Timex Sinclair 1000
Encyclopedia
The Timex Sinclair 1000 (TS1000) was the first computer produced by Timex Sinclair
, a joint-venture between Timex Corporation and Sinclair Research. It was launched in July 1982.
The TS1000 was a slightly modified Sinclair ZX81
with an NTSC
RF modulator
instead of a UK PAL
(Units sold in Portugal have a PAL RF modulator) device and the onboard RAM
doubled to 2 kB. The TS1000's casing had slightly more internal shielding but remained the same as Sinclair's, including the membrane keyboard
. It had black and white graphics, and no sound. It was followed by an improved version, the Timex Sinclair 1500.
Like the Sinclair ZX81, the TS1000 used a form of BASIC as its primary interface and programming language. To make the membrane keyboard less cumbersome for program entry, the TS1000 used a shortcut system of one-letter "keywords" for most commands (i.e. pressing "P" while the cursor was in "keyword mode" would generate the keyword "PRINT"). Some keywords required a short sequence of keystrokes (e.g. SHIFT-ENTER S would generate the keyword "LPRINT"). The TS1000 clued the user in on what to expect by changing the cursor to reflect the current input mode.
The TS1000 sold for $99.95 in the US when it debuted, making it the cheapest home computer
to date at the time of its launch (its advertising angle was "the first computer under $100".) This pricing initiated a price war with Commodore International
, who quickly reduced the price of its VIC-20 to match and later announced a trade-in program offering $100 for any competing computer toward the purchase of a Commodore 64
. Since the TS1000 was selling for $49 by this time, many customers bought them for the sole purpose of trading it in to Commodore.
The black and white display showed 32 columns and 24 lines (22 of which were normally accessible for display and 2 reserved for data entry and error messages). The limited graphics were based on geometric shapes contained within the operating system's non-ASCII character set. The only form of long-term storage was to plug into a home tape cassette recorder. The 16K memory expansion sold for $49.95. A shortage of the memory expansions coupled with a lack of software which ran within 2K meant that the system had little use for anything other than an introduction to programming. Home computer magazines of the era such as Compute!
showed enthusiasts how to interface the computer with various kinds of equipment, providing the opportunity of learning about early speech synthesis technology through a Speak & Spell, robotics control through the memory port, and scrolling text displays for advertising.
Over time, the TS1000 spawned a cottage industry of third-party add-ons designed to help remedy its limitations. Full-size keyboards, speech synthesizers, sound generators, disk drives, and memory expansions (up to 64K) were a few of the options available. Languages like Forth and Pascal as well as BASIC compilers, and assemblers augmented the TS1000's programming possibilities. Microcomputing magazine published an article in April 1983 decrying the membrane keyboard ("The designers of the Timex-Sinclair 1000 ... reduced this important programming tool to a fraction of the required size") and describing how to wire up external full-size keyboards.
-like case with a ZX Spectrum
-like case (in Silver), the same ZX Spectrum rubber keyboard, a custom ULA
(it does not have the Ferranti ULA) and increased the onboard RAM to 16 KB.
The TS 1500 used a standard television for its display, "broadcasting" on either channel 2 or 3. It defaulted to TV channel 2, but if the "3" was pressed on the keyboard within a few seconds of turning the computer on, it changed to channel 3 instead.
Although the TS 1500 came with 16K internal RAM, an external 16K RAM pack could be added for a total 32K RAM. A few keyboard commands (POKEs) were required for the system to recognize the additional memory space (the Ram pack is multiplexed to the start of the RAM).
In spite of this, it was not a commercial success because it was launched too late when the ZX 81/TS1000's successors, the ZX Spectrum/TS2068, were already available and the home computer market in general was dominated by . It was sold in the USA and Portugal
.
On the TS1000 and ZX81, the command:
LPRINT 0.00001
results in the Timex printer outputting 0.0XYZ1. This well-known fault is corrected on the TS1500.
The TS1000 runs the following loop correctly, but the TS1500 does not; making one fewer iteration than it should.
10 FOR I = 0 TO 1 STEP .25
20 PRINT I
30 NEXT I
Timex Computer Corporation produced a cartridge interface for the TS1000, the Timex Sinclair 1510 Command Cartridge Player. Only four cartridge titles were ever released:
The TS1510 can be used with a TS1000 and a 16K RAMPack.
Timex Sinclair
Timex Sinclair was a joint venture between the British company Sinclair Research and Timex Corporation in an effort to gain an entry into the rapidly-growing early-1980s home computer market in the United States...
, a joint-venture between Timex Corporation and Sinclair Research. It was launched in July 1982.
The TS1000 was a slightly modified Sinclair ZX81
Sinclair ZX81
The ZX81 was a home computer produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Scotland by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and was designed to be a low-cost introduction to home computing for the general public...
with an NTSC
NTSC
NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...
RF modulator
RF modulator
An RF modulator is a device that takes a baseband input signal and outputs a radio frequency-modulated signal....
instead of a UK PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
(Units sold in Portugal have a PAL RF modulator) device and the onboard RAM
Random-access memory
Random access memory is a form of computer data storage. Today, it takes the form of integrated circuits that allow stored data to be accessed in any order with a worst case performance of constant time. Strictly speaking, modern types of DRAM are therefore not random access, as data is read in...
doubled to 2 kB. The TS1000's casing had slightly more internal shielding but remained the same as Sinclair's, including the membrane keyboard
Membrane keyboard
A membrane keyboard is a computer keyboard whose "keys" are not separate, moving parts, as with the majority of other keyboards, but rather are pressure pads that have only outlines and symbols printed on a flat, flexible surface...
. It had black and white graphics, and no sound. It was followed by an improved version, the Timex Sinclair 1500.
Like the Sinclair ZX81, the TS1000 used a form of BASIC as its primary interface and programming language. To make the membrane keyboard less cumbersome for program entry, the TS1000 used a shortcut system of one-letter "keywords" for most commands (i.e. pressing "P" while the cursor was in "keyword mode" would generate the keyword "PRINT"). Some keywords required a short sequence of keystrokes (e.g. SHIFT-ENTER S would generate the keyword "LPRINT"). The TS1000 clued the user in on what to expect by changing the cursor to reflect the current input mode.
The TS1000 sold for $99.95 in the US when it debuted, making it the cheapest home computer
Home computer
Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...
to date at the time of its launch (its advertising angle was "the first computer under $100".) This pricing initiated a price war with Commodore International
Commodore International
Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore Business Machines , the U.S.-based home computer manufacturer and electronics manufacturer headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which also housed Commodore's corporate parent company, Commodore International Limited...
, who quickly reduced the price of its VIC-20 to match and later announced a trade-in program offering $100 for any competing computer toward the purchase of a Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
. Since the TS1000 was selling for $49 by this time, many customers bought them for the sole purpose of trading it in to Commodore.
The black and white display showed 32 columns and 24 lines (22 of which were normally accessible for display and 2 reserved for data entry and error messages). The limited graphics were based on geometric shapes contained within the operating system's non-ASCII character set. The only form of long-term storage was to plug into a home tape cassette recorder. The 16K memory expansion sold for $49.95. A shortage of the memory expansions coupled with a lack of software which ran within 2K meant that the system had little use for anything other than an introduction to programming. Home computer magazines of the era such as Compute!
COMPUTE!
Compute! was an American computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994, though it can trace its origin to 1978 in Len Lindsay's PET Gazette, one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET computer. In its 1980s heyday Compute! covered all major platforms, and several single-platform...
showed enthusiasts how to interface the computer with various kinds of equipment, providing the opportunity of learning about early speech synthesis technology through a Speak & Spell, robotics control through the memory port, and scrolling text displays for advertising.
Over time, the TS1000 spawned a cottage industry of third-party add-ons designed to help remedy its limitations. Full-size keyboards, speech synthesizers, sound generators, disk drives, and memory expansions (up to 64K) were a few of the options available. Languages like Forth and Pascal as well as BASIC compilers, and assemblers augmented the TS1000's programming possibilities. Microcomputing magazine published an article in April 1983 decrying the membrane keyboard ("The designers of the Timex-Sinclair 1000 ... reduced this important programming tool to a fraction of the required size") and describing how to wire up external full-size keyboards.
Timex Sinclair 1500
The TS1500 was a slightly-upgraded development of the TS1000. Because of the big problem built around TS1000 in the US (keyboard and RAM Pack mainly), Timex Sinclair (TMX Portugal) designed TS1500 and offered it to Timex Corporation to solve the problems (RAM pack connection) and use the TS2000 (ZXSpectrum) silver case that were never used because they launched TS2068. It replaced the earlier machine's ZX81Sinclair ZX81
The ZX81 was a home computer produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Scotland by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and was designed to be a low-cost introduction to home computing for the general public...
-like case with a ZX Spectrum
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...
-like case (in Silver), the same ZX Spectrum rubber keyboard, a custom ULA
Gate array
A gate array or uncommitted logic array is an approach to the design and manufacture of application-specific integrated circuits...
(it does not have the Ferranti ULA) and increased the onboard RAM to 16 KB.
The TS 1500 used a standard television for its display, "broadcasting" on either channel 2 or 3. It defaulted to TV channel 2, but if the "3" was pressed on the keyboard within a few seconds of turning the computer on, it changed to channel 3 instead.
Although the TS 1500 came with 16K internal RAM, an external 16K RAM pack could be added for a total 32K RAM. A few keyboard commands (POKEs) were required for the system to recognize the additional memory space (the Ram pack is multiplexed to the start of the RAM).
In spite of this, it was not a commercial success because it was launched too late when the ZX 81/TS1000's successors, the ZX Spectrum/TS2068, were already available and the home computer market in general was dominated by . It was sold in the USA and Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
.
Bugs
There are two little-known software differences between the TS1000 and TS1500.On the TS1000 and ZX81, the command:
LPRINT 0.00001
results in the Timex printer outputting 0.0XYZ1. This well-known fault is corrected on the TS1500.
The TS1000 runs the following loop correctly, but the TS1500 does not; making one fewer iteration than it should.
10 FOR I = 0 TO 1 STEP .25
20 PRINT I
30 NEXT I
Peripherals
As explained in the "users guide" for the TS 1000 when connected to a B/W TV a clock could be produced without a cartridge.Timex Computer Corporation produced a cartridge interface for the TS1000, the Timex Sinclair 1510 Command Cartridge Player. Only four cartridge titles were ever released:
- 07-9001 Supermath
- 07-9002 States and Capitals
- 07-9003 Chess
- 07-9004 Flight Simulator
The TS1510 can be used with a TS1000 and a 16K RAMPack.
External links
- 1982: Timex Sinclair Computer
- Timex Sinclair 1000
- Timex Sinclair / ZX81 Museum
- Suitcase version of Timex Sinclair 1500
- Timex Computer World-Timex Sinclair 1500
- Timex Computer World-Timex Sinclair 1510
- Timex Computer World - Pictures of Timex Sinclair 1500
- Timex Computer World - Pictures of Timex Sinclair 1510
- Timex Sinclair 1000 Fan Page
- Historycorner.de - German Site for the Timex Sinclair 1000