: both only had ONE kilobyte of RAM out of the box, and if you had to type a program line letter-by-letter, it would be quite easy to fill up the input buffer before you even had a chance to enter the line into the program. Now since the development of the ZX Spectrum was somewhat rushed, it was decided to simply copy a large chunk of the ZX81 ROM instead of writing all new routines for the BASIC interpreter. Thus when Timex in the US was developing the TS2068, they in turn also copied a fair chunk of the ZX Spectrum ROM, and the result was what Robin has demonstrated in this video.
There was no key shortage, the Sinclair was purposely designed from the ground up to the price of 99 UK pounds; this included reducing the number of keys on the keyboard to keep the manufacturing costs low. Watch the "Micro Men" movie if you haven't already, and all will become crystal clear.
i love those old dumb photographs on the cover of a family gathered around a tiny monitor on a tiny desk, usualy with a tiny lamp in a dark room that has wood paneling, so i made a retro desk for my old computers with a false woodpanel wall to put retro stuff on like an old rotary phone and 80s desk supplies to try and replicate that for myself lol
Cool to see you doing more Sinclair stuff! You had the Caps Lock on (Caps Shift + 2) while you were doing that type-in, that's why you had a C cursor instead of L. When you did the maze program at the end, you had the L cursor. Also, I understand you can switch the ROM in this with a normal Spectrum ROM and then you'd at least have access to the Spectrum library.
So I guess that Caps Lock I triggered when I was trying to follow the book's instructions during the introduction? It seems that part wasn't really part of the "tutorial" of this chapter, it was just some general information.
@@8_Bit Possibly, I didn't notice when you activated it. Also, if you feel like playing around with this again, here's a maze program that looks better: 5 POKE 65368,195: POKE 65369,135: POKE 65370,14: POKE 65371,28: POKE 65372,56: POKE 65373,112: POKE 65374,225: POKE 65375,195: POKE 65376,195: POKE 65377,225: POKE 65378,112: POKE 65379,56: POKE 65380,28: POKE 65381,14: POKE 65382,135: POKE 65383,195 10 PRINT CHR$ (144+INT (RND*2));: GO TO 10 Or an easier to type version: 5 FOR i=65368 TO 65368+15: READ x: POKE i,x: NEXT i 10 PRINT CHR$ (144+INT (RND*2));: GO TO 10 20 DATA 195,135,14,28,56,112,225,195 21 DATA 195,225,112,56,28,14,135,195 Of course, it's cheating because it's redefining graphics, but hey. I guess you could also make the first one into one line, but it would be even slower. Come to think of it, I'm not really sure this would work on the Timex version, with the different ROM and all. Depends at what address the UDGs start. It's 65368 on the Spectrum.
Hey, here's another one: 10 FOR y=175 TO 0 STEP -8: FOR x=0 TO 255 STEP 8: LET r=INT (RND*2): PLOT x+7*r,y: DRAW 7-r*14,-7: NEXT x: NEXT y No cheating this time, one line, but no scrolling unfortunately.
Yes, there was indeed a ROM cartridge with the regular ZX Spectrum ROM, but by using that cart, the user could no longer use the enhanced features of the TS2068, such as the extra keywords, or the Hi-res graphics, as long as the cartridge was present. More recently, several people have installed a stock Spectrum ROM inside the machine, piggy-back fashion on top of the original TS2068 ROM, and added a switch to select either Spectrum mode or TS2068 mode. There are in fact videos here on RUclips showing how they did this mod.
@@BertGrink Ah, cool, yeah, I heard about the cartridge, but that one is supposedly almost impossible to find. About the inside mod I only heard about replacing the ROM completely, (swapping the chip basically). I didn't know about the piggyback one. But anyway, unless you want to write new software for this taking advantage of the couple of extra things it has over the Spectrum, you probably don't need the original ROM.
Great idea for presenting that quirkiness ! Also, Timex/Sinclair were really pulling off some of a Wizard of Oz trick here: They are really forcing their users to enter BASIC tokens by hand, but instead of referring them to octal code tables, they hand you a shiny keyboard from behind the curtain.! 😆
I got a Timex Sinclair home computer in 1985. I was 25. The thrill I got when I typed each line in this computer was immense. I don't get even 1/10 th of it when I program in a modern desktop computer.
My first computer was an NTSC ZX-81 (pre-Timex) that I still have. The 2068 is worlds ahead of the early Sinclairs, and even with the chiclet keyboard, I can see the single-key scheme becoming really effective once you internalize the keystrokes-- kind of like the keyboards court stenographers used to use.
It would be effective if keywords were single-stroke and everything else was like a regular keyboard. But any gains from the keywords is more than offset by the ridiculousness of needing 2, 3, even 4 key combos to just do regular stuff like punctuation, backspace, and cursor movement!
@@8_Bit It was much less of an issue for early computer users. Many of us now have 40+ years of touch typing experience on regular qwerty keyboards which makes it difficult to go backwards and use more antiquated setups. However for a fresh user in the 80s with no ingrained habits it was much easier. The first computer I used had a similar syle of keyboard to the ZX spectrum and after about a week I was completely comfortable using the shortcuts for basic programming.
As a long time Spectrum user I found that painful to watch, but Fred is right, it pretty quickly becomes second nature. Timex did seem to make it slightly harder than it needs to be with their choice of labelling text as the dead flesh original keyboard was somewhat colour coded and was just clearer in general. The Spectrum+ slightly simplified matters by adding additional modifier keys such as Extend Mode (that's what the E cursor signifies), but it was kind of sad when the 128 ditched the "you don't enter keywords that then get tokenised, you're literally entering the tokens" system...
I have a Spectrum + (bought it this year as my first vintage machine) and the added shift/extend/etc keys were a big part of my decision. I have hand issues so Sinclair BASIC helps minimise the amount of typing.
One thing it absolutely did get right is that it told you when you were making an error - a very low level error, in terms of syntax. Looking back, that was quite amazing. I'd love to know more about how it knew what combinations were incompatible (the flashing ? and 🆂) etc
You missed 'S-SHIFT C' after switching back to "TRUE VIDEO" at 31:38. If I understand correctly it gives a ? (question mark), and if you look at the program listing at 40:12, there is also an = (equal sign) after the question mark. Could this be why the program looks worse every time you run it?
Great video, thanks for sharing! As you probably realised, right at the start of the book you prodded the CAPS LOCK several times which led to it being on whilst entering the listing (not obvious while in K mode) so all those C-SHIFT letter combinations to type a capital letter in the user prompts were lost :)
That was all very snarky, Robin. If you want to do another non CBM macine, find someone to loan your an Acorn machine and take a look at probably the most capable and well designed micros from the eighties. Certainly one of the best BASIC's ever designed. How would you have liked a CBM basic 2.0 with a built in assembler? And dedicated graphics and audio commands. And proper procedures and functions.
I do have some kind of BBC that I really should do something with sometime! I've heard the BASIC is great, and they put the expensive RAM in it so the CPU could run at a full 2 MHz.
I had a c64 w disk drive e and tons of games on floppies and even made my own games. But was amazed at this machine where you could use the circle or line command and draw a circle or a line. Blew my mind
@@chrismason7066 Same here - I grew up with a C64 in the UK and I don't think there was an 8 bit system that could beat it for games and sound. But for programming? The BBC micro was astonishing. Fast too and more ports your could shake a stick at. I mean, the first ARM processor was developed on one.
@@8_Bit Robin _ I'd urge you to get a pdf of the BBC Micro user's guide and skim read though the chapters on OSBYTE, FX calls, Assembly Language, Analogue inputs and Procedures and functions. You'll be astonished at how feature rich the OS is.
When the book says "... the cursor changes into an L for [L]etters or numbers ..." they mean: the cursor changes into a C for [C]haracter input. Wait a minute ... at the end of the video the cursor actually did turn into an L. Maybe the [C] stands for [C]aps lock?
I can't say it's my "first ever computer" like you, but my dad's friend had a Timex Sinclair 1000 and that was the first computer I coded on. I would go to his house and sit and program for hours in his study. I don't know for sure, but looking back I'm positive my dad's friend had a hand in convincing him to buy me a TRS-80 CoCo2. I don't miss that membrane keyboard, but it was a cool little thing.
In 1986 I was jealous of the neighbor girl because she had this and I only had the TS1000. From what I've read this one from Timex Portugal was technically better than both the Spectrum and the ZX81. The problem was the software I think, since it wasn't a ZX81 *or* a Spectrum the software was sparse and right around when Timex went bankrupt. Very ironically I *liked* the TS/1000 because my only other computer was an unexpanded VIC20 with no Datasette .. we were too poor to even afford a cassette deck at the time. So yeah, the 16K RAM expansion and built in cassette seemed luxurious.. at least until the membrane keyboard gave out.
Disc Drive Support for the 2068 - Yes, well sort of. There was a highspeed tape drive produced by the A&J Microdrive The tape cartridges came in several sizes from 10' of tape that could store 14K all the way up to 62' that could store 85K - the drive would run at 10" of tape per second and could transfer up to about 13 m million bits per second. The tapes due to their dimensions were fragile. Out of 6 tapes that I had 2 broke on the first usage, nearly impossible to resplice together. However, a well-constructed cartridge could run for years on end with no issue. The drive unit itself was reliable, but the tapes to store programs and data were not so much. But again it was the early 80's, and getting an FDD drive for the Sinclair was EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE like $600 whereas the tape drive only cost me $149 ... today those same dollars are worth - $600 in 1982 is the same as $1195 and $149 today is about $489.
Thanks, I've actually got a similar drive for the Commodore 64 but as you say the tapes are very unreliable. I'd like to make a video about it but all the tapes break and despite some hours of effort I haven't been able to repair those tapes. Not sure if you've tried, but I've found it's extremely fiddly work, much more difficult than fixing a regular compact cassette.
Did you ever figure out why the 'L' cursor didn't appear at 21:00? It appeared later when you were doing the 10 PRINT part.. Was the computer used in making the manual maybe set to lowercase mode somehow? Because it looks like normal UPPERcase characters to me, such as at 25:20. Just curious. Thanks for your sacrifice in getting through that!! I can watch you do it, but have no desire myself to torture myself like that. 😀
I saw that your C64 silver label has gray F keys, in fact that is the first keyboard dedicated to the C64, even if sometimes the keyboard with the orange keys of the VIC 20 was mounted. Do you have information on a possible C64 silver label with PET keyboard? I am a collector of C64 silver labels, both American (with metal silver label and 326298 motherboard) and European ones (with plastic label and ku14194hb board) and I have no idea if a silver label C64 with PET keyboard really exists, as found on some VIC 20s, maybe you know things that I don't know!
I've never seen a silver label C64 with PET keyboard, except that some versions of the C64 User's Guide appear to have a PET-style keyboard shown on the cover. I wonder if that was just a prototype, or was ever in production. It would make sense that they would just have a prototype for the cover of that very early book. I actually only recently learned that there was a European silver label C64 - the one I saw was made in Germany according to the bottom label.
@@8_Bit thanks for the reply, a few months ago I made a video where I show some of my collection. The European silver label c64s have a different case from the American one, the three pairs of hooks are identical in the European one and the case is a little higher, while in the c64 S.L. American one pair of hooks is narrower (the one on the joystick side). I think the case of the C64 S.L. American derives directly from that of the VIC 1001 (same type of hooks, same height) obviously with modifications regarding the lower slots and the cartridge holders on the back. I have been studying these differences between American and European C64 silers for years, one day I hope to write a book about them, also because American C64 SLs with metal labels (which are unfairly mistaken for fakes) are almost unknown here.
Could you get better quality replacement keys for this computer back in the day? I vaguely remember that the rubber keys for the org. ZX Spectrum made it … um… annoying/interesting to type long program listings
A bunch of companies brought out keyboards for the Speccy. I had a great one called "Lo Profile". Most of them you put your Speccy motherboard inside, so it was more of a replacement case & keyboard than replacement keys. I hated typing in program listings on any computer. But for writing my own programs the rubber keys were great because it was silent and I could stay up all night coding in my bedroom without waking up my brother trying to sleep in the same room (-:
@@andrewdunbar828 Cool, didn't know that - Imagine someone selling that kind of replacements for, say, an Apple machine today. xD Haha, yeah good that it was not some noisy mechanical keys then :D
@@andrewdunbar828 And eventually Sinclair did too. The Spectrum Plus 48k was a regular spectrum board in a new case with a reset key and improved keyboard with hard keys. One of the bonuses is that it gave you extra shift keys so there were rarely combinations of more than 2 keys and dedicated punctuation keys. Sinclair offered the case alone for £20 and did a mail-in case replacement service for £30.
My cousins in Argentina had one of these. It was awful to type in. But we managed to type a game, a side view space shooter that I made modifications to. Oh, the good old 8-bit times…
This is like the early 80s implementation of something like IntelliSense's autocomplete feature. Beats typing whole keywords with such a small keyboard that'd probably hurt to touch type on.
It would be fine if it only sped up keyword entry, but needing to use shift or other modifier keys to type a comma, use backspace/delete, or cursor keys is ridiculous. Many things take more keystrokes than a regular keyboard.
@@8_Bit The Acorn Electron provided keyword expansion that you could choose to use by holding down the Func key and pressing the key bearing the desired keyword on the front face of the keycap. Some shortcuts like OLD and RUN also initiated a carriage return because you weren't likely to put anything after those. Otherwise, the Electron had a proper keyboard so you could type out the keywords or anything else quite comfortably instead. And BBC BASIC also had keyword abbreviations as well if you didn't want to use the Func key combinations or were a poor typist.
72K of pure marketing power, Is there a cartridge that adds more ZX Spectrum compatibility? IIRC it's the ZX Spectrum ROM and it replaces the Timex ROM. One Paragraph and there are three errors on how to enter the first line.
Man the colour output looks way worse than my PAL Speccy did back in the day on probably worse TV/monitor than you're using. I wonder if the Timex's NTSC implementation was bad?
The 2048 (not 2068) actually existed, but, AFAIK, was released only in Portugal and Poland, and I had one at the time (before I upgraded to a Spectrum +3). :) It was almost perfectly Spectrum 48k-compatible (I think some
I did mine by writing a BASIC program full of DATA statements with the Z80 all in decimal and a loop that READ the data and POKEd it into ram. I never had an assembler. Some of the BASIC compilers that came out were pretty impressive too.
I wonder how it creates it's colours? I am guessing that the strange appearance has to do with how it made those colours. Like with binary pairs for example? Whoever made this computer should have been sentenced to use it for a month. I can see how this failed. Then there's the old LET command, not too surprising in 1983 I guess but... I almost grabbed a Timex 1000, I am so glad I dodged that bullet and went with the C64. I went with it after checking software support etc... in magazines and the C64 had much more support than most others. I bet this could have been a pretty good system had they ditched the commands on keys nonsense. Oh, and you can type "GO TO" on the C64 as well as the "LET" command if you prefer, same with most other BASICs.
The graphics output on the original spectrum was handled by a ULA which basically condensed a lot of TTL logic chips. Clone machines from elsewhere in the world (anywhere with a copyright-what-is-that? attitude and a pressing need for a cheap computer with no custom chips) generally replaced the ULA with the TTL logic chips. Others just used a look-up table. Apparently Timex thought there was another way to do it about which I know zip.
9:54 while very odd, I find the look of the overall machine quite fun. Too bad it’s a Z80. 13:00 this keyboard is loved by JavaScript developers everywhere. Doesn’t make sense and is hard to use? Great, ship it! 19:41 this makes a VIC-20 seem like a users dream computer from the future 34:00 I didn’t think there was a more awkward way to enter a program than the keypad on a KIM-1 but here we are Wow, that was hard to watch ;)
That poor text quality on the display may have contributed to the poor sales of this machine. Any Sinclair Spectrum owners here who can testify as to whether this issue exists on a genuine Speccy? (It may also be that such artifacts don't show as badly on a CRT or television for which it was intended)
@@8_BitDidn't even think about that. If it has a smaller display size to comply with NTSC standards, I imagine that breaks compatibility with a lot of programs.
@@JustWasted3HoursHere It had the same display size and even had a double high-res mode, which is apparently not available from the Basic and no games I know of ever used it. A Speccy on a PAL colour TV back in the day looked about as clear in colour as the black and white program listing parts of this video. The 50hz vs 60hz didn't make a difference to the usable resolution because there was so much spare overscan space.
Timex computer division appear to either have been a bunch of idiots, or on drugs at the time. Quite possibly both. A simple redesign of the original ZX Spectrum case and keyboard would have improved their chances of success. They could even have forgone the Sinclair keyboard entry system (as with the later Amstrad designed ZX Spectrums) and still made it 95% compatible. A huge wealth of software, magazines, books and user groups for already existed for the Speccy. All of which was ignored by Timex. They had the opportunity to improve things without making it totally incompatible, but chose to be "clever". And it failed.
First computer I had was bought for me at a hamfest. Timex Sinclair 1000 w/16K RAM module. It would only count to 16 before it ran out of memory. It sucked. LOL
This computer was never gonna work for the American market for several reasons, and most of them were related to the fact that America was much richer, on average, than the UK and most European nations. Americans were not budget-conscious or thrifty like the Europeans had to be, so they would not mind paying at the very least 2x the price for a C64 or an Apple 2 or spend real big money for a computer that could be used for work. The Timex / Sinclair computers were compromised in all ways. They could not compete in specs even with a TRS-80, ffs. Early on, Americans would be fine with buying Atari games and paying up the wazoo for cartridges. Then they'd get a C64 and a disk drive, which was more expensive than the computer at times, because even with that extra investment, it was still affordable, whilst Europeans could not really justify the investment on a disk drive (except the West Germans, who had money) if games could be loaded from tape at a fraction of the cost and a with not much longer load time. And when the NES showed up, then it was game over for anything else. A dedicated high quality games system (that, tbh, by 1986 it was already 3 years old and would not hold a candle to the Master System, but Nintendo basically cornered the market) with massively expensive cartridges, or they would be for anyone outside of America. In the end, it's about what people make, and about how much they're ready to spend on systems and software and whether they're given a cheaper alternative. Most European nations did not have that luxury.
Indeed. It is surprising that Tramiel got himself into enough of a panic about the arrival of cheap Sinclair and Japanese machines that he sought to introduce the Commodore 116 with its budget keyboard and reduced specification. People do like cheap stuff but not when it is a false economy and when they can afford something a lot better. And absurdly, Sinclair must have believed that alongside variants of the ZX81 and Spectrum, the more developed US market would actually go for the wholly compromised QL as a business machine. In the end, Sinclair was rescued from bankruptcy and Commodore went through some lean years. Endless cost-cutting and price wars aren't so smart after all. These transatlantic misunderstandings affected other companies, too. Acorn redesigned the BBC Micro for the US, needlessly breaking compatibility to make the machine work with NTSC televisions when users, particularly in education where the machine was aimed, would largely be using them with dedicated monitors. As you note, in Europe, people would often economise by connecting a relatively inexpensive microcomputer up to a television, whereas in the US, having spent quite a sum already, people would buy a monitor at the same time.
@@paul_boddie To be fair, the generic dedicated monitors already on sale would have also been expecting a 60Hz signal, even in monochrome. I don't think multisync was a thing yet.
@@stevethepocket I guess the power supply frequency was traditionally a big factor in the refresh rate of displays, so up to a certain point in history, a 60Hz display would have been advisible for machines sold in the US. I'm not sure when that stopped being a significant concern, however.
The Apple 2 at the time was about 6 or 7x the price I think at least in Australia where we had the Apple II and the Speccy but not the Timex/Sinclairs. The C64 came out later and yeah was maybe 2x the price. I chose the Speccy over the TRS-80 Coco because the Speccy had better graphics. Don't forget the C64 disk drive was as slow loading a game as a Speccy cassette!
My dad actually worked in the Waterbury watch factory (same one they packaged the times Sinclair machines in) he did some QA testing on the 1000. The demo program had MANY obvious typos in it that he noticed. They may never have been fixed or it may have only been in the test program.
This was my first computer, purchased from a gift card won via a roller skating charity event (I got second or third place by skating for many hours). I wanted an Atari 800, but was able to get this with the printer for cheaper. I was in middle school orchestra at the time, so programmed a full score with violin (maybe two), viola, and cello for our science fair. Programming that was a nightmare. Won some award for that. Eventually destroyed the machine when I took it apart and started shorting pins to see if I could get it to do cool stuff. It did until I unknowingly shorted some power components.
As a long term Spectrum user I do have to say that the quirky way of using the keyboard became a huge time saver pretty quickly. Might have to dig out the old rubber keyed Spectrum and see if muscle memory kicks in!
Had one of those (Polish black case version called Unipolbrit 2068) at high school. There was no software available, other than one provided for ZX Spectrum mode (enabled with ZX ROM). But I have found memories - it was fast and had the "mixed mode graphics/text" display, basically all text is graphics representation anyway - contrary to our Ataris (which has switched text/graphics modes like the Apple II) or our copied Tandy TRS-80 computers (with no graphics mode at all). We also had FDD interfaces via the expansion port (exposing the whole system bus like in the ZX) tied to 3-inch Hitachi standard floppy drives.
Oh man, that was bad. The author was so cheery and folksie, I wonder if the first/rough draft was less friendly. "I've had to do some tough jobs in my life and I'll get through this, but let's see what you're made out of. You or your parents thought they were saving money buying a Timex 2068 and even if your time isn't worth anything, you're going get frustrated and tired of this crap and put it aside, so did you really save money if it just gathers dust? I've killed men at 15 feet and 15,000 feet, but nothing haunts me more than programming on this turd. Even that damn Altair 6800 was a breeze compared this steaming pile. Anyway, let's see if I can walk you through a "simple" PRINT statement. I hope you've set aside a lot of time for this, cuz you're going to get it wrong the first ten times."
Thank you for showing this computer and typing in the program - very nostalgic. The program itself as a first type-in demo from a book isn't very inspiring. As soon as I saw the errors in the book I knew it was one of those rushed tutorial books that were everywhere at the time - full of errors - they just wanted to crank them out to capitalise on the market.
Oh wow... The ZX Spectrum was never meant to be adapted into a NTSC machine. The ULA's pixel clock does not work well with a 3.58MHz color subcarrier and you get terrible artifact color on text as a result.
Well, the 2068 used the newer SCLD vs. the ULA, but they clearly didn't know anything about preventing dot crawl on NTSC. The video output is almost identical to the Tandy/RS Color Computer and we all know how awful the CoCo was until later revisions.
This sure was a computer invented in a country that served spam in restaurants. Sinclair Spectrum: the official computer of austerity policies that never end and a populace too polite to complain about it. Also, I've never seen a computer where typing NEW just hard-resets the whole machine. It even turned off the caps lock.
Learned to program basic on a ZX Spectrum. One key press gave you an entire command which made programming really fast when you got used to it. A single key press showed you an entire keyword and that single command would cost you only one byte of memory. Basic was easier to learn than the Commodore 64 version and didn't rely so much on Peeks and Pokes. The Z80A is a faster CPU than the 6502 and games coming out for the system today show incredible sound & graphics with vibrant colors and no color clash, even 3D capabilities previously though to be impossible on these old systems. Overall a better machine than the C64 except on standard sound and keyboard. Wonderful little computer. I have 3 different models now and still play on it from time to time.
You turned on capslock playing with the keyboard, hence the "C" cursor. The book is correct when saying "L". What a snarky review. I am actually disappointed. This was my second computer, after the ZX81. Typing on the keyboard may be different for a noob, but when you get used to it, BASIC entry is actually pretty darned fast. As to the graphics characters, they are redefineable and moveable in memory. So you can have your precious PETSCII. The computer had disk drives, modems, printers, streaming tape and better keyboards made for it. It was also possible to get the ZX Spectrum ROM on cartridge and make compatibility about 95% (60Hz being the limiting factor). As to color, yes it had dot crawl, but that was because the color burst was not synchronized with the video. Unlike the ZX Spectrum, the TS2068's SCLD (ULA) had CGA output as well, accessible from the edge connector. With a simple adapter board you could also plug in ZX Spectrum peripherals. OS64 let you use BASIC with the 64 column mode. The cartridges were actually an ingenious design. The cartridges could be either be binary code like your typical cartridge any other system would have, but they could also have BASIC embedded and that BASIC source could be up to 48K in size and STILL be able to use the 48K of RAM. I had designed a BBS program, which was featured in BYTE magazxine where the BBS code was in static RAM in the cartridge bank and the messages were stored in the main RAM bank. It worked great. The banking system was capable of up to 258K of RAM, if your expansion had the second half of the hardware. The OS even had a function dispatcher that fully supported drivers and bank selection without the pokes. It had dual screen buffers (if you used them), 8x1 pixels per attribute instead of the ZX Spectrum's 8x8 if you used the color enhanced modes, and a dual color high resolution mode of 512x192 to make 64 columns possible. The system had a lot going for it, and their biggest mistake was to not include a bankable ZX Spectrum ROM to raise that compatibility. As to the pre-tokenized BASIC, you could plug in a cartridge that added a tokenizer to after the line was entered (so you could type the keywords instead of it typing them for you), or you could just patch the BASIC ROM to do it as it has just enough space to do it.
Sorry if the whole thing came across as snarky - there's no doubt I *do* get snarky at the marketing on the box, selling the "one-touch" keyboard entry as a feature when it was primarily a ROM-saving technique carried over from the ZX80/81, and the "72K" claim is deliberately misleading. There's even full page ads for the TS2068 proclaiming "72K" in huge letters, clearly meant to sound better than the 64K RAM some competitors already had. But as for the typing, that was no put-on. It was mentally painful at times, but I think it's clear I was getting faster towards the end when the tutorial had me type it in without further guidance. But that Delete thing, sorry, that's just horrible. Even having to press a modifier key like shift to access the delete/backspace function is terrible, but then adding the DELETE keyword to that same key?? And that dot crawl was a genuine (negative) surprise. Sure, if I was 11 or 12 years old again, and had got a 2068 as an upgrade from my 1000, I likely would have a more positive impression for my first couple hours with the machine, but I'm not. That's cool that the computer has some good features, and maybe I'll look at those in a future video. Nifty to hear about your BBS software; that's great you accomplished that. If I had any accessories for this system, I'd definitely try them, but I only own the computer and the box and never in all my years of thrifting and attending retro computer shows (over 25 years now!) have I had the opportunity to buy anything else for it. Even on eBay there doesn't seem to be anything for sale for it besides the system itself and some games, many for $50 or $100!
@@8_Bit To me back in the day it was a feature, but I don't know if it was a claim on the original Speccy box or not. The 72k claim is ridiculous though.
There was a factory of Timex in Portugal. A lot of Sinclairs and Timexs were built there. The 2068 sold in Portugal also came with a cartridge included that maintained compatibility with the Spectrum 48k, so if anyone wanted to use a Spectrum 48k software they would just start the 2068 with that cartridge.
One thing I love about your videos Robin, is it really doesn't matter to me what you are working with. I have no desire to use this machine, or any other Sinclair unit, but you reading and demonstrating, means hours of enjoyment for me. Compared to almost anything else at the time, this setup is bizarre. Too many modes and too many combination keys.
My thoughts exactly. I am not really interested personally in working on some of the systems he shows, but I AM interested in watching Robin work with them, because otherwise, I probably wouldn't get to see what I "missed".. I feel lucky that I get to experience some of their aspects without having to do it myself. I really appreciate it that Robin doesn't mind doing all the hard work and sharing it with us.
2:27 56KiB seems like an odd ROM size. 3:12 So, you give it commands in Morse Code, like with EDC flashlights! 5:45 Seems like a lot of wasted space to put the cartridge port on the front, including on the TI. The TI could have had a full-size keyboard instead, with the cartridge port on the back or side. 7:07 Seems redundant to the cartridge port. 8:25 It's a wonder Chiclets® gum didn't sue people for trademark infringement. 8:42 So, it's a variation of the Plus-4 strategy, except with a better computer that lacks software compatibility. 18:20 So it has multi-statement lines, unlike the ZX-80. 18:25 Or, you can get yourself a Commodore-64 and just press the DELete key. 23:07 Why did they call the SHIFT keys CAPS SHIFT if the machine doesn't appear to have lowercase? 46:58 I assume you can just PRINT SQR in command mode. Try 1e40. Odd that it has eight digits of precision instead of 7 (32-bit float) or 9 (40-bit float).
Fortunately that was optional. Keyword shortcuts are nice when they're optional. The TRS-80 MC-10 (like a mini TRS-80 Color Computer) also has optional keyword shortcuts.
Oh my, that keyboard. I'm feeling that single-key simplicity already! That single-key marketing fluff is really over-embellishing the ability to write 1/3 of the keywords using just one keystroke, completely ignoring the fact that everything else is difficult. I'm guessing that entering keyword tokens directly instead of parsing written out keywords like Commodore, Apple, and others did allowed the BASIC interpreter to be simpler?
As a Spectrum user in the 80's this is quite painful to watch - no one in the UK ever had the anxiety you seem to have. This seems to be a Spectrum that wasn't broken and Timex fixed it.......
Makes me wonder how many people actually programmed it in BASIC, and how many just learned to type LOAD "" and hoped that their games loaded without error.
@@8_Bit you are porbably right. I did program on it but most people didn't. But all my C64 owning friends, and I mean all, couldn't code a 10 print program. So the keyboard was wasted !!
@@8_BitAs a 12 year old boy given a ZX Spectrum for Christmas, I think I found learning the QWERTY layout almost as difficult as learning where all the commands were. However after a few weeks and determined to learn how to program, it all started to become second nature as the muscle memory built up. The keyboard (like the Timex variants) was appalling so moving my ZX Spectrum board into a DK Tronics "proper keyboard" was glorious. Like many people, I eventually got a Commodore 64 and found that it a struggle to program initially because the commands weren't written on the keys. Again, that was quick to overcome and I was utterly shocked to find that pretty much everything you wanted to do with C64 basic required POKEing. So one case where BASIC on the Spectrum allowed you to do a lot more (draw lines, play sounds etc) without resorting to POKINg around. I still have these marvellous machine which are now delighting my kids.
@@8_Bit Tons of both. I learned programming when I was 11 on an Apple II and then a TRS-80 model 1. When saving for my own computer I was shocked that Commodores didn't have a CLS command and you had to do something ridiculous like print an inverse heart character that I don't think was even on the keyboard! But most people only used them to load games and wait longer for them to load off their expensive disk drive than we waited for ours to load off our cheap cassettes (-: All the early computers were full of weird quirks. It would be painful to learn any of them as an old fart like we all are now. But as kids we just did what we had to do to get the most out of them.
That is called "dot crawl". It is because of a slight mismatch of the system clock and the video clock. All 48K Spectrums have it. It is more pronounced on some paper and ink combinations, like red on green. I am guessing that computer is an NTSC one, on the PAL Spectrums we have over here it is not this bad, but still, it is pretty annoying. And by the way, you somehow turned the caps lock on at the beginning of the video, that's what caused the "L" and "C" cursor confusion. Normally (when caps lock off" you get the "L" cursor, when it is on, you get the "C" cursor.
Always very interesting, thank you. A sad story by way of an important lesson to anyone who picks up one of these now very rare machines. I have a TC2068 with the horribly rare ZX Spectrum 'emulator' cart - just a 48K Speccy ROM for anyone who wants to hack their TS/TC2068 to actually run some software! (To oversimplify the TC is a European TS) Having not used mine in a long time I forgot that while a ZX Spectrum PSU will fit the polarity is the other way round - Yep, another dead TC2068. Watch out! PS: Hopefully I've not blown anything irreplaceable, when I have time I'll see if mine can be repaired.
As a brazilian, this reminds me of CP400, a TRS Color Computer 2 clone that clones this Timex keyboard design (for those who will search, there where two versions of CP400, the "color II" with a "professional keyboard", and the "color" version with a keyboard nearly identical to the Timex)
I owned a 2068 for like 2 days. Back in the day, there was a computer store(when there was computer stores), 4 blocks from me. They had the VIC-20 and the C-64 as well. For some reason, I was entranced by the design and expansion possibilities; which never happened. It quickly became apparent that it was more of a toy, than a living breathing computer, with a real keyboard. I am not taking away from the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, which the 2068 was not. I exchanged the 2068 for the full C64 setup: C64, 1701 monitor, and the 1541 disk drive. Programmers had to be clever back then, making a lot from a little. The 1541 was absolutely essential!
That was excruciating. My skin crawls. An hour of my life that I will never get back. At least it was in pieces as I could not watch it all at once. But I completed it because I had to know and give it a chance. And these videos are great. Not going to shoot the messenger. Gotta wonder … this thing or an Atari 400 with that membrane keyboard and a key click that you can’t turn off by turning down the tv volume, but you can type BASIC words out like you’d expect and have a nearly full set of “keys” with only symbols and inverse video needing an extra keystroke, oh and support for a floppy drive (if you have more than base amount of RAM). Hmmm… I miss the variety of computers from the early 80s. Once we got to the 16-but era the choices were few. Once the ST, Amiga, and Archimedes (sp?) were gone and it was just PC and Mac, it got boring. Computing was less fun. The Wild West era was awesome. So in summary I can’t stand this 2068 but I love that it tried and somebody loved it.
I had a ZX Spectrum when I was a teenager in the 80's. I has pretty much the same keyboard layout and multiple key entry method. It seems awkward at the beginning, but you get used to it quickly. Using single key keywords actually becomes a very efficient typing method when you get the hang of it. Also, it is very interesting how the muscle memory works and never forgotten. When I resurrected my Spectrum about 7 years ago, it all came back pretty quickly. Things you learn when you were young are never forgotten. I learned C++ after the age of 50 and I have to look up syntax every time I write code, but I remember Sinclair BASIC syntax by heart.
Some guy programming punch cards: "Man, there's gotta be a better way than this!" *Worm hole opens up.* *Guy in a rediculous shiny metallic jumpsuit appears.* "Yo dude, check out this totally rad computer." *Sets up a Timex Sinclair 2068.* *Explains how to write a simple square root calculator.* Some guy programming punch cards: *facepalm*
frankly, if one gets used to it, i think this type in methood may actualy be very fast compared to typing commands letter by letter. the arrangment of the keys suggest they had some thinkering with it. like the LET and = being on the same key. i could get used to it.
It looks funkier than the Spectrum; which I never owned. In fact I never owned computers in the 80's; I was a console user. I started using PC's on training schemes; that's how I got into computers.
Thanks for your efforts to bring this to us. You deserve an award. The risk of not saving your program! I understand that the monitor was been fed with composite video; seemed rather clear to me.
I have a Timex Sinclair 2068 in the box with the cables and the manual two casettes, all sitting next to my desk right now. I loved that computer as a kid. And now that I'm an adult, I can have my childhood computer again. Warts and all.
Wow, that makes vi/emacs look downright friendly :D It would take a lot of this type-in self flagellation before those key combinations burned into my muscle memory. Thanks for the overview!
I wonder what the Spectrum would have been like if they had gone with the ZILOG Z8000 and had UNIX as the OS of choice.
The Timex Sinclair 2068 keyboard:
Less powerful than vi, but just as difficult to master.
seriously. same thought. This is masochistic.
@@colinstu This is what happens when your primary input device is developed by people who've never previously used a computer keyboard to operate a home computer, AND when your keyboard designers' prior experience is in remote controls, AND when they mistakenly believe every significant function of the machine needed to be found on the actual input device, just like in eighties remote controls _- because those had such great usability._ :-/.
Hahaha while I was watching this I was thinking that Spectrum users grew up to be VI users. They were the target market!
A Timex 2068 was my very first computer. No one else near me had one, and not much software to be found but I was able to write my own programs and save them to tape. Fun memories!
Poor child... You suffered so much
me also... but I played mostly speccy games on this so no programming.
Timex did show a prototype of a ZX Spectrum that was simply converted to NTSC with no other changes, called the TS2000, but after it received a poor response at CES in January 1983 they cancelled it and started working on the improved TS2068. But the 11 month delay to get it out the door was an eternity in the computer market in 1983, and if Timex had gone ahead with the TS2000 anyway and released it with a large library of Spectrum software, it may have been a better success than the TS2068 ended up being -- or maybe not, since Americans hated chiclet keyboards and every machine released here with one was a flop, including the IBM PCjr, Mattel Aquarius, SV-318, Panasonic JR200U, etc.
If it had the original Spectrum's full game library and price point, the public might have tolerated it. Those are probably the only reasons anyone put up with the Spectrums (Spectra?) in Europe either.
Yeah, it's difficult to know if the TS2000 would have done better than the 2068. It really couldn't have done worse, I suppose. And being out in the market earlier at a lower price surely would have helped somewhat. Especially if they got it out early in 1983 while the C64 was still priced up at $595 or at least $350-$400, before Commodore kept slashing it down $299, $249 and finally $199, totally squeezing mostly everyone else out by late 1983 / early 1984. And yeah, being compatible with most/all the games from the UK surely would have been a big boost if there was good distribution, whether legal or illegal :)
The lack of joystick ports and sound chip were factors but the decision to make the 2068 goes back before the January CES. Gary Grimes was hired at the end of 1982, started in January and immediately began design work on the 2068 case.
That was a real journey!! I feel like there was key-shortage in 1980s that led to them needing to combine everything into as few keys as possible! Appreciate that walk-through Robin, v entertaining :)
In the UK, the single key entry went out of the window with the Spectrum 128K. And good riddance. I don't think there was a 128K version released in the US.
Shush! do you want to reignite the key wars?! let the Dragon 32 rest in peace!
Maybe the ZX-80 keyboards were so awful that they wanted users to type as few keys as possible, and that stuck around.
@@csbruceWhile it is possible that the... ahem "quality" of the keyboard on both the ZX80 and the Zx81 may have played a minor role in deciding to have this - rather unusual - input metod, a probably more important reason was the limited memory of the two machines: both only had ONE kilobyte of RAM out of the box, and if you had to type a program line letter-by-letter, it would be quite easy to fill up the input buffer before you even had a chance to enter the line into the program.
Now since the development of the ZX Spectrum was somewhat rushed, it was decided to simply copy a large chunk of the ZX81 ROM instead of writing all new routines for the BASIC interpreter. Thus when Timex in the US was developing the TS2068, they in turn also copied a fair chunk of the ZX Spectrum ROM, and the result was what Robin has demonstrated in this video.
There was no key shortage, the Sinclair was purposely designed from the ground up to the price of 99 UK pounds; this included reducing the number of keys on the keyboard to keep the manufacturing costs low. Watch the "Micro Men" movie if you haven't already, and all will become crystal clear.
i love those old dumb photographs on the cover of a family gathered around a tiny monitor on a tiny desk, usualy with a tiny lamp in a dark room that has wood paneling, so i made a retro desk for my old computers with a false woodpanel wall to put retro stuff on like an old rotary phone and 80s desk supplies to try and replicate that for myself lol
Cool to see you doing more Sinclair stuff!
You had the Caps Lock on (Caps Shift + 2) while you were doing that type-in, that's why you had a C cursor instead of L. When you did the maze program at the end, you had the L cursor.
Also, I understand you can switch the ROM in this with a normal Spectrum ROM and then you'd at least have access to the Spectrum library.
So I guess that Caps Lock I triggered when I was trying to follow the book's instructions during the introduction? It seems that part wasn't really part of the "tutorial" of this chapter, it was just some general information.
@@8_Bit Possibly, I didn't notice when you activated it.
Also, if you feel like playing around with this again, here's a maze program that looks better:
5 POKE 65368,195: POKE 65369,135: POKE 65370,14: POKE 65371,28: POKE 65372,56: POKE 65373,112: POKE 65374,225: POKE 65375,195: POKE 65376,195: POKE 65377,225: POKE 65378,112: POKE 65379,56: POKE 65380,28: POKE 65381,14: POKE 65382,135: POKE 65383,195
10 PRINT CHR$ (144+INT (RND*2));: GO TO 10
Or an easier to type version:
5 FOR i=65368 TO 65368+15: READ x: POKE i,x: NEXT i
10 PRINT CHR$ (144+INT (RND*2));: GO TO 10
20 DATA 195,135,14,28,56,112,225,195
21 DATA 195,225,112,56,28,14,135,195
Of course, it's cheating because it's redefining graphics, but hey.
I guess you could also make the first one into one line, but it would be even slower.
Come to think of it, I'm not really sure this would work on the Timex version, with the different ROM and all. Depends at what address the UDGs start. It's 65368 on the Spectrum.
Hey, here's another one:
10 FOR y=175 TO 0 STEP -8: FOR x=0 TO 255 STEP 8: LET r=INT (RND*2): PLOT x+7*r,y: DRAW 7-r*14,-7: NEXT x: NEXT y
No cheating this time, one line, but no scrolling unfortunately.
Yes, there was indeed a ROM cartridge with the regular ZX Spectrum ROM, but by using that cart, the user could no longer use the enhanced features of the TS2068, such as the extra keywords, or the Hi-res graphics, as long as the cartridge was present.
More recently, several people have installed a stock Spectrum ROM inside the machine, piggy-back fashion on top of the original TS2068 ROM, and added a switch to select either Spectrum mode or TS2068 mode. There are in fact videos here on RUclips showing how they did this mod.
@@BertGrink Ah, cool, yeah, I heard about the cartridge, but that one is supposedly almost impossible to find.
About the inside mod I only heard about replacing the ROM completely, (swapping the chip basically). I didn't know about the piggyback one.
But anyway, unless you want to write new software for this taking advantage of the couple of extra things it has over the Spectrum, you probably don't need the original ROM.
Great idea for presenting that quirkiness !
Also, Timex/Sinclair were really pulling off some of a Wizard of Oz trick here: They are really forcing their users to enter BASIC tokens by hand, but instead of referring them to octal code tables, they hand you a shiny keyboard from behind the curtain.! 😆
I got a Timex Sinclair home computer in 1985. I was 25. The thrill I got when I typed each line in this computer was immense. I don't get even 1/10 th of it when I program in a modern desktop computer.
My first computer was an NTSC ZX-81 (pre-Timex) that I still have. The 2068 is worlds ahead of the early Sinclairs, and even with the chiclet keyboard, I can see the single-key scheme becoming really effective once you internalize the keystrokes-- kind of like the keyboards court stenographers used to use.
It would be effective if keywords were single-stroke and everything else was like a regular keyboard. But any gains from the keywords is more than offset by the ridiculousness of needing 2, 3, even 4 key combos to just do regular stuff like punctuation, backspace, and cursor movement!
@@8_Bit: Plus, the C64 has lots of two-key abbreviations for keywords.
@@8_Bit It was much less of an issue for early computer users. Many of us now have 40+ years of touch typing experience on regular qwerty keyboards which makes it difficult to go backwards and use more antiquated setups. However for a fresh user in the 80s with no ingrained habits it was much easier. The first computer I used had a similar syle of keyboard to the ZX spectrum and after about a week I was completely comfortable using the shortcuts for basic programming.
As a long time Spectrum user I found that painful to watch, but Fred is right, it pretty quickly becomes second nature. Timex did seem to make it slightly harder than it needs to be with their choice of labelling text as the dead flesh original keyboard was somewhat colour coded and was just clearer in general. The Spectrum+ slightly simplified matters by adding additional modifier keys such as Extend Mode (that's what the E cursor signifies), but it was kind of sad when the 128 ditched the "you don't enter keywords that then get tokenised, you're literally entering the tokens" system...
I have a Spectrum + (bought it this year as my first vintage machine) and the added shift/extend/etc keys were a big part of my decision. I have hand issues so Sinclair BASIC helps minimise the amount of typing.
Thanks Robin - especially for the "rapidly colorful" easter egg ;-)
I could’ve coped with this as a kid. I wouldn’t have the patience for it as an adult.
One thing it absolutely did get right is that it told you when you were making an error - a very low level error, in terms of syntax.
Looking back, that was quite amazing. I'd love to know more about how it knew what combinations were incompatible (the flashing ? and 🆂) etc
You got stuck in caps lock mode without realising it. Thankfully it didn't affect the program as the variable names can either be capitals or small.
You missed 'S-SHIFT C' after switching back to "TRUE VIDEO" at 31:38. If I understand correctly it gives a ? (question mark), and if you look at the program listing at 40:12, there is also an = (equal sign) after the question mark. Could this be why the program looks worse every time you run it?
Great video, thanks for sharing!
As you probably realised, right at the start of the book you prodded the CAPS LOCK several times which led to it being on whilst entering the listing (not obvious while in K mode) so all those C-SHIFT letter combinations to type a capital letter in the user prompts were lost :)
You set the caps lock before you started typing in the program. So the cursor was always C for caps.
That was all very snarky, Robin. If you want to do another non CBM macine, find someone to loan your an Acorn machine and take a look at probably the most capable and well designed micros from the eighties. Certainly one of the best BASIC's ever designed. How would you have liked a CBM basic 2.0 with a built in assembler? And dedicated graphics and audio commands. And proper procedures and functions.
I do have some kind of BBC that I really should do something with sometime! I've heard the BASIC is great, and they put the expensive RAM in it so the CPU could run at a full 2 MHz.
I had a c64 w disk drive e and tons of games on floppies and even made my own games. But was amazed at this machine where you could use the circle or line command and draw a circle or a line. Blew my mind
@@chrismason7066 Same here - I grew up with a C64 in the UK and I don't think there was an 8 bit system that could beat it for games and sound. But for programming? The BBC micro was astonishing. Fast too and more ports your could shake a stick at. I mean, the first ARM processor was developed on one.
@@8_Bit Robin _ I'd urge you to get a pdf of the BBC Micro user's guide and skim read though the chapters on OSBYTE, FX calls, Assembly Language, Analogue inputs and Procedures and functions. You'll be astonished at how feature rich the OS is.
When the book says "... the cursor changes into an L for [L]etters or numbers ..." they mean: the cursor changes into a C for [C]haracter input. Wait a minute ... at the end of the video the cursor actually did turn into an L. Maybe the [C] stands for [C]aps lock?
That looks excruciating!
Scary Halloween weekend video!
My first home computer was a Timex Sinclair 1500 (I'm from Argentina) in 1985
I can't say it's my "first ever computer" like you, but my dad's friend had a Timex Sinclair 1000 and that was the first computer I coded on. I would go to his house and sit and program for hours in his study. I don't know for sure, but looking back I'm positive my dad's friend had a hand in convincing him to buy me a TRS-80 CoCo2. I don't miss that membrane keyboard, but it was a cool little thing.
LOL I love how you said "data.... BASES"
In 1986 I was jealous of the neighbor girl because she had this and I only had the TS1000.
From what I've read this one from Timex Portugal was technically better than both the Spectrum and the ZX81. The problem was the software I think, since it wasn't a ZX81 *or* a Spectrum the software was sparse and right around when Timex went bankrupt.
Very ironically I *liked* the TS/1000 because my only other computer was an unexpanded VIC20 with no Datasette .. we were too poor to even afford a cassette deck at the time.
So yeah, the 16K RAM expansion and built in cassette seemed luxurious.. at least until the membrane keyboard gave out.
Oof. Great video! You have more patience than I do!
fun to watch and what keyboard did Timex steal
Disc Drive Support for the 2068 - Yes, well sort of. There was a highspeed tape drive produced by the A&J Microdrive The tape cartridges came in several sizes from 10' of tape that could store 14K all the way up to 62' that could store 85K - the drive would run at 10" of tape per second and could transfer up to about 13 m million bits per second. The tapes due to their dimensions were fragile. Out of 6 tapes that I had 2 broke on the first usage, nearly impossible to resplice together. However, a well-constructed cartridge could run for years on end with no issue. The drive unit itself was reliable, but the tapes to store programs and data were not so much. But again it was the early 80's, and getting an FDD drive for the Sinclair was EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE like $600 whereas the tape drive only cost me $149 ... today those same dollars are worth - $600 in 1982 is the same as $1195 and $149 today is about $489.
Thanks, I've actually got a similar drive for the Commodore 64 but as you say the tapes are very unreliable. I'd like to make a video about it but all the tapes break and despite some hours of effort I haven't been able to repair those tapes. Not sure if you've tried, but I've found it's extremely fiddly work, much more difficult than fixing a regular compact cassette.
I have 3 boxed Max Machines. I would happily swap one for a 2068!
Did you ever figure out why the 'L' cursor didn't appear at 21:00? It appeared later when you were doing the 10 PRINT part..
Was the computer used in making the manual maybe set to lowercase mode somehow? Because it looks like normal UPPERcase characters to me, such as at 25:20. Just curious.
Thanks for your sacrifice in getting through that!! I can watch you do it, but have no desire myself to torture myself like that. 😀
He was in Caps Lock mode (S-shift 2). It sticks around until disabled (by the same key combination).
@@pedrotimoteo329 ahh, makes sense. Thanks!
Sorry, C-shift 2. :)
@@pedrotimoteo329 no problem. I wasn't able to contradict your answer anyway! 😛
I saw that your C64 silver label has gray F keys, in fact that is the first keyboard dedicated to the C64, even if sometimes the keyboard with the orange keys of the VIC 20 was mounted. Do you have information on a possible C64 silver label with PET keyboard?
I am a collector of C64 silver labels, both American (with metal silver label and 326298 motherboard) and European ones (with plastic label and ku14194hb board) and I have no idea if a silver label C64 with PET keyboard really exists, as found on some VIC 20s, maybe you know things that I don't know!
I've never seen a silver label C64 with PET keyboard, except that some versions of the C64 User's Guide appear to have a PET-style keyboard shown on the cover. I wonder if that was just a prototype, or was ever in production. It would make sense that they would just have a prototype for the cover of that very early book.
I actually only recently learned that there was a European silver label C64 - the one I saw was made in Germany according to the bottom label.
@@8_Bit thanks for the reply, a few months ago I made a video where I show some of my collection. The European silver label c64s have a different case from the American one, the three pairs of hooks are identical in the European one and the case is a little higher, while in the c64 S.L. American one pair of hooks is narrower (the one on the joystick side). I think the case of the C64 S.L. American derives directly from that of the VIC 1001 (same type of hooks, same height) obviously with modifications regarding the lower slots and the cartridge holders on the back. I have been studying these differences between American and European C64 silers for years, one day I hope to write a book about them, also because American C64 SLs with metal labels (which are unfairly mistaken for fakes) are almost unknown here.
Could you get better quality replacement keys for this computer back in the day? I vaguely remember that the rubber keys for the org. ZX Spectrum made it … um… annoying/interesting to type long program listings
A bunch of companies brought out keyboards for the Speccy. I had a great one called "Lo Profile". Most of them you put your Speccy motherboard inside, so it was more of a replacement case & keyboard than replacement keys.
I hated typing in program listings on any computer. But for writing my own programs the rubber keys were great because it was silent and I could stay up all night coding in my bedroom without waking up my brother trying to sleep in the same room (-:
@@andrewdunbar828 Cool, didn't know that - Imagine someone selling that kind of replacements for, say, an Apple machine today. xD
Haha, yeah good that it was not some noisy mechanical keys then :D
@@andrewdunbar828 And eventually Sinclair did too. The Spectrum Plus 48k was a regular spectrum board in a new case with a reset key and improved keyboard with hard keys. One of the bonuses is that it gave you extra shift keys so there were rarely combinations of more than 2 keys and dedicated punctuation keys.
Sinclair offered the case alone for £20 and did a mail-in case replacement service for £30.
Another credits banger at 1.5x!
My cousins in Argentina had one of these. It was awful to type in. But we managed to type a game, a side view space shooter that I made modifications to. Oh, the good old 8-bit times…
This is like the early 80s implementation of something like IntelliSense's autocomplete feature. Beats typing whole keywords with such a small keyboard that'd probably hurt to touch type on.
It would be fine if it only sped up keyword entry, but needing to use shift or other modifier keys to type a comma, use backspace/delete, or cursor keys is ridiculous. Many things take more keystrokes than a regular keyboard.
@@8_Bit The Acorn Electron provided keyword expansion that you could choose to use by holding down the Func key and pressing the key bearing the desired keyword on the front face of the keycap. Some shortcuts like OLD and RUN also initiated a carriage return because you weren't likely to put anything after those.
Otherwise, the Electron had a proper keyboard so you could type out the keywords or anything else quite comfortably instead. And BBC BASIC also had keyword abbreviations as well if you didn't want to use the Func key combinations or were a poor typist.
@@paul_boddie Yeah, when it's optional like that, it's good! The TRS-80 MC-10 also had optional keywords.
So you can add ROMs that total 56 K of memory? Which means you'd have 1/8 km + 3. 16 K rooms in there
72K of pure marketing power, Is there a cartridge that adds more ZX Spectrum compatibility? IIRC it's the ZX Spectrum ROM and it replaces the Timex ROM. One Paragraph and there are three errors on how to enter the first line.
Growing up with a zx clone, i find it hard to understand all The drama about keyboard but yeah..... Time are a changing.
Man the colour output looks way worse than my PAL Speccy did back in the day on probably worse TV/monitor than you're using. I wonder if the Timex's NTSC implementation was bad?
Whoever designed THAT kind of keyboard layout was smoking a lot of stuff.
That's inappropriate - British people in the 80s only LOOKED high - it's mainly camera lenses and hairstyles
The 2048 (not 2068) actually existed, but, AFAIK, was released only in Portugal and Poland, and I had one at the time (before I upgraded to a Spectrum +3). :) It was almost perfectly Spectrum 48k-compatible (I think some
The manual did say that the color combinations are not idea, and no joking there. Is that really how it is supposed to look on screen?
It's pretty bizarre how "crawly" that is. It seems they didn't figure out how to make a good colour NTSC video signal?
@@8_Bit Yeah, very strange.
Sure, BASIC always sucks; but, how do enter a Z80 assembly program?
I did mine by writing a BASIC program full of DATA statements with the Z80 all in decimal and a loop that READ the data and POKEd it into ram. I never had an assembler. Some of the BASIC compilers that came out were pretty impressive too.
platypusses uysing them in austrailia?
I wonder how it creates it's colours? I am guessing that the strange appearance has to do with how it made those colours. Like with binary pairs for example? Whoever made this computer should have been sentenced to use it for a month. I can see how this failed. Then there's the old LET command, not too surprising in 1983 I guess but... I almost grabbed a Timex 1000, I am so glad I dodged that bullet and went with the C64. I went with it after checking software support etc... in magazines and the C64 had much more support than most others. I bet this could have been a pretty good system had they ditched the commands on keys nonsense. Oh, and you can type "GO TO" on the C64 as well as the "LET" command if you prefer, same with most other BASICs.
The graphics output on the original spectrum was handled by a ULA which basically condensed a lot of TTL logic chips. Clone machines from elsewhere in the world (anywhere with a copyright-what-is-that? attitude and a pressing need for a cheap computer with no custom chips) generally replaced the ULA with the TTL logic chips. Others just used a look-up table.
Apparently Timex thought there was another way to do it about which I know zip.
Before it's time - a 40% TKL keyboards with multiple layers. If only it were clickly.
RUN UN
Looks confusing but I imagine there is somebody out there that made all of this second nature to themselves.
There were many thousands of us.
9:54 while very odd, I find the look of the overall machine quite fun. Too bad it’s a Z80.
13:00 this keyboard is loved by JavaScript developers everywhere. Doesn’t make sense and is hard to use? Great, ship it!
19:41 this makes a VIC-20 seem like a users dream computer from the future
34:00 I didn’t think there was a more awkward way to enter a program than the keypad on a KIM-1 but here we are
Wow, that was hard to watch ;)
All the disadvantages of the Speccy but without a huge software library! What a deal.
lol that looked very painful :P
That poor text quality on the display may have contributed to the poor sales of this machine. Any Sinclair Spectrum owners here who can testify as to whether this issue exists on a genuine Speccy? (It may also be that such artifacts don't show as badly on a CRT or television for which it was intended)
A few people have commented and it seems it's a problem with the NTSC-implementation of this video chip that was originally designed for PAL.
@@8_BitDidn't even think about that. If it has a smaller display size to comply with NTSC standards, I imagine that breaks compatibility with a lot of programs.
@@JustWasted3HoursHere It had the same display size and even had a double high-res mode, which is apparently not available from the Basic and no games I know of ever used it. A Speccy on a PAL colour TV back in the day looked about as clear in colour as the black and white program listing parts of this video. The 50hz vs 60hz didn't make a difference to the usable resolution because there was so much spare overscan space.
Timex computer division appear to either have been a bunch of idiots, or on drugs at the time. Quite possibly both. A simple redesign of the original ZX Spectrum case and keyboard would have improved their chances of success. They could even have forgone the Sinclair keyboard entry system (as with the later Amstrad designed ZX Spectrums) and still made it 95% compatible. A huge wealth of software, magazines, books and user groups for already existed for the Speccy. All of which was ignored by Timex. They had the opportunity to improve things without making it totally incompatible, but chose to be "clever". And it failed.
Designed by a psychotic pipe organist / steam engineer.
First computer I had was bought for me at a hamfest. Timex Sinclair 1000 w/16K RAM module. It would only count to 16 before it ran out of memory. It sucked. LOL
I’m guessing but this keyboard may have gotten a few folks to actually go insane.
This computer was never gonna work for the American market for several reasons, and most of them were related to the fact that America was much richer, on average, than the UK and most European nations. Americans were not budget-conscious or thrifty like the Europeans had to be, so they would not mind paying at the very least 2x the price for a C64 or an Apple 2 or spend real big money for a computer that could be used for work. The Timex / Sinclair computers were compromised in all ways. They could not compete in specs even with a TRS-80, ffs.
Early on, Americans would be fine with buying Atari games and paying up the wazoo for cartridges. Then they'd get a C64 and a disk drive, which was more expensive than the computer at times, because even with that extra investment, it was still affordable, whilst Europeans could not really justify the investment on a disk drive (except the West Germans, who had money) if games could be loaded from tape at a fraction of the cost and a with not much longer load time.
And when the NES showed up, then it was game over for anything else. A dedicated high quality games system (that, tbh, by 1986 it was already 3 years old and would not hold a candle to the Master System, but Nintendo basically cornered the market) with massively expensive cartridges, or they would be for anyone outside of America. In the end, it's about what people make, and about how much they're ready to spend on systems and software and whether they're given a cheaper alternative.
Most European nations did not have that luxury.
Indeed. It is surprising that Tramiel got himself into enough of a panic about the arrival of cheap Sinclair and Japanese machines that he sought to introduce the Commodore 116 with its budget keyboard and reduced specification. People do like cheap stuff but not when it is a false economy and when they can afford something a lot better. And absurdly, Sinclair must have believed that alongside variants of the ZX81 and Spectrum, the more developed US market would actually go for the wholly compromised QL as a business machine. In the end, Sinclair was rescued from bankruptcy and Commodore went through some lean years. Endless cost-cutting and price wars aren't so smart after all.
These transatlantic misunderstandings affected other companies, too. Acorn redesigned the BBC Micro for the US, needlessly breaking compatibility to make the machine work with NTSC televisions when users, particularly in education where the machine was aimed, would largely be using them with dedicated monitors. As you note, in Europe, people would often economise by connecting a relatively inexpensive microcomputer up to a television, whereas in the US, having spent quite a sum already, people would buy a monitor at the same time.
@@paul_boddie To be fair, the generic dedicated monitors already on sale would have also been expecting a 60Hz signal, even in monochrome. I don't think multisync was a thing yet.
@@stevethepocket I guess the power supply frequency was traditionally a big factor in the refresh rate of displays, so up to a certain point in history, a 60Hz display would have been advisible for machines sold in the US. I'm not sure when that stopped being a significant concern, however.
The Apple 2 at the time was about 6 or 7x the price I think at least in Australia where we had the Apple II and the Speccy but not the Timex/Sinclairs. The C64 came out later and yeah was maybe 2x the price. I chose the Speccy over the TRS-80 Coco because the Speccy had better graphics. Don't forget the C64 disk drive was as slow loading a game as a Speccy cassette!
lmao this just proves how much I hate these computers. lol Why did they think 1 key commands was a good idea? uggg!
I glad that my first computer I bought was also a Commodore 64.
My dad actually worked in the Waterbury watch factory (same one they packaged the times Sinclair machines in) he did some QA testing on the 1000.
The demo program had MANY obvious typos in it that he noticed.
They may never have been fixed or it may have only been in the test program.
This was my first computer, purchased from a gift card won via a roller skating charity event (I got second or third place by skating for many hours). I wanted an Atari 800, but was able to get this with the printer for cheaper. I was in middle school orchestra at the time, so programmed a full score with violin (maybe two), viola, and cello for our science fair. Programming that was a nightmare. Won some award for that. Eventually destroyed the machine when I took it apart and started shorting pins to see if I could get it to do cool stuff. It did until I unknowingly shorted some power components.
This brings back memories. I was so lucky to get Timex 2048 from my parents for Christmas, while living behind Iron Curtain.
As a long term Spectrum user I do have to say that the quirky way of using the keyboard became a huge time saver pretty quickly. Might have to dig out the old rubber keyed Spectrum and see if muscle memory kicks in!
Had one of those (Polish black case version called Unipolbrit 2068) at high school.
There was no software available, other than one provided for ZX Spectrum mode (enabled with ZX ROM).
But I have found memories - it was fast and had the "mixed mode graphics/text" display, basically all text is graphics representation anyway - contrary to our Ataris (which has switched text/graphics modes like the Apple II) or our copied Tandy TRS-80 computers (with no graphics mode at all). We also had FDD interfaces via the expansion port (exposing the whole system bus like in the ZX) tied to 3-inch Hitachi standard floppy drives.
Odd to see the Commodore King working with a different machine. Good find! I've never seen this machine before!
Oh man, that was bad. The author was so cheery and folksie, I wonder if the first/rough draft was less friendly. "I've had to do some tough jobs in my life and I'll get through this, but let's see what you're made out of. You or your parents thought they were saving money buying a Timex 2068 and even if your time isn't worth anything, you're going get frustrated and tired of this crap and put it aside, so did you really save money if it just gathers dust? I've killed men at 15 feet and 15,000 feet, but nothing haunts me more than programming on this turd. Even that damn Altair 6800 was a breeze compared this steaming pile. Anyway, let's see if I can walk you through a "simple" PRINT statement. I hope you've set aside a lot of time for this, cuz you're going to get it wrong the first ten times."
Thank you for showing this computer and typing in the program - very nostalgic. The program itself as a first type-in demo from a book isn't very inspiring. As soon as I saw the errors in the book I knew it was one of those rushed tutorial books that were everywhere at the time - full of errors - they just wanted to crank them out to capitalise on the market.
Oh wow...
The ZX Spectrum was never meant to be adapted into a NTSC machine. The ULA's pixel clock does not work well with a 3.58MHz color subcarrier and you get terrible artifact color on text as a result.
Aha, yeah, I was wondering why it was so terrible when we finally got some colour on the screen.
Well, the 2068 used the newer SCLD vs. the ULA, but they clearly didn't know anything about preventing dot crawl on NTSC. The video output is almost identical to the Tandy/RS Color Computer and we all know how awful the CoCo was until later revisions.
Not very different from a modern phone keyboard, but much simpler & no monthly fee.
This sure was a computer invented in a country that served spam in restaurants. Sinclair Spectrum: the official computer of austerity policies that never end and a populace too polite to complain about it.
Also, I've never seen a computer where typing NEW just hard-resets the whole machine. It even turned off the caps lock.
Learned to program basic on a ZX Spectrum. One key press gave you an entire command which made programming really fast when you got used to it. A single key press showed you an entire keyword and that single command would cost you only one byte of memory. Basic was easier to learn than the Commodore 64 version and didn't rely so much on Peeks and Pokes.
The Z80A is a faster CPU than the 6502 and games coming out for the system today show incredible sound & graphics with vibrant colors and no color clash, even 3D capabilities previously though to be impossible on these old systems. Overall a better machine than the C64 except on standard sound and keyboard.
Wonderful little computer. I have 3 different models now and still play on it from time to time.
You turned on capslock playing with the keyboard, hence the "C" cursor. The book is correct when saying "L".
What a snarky review. I am actually disappointed. This was my second computer, after the ZX81. Typing on the keyboard may be different for a noob, but when you get used to it, BASIC entry is actually pretty darned fast. As to the graphics characters, they are redefineable and moveable in memory. So you can have your precious PETSCII. The computer had disk drives, modems, printers, streaming tape and better keyboards made for it. It was also possible to get the ZX Spectrum ROM on cartridge and make compatibility about 95% (60Hz being the limiting factor). As to color, yes it had dot crawl, but that was because the color burst was not synchronized with the video. Unlike the ZX Spectrum, the TS2068's SCLD (ULA) had CGA output as well, accessible from the edge connector. With a simple adapter board you could also plug in ZX Spectrum peripherals. OS64 let you use BASIC with the 64 column mode.
The cartridges were actually an ingenious design. The cartridges could be either be binary code like your typical cartridge any other system would have, but they could also have BASIC embedded and that BASIC source could be up to 48K in size and STILL be able to use the 48K of RAM. I had designed a BBS program, which was featured in BYTE magazxine where the BBS code was in static RAM in the cartridge bank and the messages were stored in the main RAM bank. It worked great. The banking system was capable of up to 258K of RAM, if your expansion had the second half of the hardware. The OS even had a function dispatcher that fully supported drivers and bank selection without the pokes.
It had dual screen buffers (if you used them), 8x1 pixels per attribute instead of the ZX Spectrum's 8x8 if you used the color enhanced modes, and a dual color high resolution mode of 512x192 to make 64 columns possible. The system had a lot going for it, and their biggest mistake was to not include a bankable ZX Spectrum ROM to raise that compatibility.
As to the pre-tokenized BASIC, you could plug in a cartridge that added a tokenizer to after the line was entered (so you could type the keywords instead of it typing them for you), or you could just patch the BASIC ROM to do it as it has just enough space to do it.
Sorry if the whole thing came across as snarky - there's no doubt I *do* get snarky at the marketing on the box, selling the "one-touch" keyboard entry as a feature when it was primarily a ROM-saving technique carried over from the ZX80/81, and the "72K" claim is deliberately misleading. There's even full page ads for the TS2068 proclaiming "72K" in huge letters, clearly meant to sound better than the 64K RAM some competitors already had.
But as for the typing, that was no put-on. It was mentally painful at times, but I think it's clear I was getting faster towards the end when the tutorial had me type it in without further guidance. But that Delete thing, sorry, that's just horrible. Even having to press a modifier key like shift to access the delete/backspace function is terrible, but then adding the DELETE keyword to that same key?? And that dot crawl was a genuine (negative) surprise. Sure, if I was 11 or 12 years old again, and had got a 2068 as an upgrade from my 1000, I likely would have a more positive impression for my first couple hours with the machine, but I'm not.
That's cool that the computer has some good features, and maybe I'll look at those in a future video. Nifty to hear about your BBS software; that's great you accomplished that.
If I had any accessories for this system, I'd definitely try them, but I only own the computer and the box and never in all my years of thrifting and attending retro computer shows (over 25 years now!) have I had the opportunity to buy anything else for it. Even on eBay there doesn't seem to be anything for sale for it besides the system itself and some games, many for $50 or $100!
@@8_Bit To me back in the day it was a feature, but I don't know if it was a claim on the original Speccy box or not. The 72k claim is ridiculous though.
There was a factory of Timex in Portugal. A lot of Sinclairs and Timexs were built there. The 2068 sold in Portugal also came with a cartridge included that maintained compatibility with the Spectrum 48k, so if anyone wanted to use a Spectrum 48k software they would just start the 2068 with that cartridge.
One thing I love about your videos Robin, is it really doesn't matter to me what you are working with. I have no desire to use this machine, or any other Sinclair unit, but you reading and demonstrating, means hours of enjoyment for me. Compared to almost anything else at the time, this setup is bizarre. Too many modes and too many combination keys.
My thoughts exactly. I am not really interested personally in working on some of the systems he shows, but I AM interested in watching Robin work with them, because otherwise, I probably wouldn't get to see what I "missed".. I feel lucky that I get to experience some of their aspects without having to do it myself. I really appreciate it that Robin doesn't mind doing all the hard work and sharing it with us.
What a god awful thing it is 🤦♂️
Seems like a shifty machine to me.
All data bases are you's!
(Every monocle falls from every eye in the UK) good heavens! they built it, they actually built it!
lol i'm 2 minutes in and you're snarkier than usual, i'm loving it! :D
The manual lied. It didn't *seem* complicated, it *was* complicated. :))
That wasn't the actual manual, I think, but a different book.
Videogame-like timing is twitch programming. Like Jeff Minter once said: the spectrum fights you every step of the way.
2:27 56KiB seems like an odd ROM size.
3:12 So, you give it commands in Morse Code, like with EDC flashlights!
5:45 Seems like a lot of wasted space to put the cartridge port on the front, including on the TI. The TI could have had a full-size keyboard instead, with the cartridge port on the back or side.
7:07 Seems redundant to the cartridge port.
8:25 It's a wonder Chiclets® gum didn't sue people for trademark infringement.
8:42 So, it's a variation of the Plus-4 strategy, except with a better computer that lacks software compatibility.
18:20 So it has multi-statement lines, unlike the ZX-80.
18:25 Or, you can get yourself a Commodore-64 and just press the DELete key.
23:07 Why did they call the SHIFT keys CAPS SHIFT if the machine doesn't appear to have lowercase?
46:58 I assume you can just PRINT SQR in command mode. Try 1e40. Odd that it has eight digits of precision instead of 7 (32-bit float) or 9 (40-bit float).
You're the only comment I could find that mentions the upper/lowercase issue. I thought it was weird as well!
56 = 32 +16 +8
Where the heck do you get all this stuff!?
Always on the lookout for interesting stuff for good prices :)
the PCjr version of basic also had/has keyword entry with the alt or fn key held while you touch the corresponding key on the keyboard
Fortunately that was optional. Keyword shortcuts are nice when they're optional. The TRS-80 MC-10 (like a mini TRS-80 Color Computer) also has optional keyword shortcuts.
@@8_Bit i happened upon it quite by accident when i was typing in a program from a magazine i had in 1984, (i did not have a pcjr until 2017)
Oh my, that keyboard. I'm feeling that single-key simplicity already! That single-key marketing fluff is really over-embellishing the ability to write 1/3 of the keywords using just one keystroke, completely ignoring the fact that everything else is difficult.
I'm guessing that entering keyword tokens directly instead of parsing written out keywords like Commodore, Apple, and others did allowed the BASIC interpreter to be simpler?
As a Spectrum user in the 80's this is quite painful to watch - no one in the UK ever had the anxiety you seem to have. This seems to be a Spectrum that wasn't broken and Timex fixed it.......
Makes me wonder how many people actually programmed it in BASIC, and how many just learned to type LOAD "" and hoped that their games loaded without error.
@@8_Bit you are porbably right. I did program on it but most people didn't. But all my C64 owning friends, and I mean all, couldn't code a 10 print program. So the keyboard was wasted !!
@@8_BitAs a 12 year old boy given a ZX Spectrum for Christmas, I think I found learning the QWERTY layout almost as difficult as learning where all the commands were. However after a few weeks and determined to learn how to program, it all started to become second nature as the muscle memory built up. The keyboard (like the Timex variants) was appalling so moving my ZX Spectrum board into a DK Tronics "proper keyboard" was glorious. Like many people, I eventually got a Commodore 64 and found that it a struggle to program initially because the commands weren't written on the keys. Again, that was quick to overcome and I was utterly shocked to find that pretty much everything you wanted to do with C64 basic required POKEing. So one case where BASIC on the Spectrum allowed you to do a lot more (draw lines, play sounds etc) without resorting to POKINg around. I still have these marvellous machine which are now delighting my kids.
@@8_Bit Tons of both. I learned programming when I was 11 on an Apple II and then a TRS-80 model 1. When saving for my own computer I was shocked that Commodores didn't have a CLS command and you had to do something ridiculous like print an inverse heart character that I don't think was even on the keyboard! But most people only used them to load games and wait longer for them to load off their expensive disk drive than we waited for ours to load off our cheap cassettes (-:
All the early computers were full of weird quirks. It would be painful to learn any of them as an old fart like we all are now. But as kids we just did what we had to do to get the most out of them.
I think the only real advantage to single key commands was that they didn't have to put a tokenisation routine into the ROM.
L=INVALUE: C=1: T=0
WHILE(L>0)
L=L-C
T=T+1
C=C+2
WEND
T=T/2
PRINT T
That is called "dot crawl". It is because of a slight mismatch of the system clock and the video clock. All 48K Spectrums have it. It is more pronounced on some paper and ink combinations, like red on green. I am guessing that computer is an NTSC one, on the PAL Spectrums we have over here it is not this bad, but still, it is pretty annoying. And by the way, you somehow turned the caps lock on at the beginning of the video, that's what caused the "L" and "C" cursor confusion. Normally (when caps lock off" you get the "L" cursor, when it is on, you get the "C" cursor.
Always very interesting, thank you.
A sad story by way of an important lesson to anyone who picks up one of these now very rare machines. I have a TC2068 with the horribly rare ZX Spectrum 'emulator' cart - just a 48K Speccy ROM for anyone who wants to hack their TS/TC2068 to actually run some software! (To oversimplify the TC is a European TS)
Having not used mine in a long time I forgot that while a ZX Spectrum PSU will fit the polarity is the other way round - Yep, another dead TC2068. Watch out!
PS: Hopefully I've not blown anything irreplaceable, when I have time I'll see if mine can be repaired.
As a brazilian, this reminds me of CP400, a TRS Color Computer 2 clone that clones this Timex keyboard design (for those who will search, there where two versions of CP400, the "color II" with a "professional keyboard", and the "color" version with a keyboard nearly identical to the Timex)
I owned a 2068 for like 2 days.
Back in the day, there was a computer store(when there was computer stores), 4 blocks
from me. They had the VIC-20 and the C-64 as well. For some reason, I was entranced by the
design and expansion possibilities; which never happened. It quickly became apparent that
it was more of a toy, than a living breathing computer, with a real keyboard.
I am not taking away from the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, which the 2068 was not.
I exchanged the 2068 for the full C64 setup: C64, 1701 monitor, and the 1541 disk drive.
Programmers had to be clever back then, making a lot from a little.
The 1541 was absolutely essential!
That was excruciating. My skin crawls. An hour of my life that I will never get back. At least it was in pieces as I could not watch it all at once. But I completed it because I had to know and give it a chance. And these videos are great. Not going to shoot the messenger.
Gotta wonder … this thing or an Atari 400 with that membrane keyboard and a key click that you can’t turn off by turning down the tv volume, but you can type BASIC words out like you’d expect and have a nearly full set of “keys” with only symbols and inverse video needing an extra keystroke, oh and support for a floppy drive (if you have more than base amount of RAM). Hmmm…
I miss the variety of computers from the early 80s. Once we got to the 16-but era the choices were few. Once the ST, Amiga, and Archimedes (sp?) were gone and it was just PC and Mac, it got boring. Computing was less fun. The Wild West era was awesome. So in summary I can’t stand this 2068 but I love that it tried and somebody loved it.
I had a ZX Spectrum when I was a teenager in the 80's. I has pretty much the same keyboard layout and multiple key entry method. It seems awkward at the beginning, but you get used to it quickly. Using single key keywords actually becomes a very efficient typing method when you get the hang of it. Also, it is very interesting how the muscle memory works and never forgotten. When I resurrected my Spectrum about 7 years ago, it all came back pretty quickly. Things you learn when you were young are never forgotten. I learned C++ after the age of 50 and I have to look up syntax every time I write code, but I remember Sinclair BASIC syntax by heart.
Some guy programming punch cards: "Man, there's gotta be a better way than this!"
*Worm hole opens up.*
*Guy in a rediculous shiny metallic jumpsuit appears.*
"Yo dude, check out this totally rad computer."
*Sets up a Timex Sinclair 2068.*
*Explains how to write a simple square root calculator.*
Some guy programming punch cards: *facepalm*
frankly, if one gets used to it, i think this type in methood may actualy be very fast compared to typing commands letter by letter. the arrangment of the keys suggest they had some thinkering with it. like the LET and = being on the same key. i could get used to it.
It looks funkier than the Spectrum; which I never owned. In fact I never owned computers in the 80's; I was a console user. I started using PC's on training schemes; that's how I got into computers.
Thanks for your efforts to bring this to us. You deserve an award. The risk of not saving your program!
I understand that the monitor was been fed with composite video; seemed rather clear to me.
And somehow an entire generation of UK bedroom coders cut their teeth on this dead flesh chicklet keyboard with its horrifyingly obtuse input system.
Wow, this has to be one of the worst keyboard layouts to program on. It makes even the simplest hunt-and-peck typist look world-class.