TIMELY TIMEX

While confusion reigns as to whether Sinclair Research is or is not developing a replacement or upgrade with or without 128K of RAM (WHO said that...) CRASH has received at its offices a machine which at first sight appears to be the much aligned TIMEX 2068 from the United States. On closer inspection however, and with an astute reviewer pointing a joystick-battered finger in the right direction, the small PAL logo was discovered hiding in full PAL-colour on the front of the machine leaving no doubt that this was a European version of the same said brute (Nice one Mr. Holmes). In fact, it was later discovered that TIMEX of Portugal was the perpetrator of this crime (Who on earth would send CRASH a computer to review)? In their defence it must be said that they were only trying to promote their baby (a bastard by inception and certainly on closer inspection) with the hope of creating some interest here in the UK (wake up you boys and girls)! A thought crossed our minds here at Ludlow (the lights dimmed in the offices for a couple of seconds) whether this could possibly be the replacement/upgrade for existing and future Spectrum users?

ON THE FACE OF IT

The good looks of the machine certainly provoked a lot of appreciative grunts from Spectrum addicts. The computer squats on the table trying to cheat its own shadow and looks like some jumbo family-pack portable calculator in a neat silver metallic costume. The keyboard layout is an exact copy of the rubber-gumption Spectrum sloshboard, but sports some extra useful items such as a full length space bar and a complementary caps shift key on the right-hand side. The annotation is only in mono (What happened to PAL colour?), but differentiating between the four key-modes is in fact easier than on the Spectrum due to the inverted logos for the symbol shift operations. The key-action is a lot more crisp and sharp and is a space leap for Spectrumkind, although it's still light-years away from the full-sized, full travel keyboard standard.

To the right of the keyboard a large flap uncovers the TIMEX COMMAND CARTRIDGE 'dock' which will accept TIMEX specific ROM/RAM modules complete with carrying handles. These are sideways ROM/RAMS using the ingenious bank switching technique (more of this later...) and can be the carriers of auto-starting commercial programs (games, utilities etc) or special languages or operating systems. To the left-hand side of the unit is located a power toggle switch (yes, no add-on required!) and further back a nine pin D type plug reveals the existence of an inbuilt joystick port, to and behold, two joystick ports - the companion plug residing on the opposite side of the computer. Great, no fuss and worry about joystick interfaces, but wait, the software access to the joysticks is anything but standard, requiring access to ports 245 and 246. The trouble is compounded by the fact that the joysticks share these ports with the inbuilt sound generator chip. Before a read of port 246, one of the sound chip registers must be selected which will enable the free input port dedicated to the joystick. This is done by writing the correct value to the sound chip address port 245. Confused, well this means that the joystick ports can only be accessed with machine specific software or by using an extended basic command called STICK, that is if you do your own programming.

At the rear of the unit are a range of input and output ports, the most familiar being the PAL compatible UHF modulated TV output, the 9V power socket and the MIC and EAR sockets for the cassette recorder. A monitor output is provided, which delivers a composite video signal. Unlike the Spectrum, the TIMEX features three extended display modes besides the usual 32 column screen with the character size attribute mode (display mode 1). Display mode 2 provides a 24 x 64 character display (512 x 192 pixels) with one in and one paper colour. Only fixed paper and ink colour combinations may be selected with bright on and flash disabled. If the character set is redefined by the user, up to 80 characters can be displayed per column and here, obviously, the monitor output is essential.

Display mode 3 displays a secondary screen and attribute page similar to display mode 1, only this time the display file is not at 4000H - 57FFH, but at 6000H 77FFH and the attribute file not at 5800H - 5AFFH but at 7800H 7AFFH.

Display mode 4 is the high colour resolution display with the same pixel resolution as mode 1 but with a choice of ink, paper, brightness and flashing for every pixel row of eight pixels. The attribute file is located at 6000H - 7AFFH in this case. As last item there is a 64 pin bus expansion edge connector, which has a different pinout to the Spectrum version and so precludes any ideas of peripheral compatibility.

DEEP INSIDE...

Having extended facilities such as joystick ports, sound generator chip and 'dock' memory port, the TIMEX requires a different approach to the system memory configuration. As the Z80 can only access 64K of memory at any given time, the TIMEX people have resorted to the bank switching technique. Up to 4 different banks of 64K can be accessed via the memory bank controller located at ports 252 (DATA) and 253 (ADDR). Memory is selected in 8K chunks and up to eight of these can be selected from the whole bank range as long as they are not located at the same 64K address position.

The Home bank is selected by default and contains the 16K ROM with the Basic interpreter, routines for in - and output (graphics, keyboard, joysticks, printer, sound chip etc) and 48K of RAM with the Display files, system variables and BASIC program. This is equivalent to the structure of the Spectrum memory. The second bank is the EXROM bank which only contains an 8K ROM with the cassette in output routines, the bank switching code and the System initialisation routines. The third bank is the DOCK bank, which serves the cartridge programs, and contains either AROS (Application oriented software) or LROS (Language oriented software) or both. The system will detect the presence of these modules and will pass control to these. Bank 4 is the EXPANSION bank. The system will support up to 2 of these (up to 253 of these with a Bus Expansion Unit) and the banks can be used for controlling intelligent devices or for memory expansion. Expanding the TIMEX machine to 128K is therefore a doddle.

SOUNDS RIGHT...

As mentioned earlier, TIMEX has provided the machine with a bit more audio power with the help of a 3 channel sound generator chip extra to the normal BEEP output. The General instrument AY-3-8912 chip consists of a tone generator for three channels A, B and C, a noise generator and mixers. There is ample control provided for various envelope shapes, amplitude levels (up to 16 levels) and tone and noise generator combination selections either via Basic or via machine code instructions.

EXTENDED BASIC

To access all the extra little goodies, several BASIC commands have been implemented.

SOUND reg, value; reg, value; etc.
This command controls the 15 registers of the sound chip and allows the programmer to manhandle the chip in BASIC and create a symphonic background to the graphic activities on the screen.

STICK (device type, player)
The function allows the player to read the status of the two joysticks with in BASIC. The value returned can be a combination of several activities and must therefore be evaluated within range.

DELETE m,n
This command allows the deletion of a sequence of lines from a program (lines m to n).

FREE
This function returns the number of bytes of free space currently available in the Home RAM for either programs or variables.

RESET ($c) (*)
This command causes the device associated with the specified stream to be reinitialised. If a channel number is not provided, the system initialises any new devices it finds. The RESET * command does the equivalent of turning the machine off, then on again.

ON ERR GOTO linenumber
ON ERR CON'T
ON ERR RESET
These statements disable the automatic program termination upon encountering an error condition. The ON ERR GOTO linenumber can capture an error with a error routine residing at the specified line and the error number and line location can be peeked at the locations 23739 and 23736. The statement number with in the line that caused the error is stored in location 23738. The ON ERR CON'T statement causes the program to resume execution at the statement in which the error originally occurred. If the command is encountered and an error has not occurred, the command is ignored.

A complete set of commands is available for accessing disk or disk-like storage devices which are present on an Expansion Bank. The Home ROM is responsible for passing the command and calling the appropriate routine in the specified Expansion Bus. These include commands such as OPEN, CLOSE, SAVE, LOAD, ERASE, MOVE, VERIFY, PRINT, INPUT and MERGE with microdrive style arguments.

COMPATIBILITY

Few hardware manufacturers will deny that launching a new computer without a large existing software base can cause initial sales delays, especially if the target market is games related. Timex in the States obviously underestimated this point by not ensuring full compatibility with existing Spectrum games. They rejected access to the world's largest games software base and lost the advantage of winning several years of free software development. TIMEX of Portugal realised this and are offering an emulator cartridge to fit into the 'dock' port. Several ROM routines and their start addresses are different on the home bank ROM and machine code programs accessing these routines will encounter several obstacles. So many arcade games program will probably not run in the standard configuration. The emulator replaces the home ROM and provides full compatibility with the Spectrum. Several Spectrum games were tested and performed as normal with the use of the emulator.

VERDICT

The TIMEX computer offers an improved performance when compared to the Spectrum 48K and the Spectrum Plus, but it is about two years too late in appearing. It does not offer enough improvements to warrant users to upgrade to this machine, as there are several very exciting new computers appearing on the market. For new users the machine could prove to be a better machine than the Spectrum, although the changes will only be noticed with specially written software which will make good use of the sound generator chip, the inbuilt joystick ports and the bank switching possibilities. The major question will be what price level the machine will be offered at. At £70-80 the TIMEX would be a very good entry level computer, but no official price indications have found their way to the CRASH offices...

TIMEX UPGRADES SPECTRUM

Robin Bradbeer reports from the U.S. on the latest developments in the market

Timex, the company which manufactures the ZX-81 and Spectrum in the U.K. and which has the right to market Sinclair projects in the U.S. and Canada, announced the launch of the U.S. version of the Spectrum at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The TS2000, as it will be known, is an upgraded version of the Spectrum. Timex has taken the original Spectrum ROM and is in the process of re-writing it, taking out most of the bugs which have been identified by people like Ian Logan in the U.K.

At the same time, a number of Basic commands have been taken out of the ROM and, therefore, off the keyboard. For example, ATN, ACS and ASN have been removed, as have IN and OUT and the £ sign. A number of new functions will appear on those keys, including AUTO line number, RENUMber, line delete and a number of useful editing functions.

At the same time Timex plans to provide another port on the side of the Spectrum which will take ROM cartridges of between 4K and 32K. Those cartridges will contain games programs, business software and the like. It will allow software to be entered without needing a cassette player. Timex also announced a new printer for both the ZX-81, or TS1000 as its known in the States, and the Spectrum. The size of the printer, known as the TS2040, is slightly larger than the ZX printer. Instead of using electrically-coated paper, however, the TS2040 uses a thermal print mechanism. That is much quieter and far easier to read than the mechanism used on the ZX printer.

The prices of the 16K and 48K versions of TS2000 are $149.95 and $199.95 respectively. The ROM-based cartridges will sell for $29.95 each and the price of the TS2040 printer is $99.95.

Timex has also announced that it is reducing the price of the TS1000 which, unlike the ZX-81, has 2K of RAM as standard, to $84 for the next three months. That $15 reduction in the retail price brings down the TS1000 to approximately the same price as the ZX-81 in the U.K.

The pricing differential between the U.K. and the U.S. is much greater when the prices of the Spectrum and the TS2000 are compared. The 16K TS2000 at $149.95 is equivalent to £93.70 at the current rate of exchange and the 48K version is £124.96. As that is for an enhanced version of the Spectrum, it is possible to speculate that there may be a corresponding price reduction in the U.K. in the near future.

Timex has so far sold more than 600,000 TS1000s in the last nine months in the U.S. alone. The machine now accounts for something like 26 percent of the total number of home computers in the States. At the Consumer Electronics Show, Commodore showed, in a very flashy glass booth, its one-millionth Vic 20. The claim that it was the first computer to be produced in such quantities was disputed vigorously both by Clive Sinclair and Dan Ross, his opposite number at Timex. They claimed that more than one millionZX-81/TS100s had been sold by last November.

Sinclair Research had a separate stand at the exhibition and announced formally to the Americans the introduction of the Microdrive, Expansion Module and Prestel adaptor. All those peripherals were said to be available during Spring of 1983. The company also announced, for later introduction, a proportional spacing software program which will allow for a 64-character-per-line display. That heralds the addition of word processing capability.

A number of companies have set up in the U.S. selling British software. One is Mindware, a manufacturer of peripherals and software for the Timex-Sinclair computer system, and a U.S. distributor for an extensive library of business, engineering, programming and games software titles. The titles have been republished, with new packaging and documentation appropriate for mass merchandising channels.

Many software distributors were envious of the fact that British software could be sold in a simple plastic case with a paper or card insert. The Americans like things in bright, flashy and rather large packaging. That adds about 50 pence to the cost of the software and as it sells for the same price as in the U.K. it means less profit.

Mindware has announced an enhanced version of its MW-100 plain paper printer. The new model, the Sidewinder, is a dot matrix printer which can reproduce material up to 132 characters wide. It also prints in several other modes, including 16-character wraparound and a 32-character line-for-line printout of the Timex-Sinclair screen display. The full screen display is 32 characters wide by 22 lines deep.

The MW-100 was designed to use standard 1.75in, adding machine paper tape and ribbon cartridges and is the only plain-paper dot-matrix printer made for the Timex/Sinclair. The MW-100 has a suggested retail price of $139.95.

Softsync is the biggest independent producer of software for the TS1000. When the ZX-81 began to be sold in the U.S., Softsync had tailor-made programs for the Timex line of software. By the time it was on the retailers' shelves it had an exciting line of software of its own.

Softsync announced new program releases at the show such as the master chess game, educational programs and new arcade-style computer games.

Another company, Orbyte, has produced a range of six new programs for the small business, including Execu-Diary and ExecuAddress and a telephone file called Execu-Soft.

Finally, the Far East is beginning to make Sinclair lookalikes. The Futura 8300 being distributed in the U.S. by Unisonic looks like the Spectrum but is basically a ZX-81. It runs Sinclair software, takes Sinclair peripherals, and is the same price as the Sinclair.

With its rubberised keyboard, like the Spectrum, it could be the forerunner of a series of lookalikes. Sources inside Sinclair do not take the threat lightly and any unauthorised copies such as this will be "dealt with". Apple has been hunting vigorously the 30-odd Taiwanese companies producing Apple at one-third the U.S. price and we can expect Sinclair to start doing the same.