FA : Very Rare Timex Computer 2048
Jorge Canelhas
waste the madman
>http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2047065127
heh, this is really so rare?
then i am happy to have one ;) althrough the keyboard is erased a
little, everything works fine ;) that was my firs and only 8-bit
comp...
--
.---------------[ waste the mad man == wa...@tlen.pl ]---------------.
| "Whoever fights monsters should see to it |
| that in the process he doesn't become a monster." |
`-------------------------------------[ Frederick Wilhelm Nietsche ]-'
Andrew Owen
> On Sun, 18 Aug 2002 02:59:13 +0100, Jorge Canelhas wrote:
>
> >http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2047065127
>
> heh, this is really so rare?
>
> then i am happy to have one ;) althrough the keyboard is erased a
> little, everything works fine ;) that was my firs and only 8-bit
> comp...
They are not very rare at all. There are probably hundreds of them still
in use throughout Portugal and Poland. There were fewer made than any
other Sinclair or Timex model, so in that respect they are semi-rare, but
in real terms they are not that hard to get hold of. Getting one in mint
condition like the one I bought a while back is a bit trickier. However,
there's no point getting one unless you are willing to take a soldering
iron to it since that's the only way to get the full benefit of the built
in extra features. Otherwise it's just a bog standard Speccy with a built
in Kempston port and a couple of extra video modes with virtually no
software support.
--
I'm really here. You're not imagining it.
waste the madman
>They are not very rare at all. There are probably hundreds of them still
>in use throughout Portugal and Poland.
actually i am from poland ^_^ it was imported here in a mass scale by
"Centralna Skladnica Harcerska" shops, along with spectravideo tape
adapter (svi767-tp). i guess it had at least popularity of original
spetrum, and much better than polish elwro/elwro jr. clones.
>there's no point getting one unless you are willing to take a soldering
>iron to it since that's the only way to get the full benefit of the built
>in extra features.
what extra features you mean? i am not good at iron gun, but i'm
curious what else can you get from timex2048. i can remember the the
AY Sound Chip interface which i tried to build. few times project
starts, any of them ends. i preffered programing rather.
and i regret that i never bought fdd3000 disk drive. i was very
popular at the time...
>Otherwise it's just a bog standard Speccy with a built
>in Kempston port and a couple of extra video modes with virtually no
>software support.
with some keyboard codes changed. as i can remember uridium and few
other games needs the keyboard reading routines changed if you wanted
to play them on timex2048. and exttra video modes, heh, i can remember
my effords (quite good i can say ^_-) to remake few exelent game
graphics and loading screens to 512x192 mode with art studio.
btw. is there some timex2048 with 512x192 mode emulator or maybe some
graphics file format you can store 512x192 screens with?
Andrew Owen
> On Sun, 18 Aug 2002 22:18:15 +0100, Andrew Owen wrote:
> >They are not very rare at all. There are probably hundreds of them still
> >in use throughout Portugal and Poland.
> actually i am from poland ^_^ it was imported here in a mass scale by
> "Centralna Skladnica Harcerska" shops, along with spectravideo tape
> adapter (svi767-tp). i guess it had at least popularity of original
> spetrum, and much better than polish elwro/elwro jr. clones.
Of course most people selling them tend to be from Portugal. And it's
bloody hard to get Zloty outside of Poland. I know because I've tried. I'm
looking forward to Poland joining the EU so I can start using Euros
instead of US dollars.
> >there's no point getting one unless you are willing to take a soldering
> >iron to it since that's the only way to get the full benefit of the built
> >in extra features.
> what extra features you mean? i am not good at iron gun, but i'm
> curious what else can you get from timex2048. i can remember the the
> AY Sound Chip interface which i tried to build. few times project
> starts, any of them ends. i preffered programing rather.
Well, the horizontal MMU from the TS2068 is still in place but not used.
That means you can add an extra 128K RAM for a start - 64K in the EX bank
and 64K in the DOCK bank. The two banks are mutually exclusive but you can
page out the whole addressable RAM if you want, which means you can run
CP/M without an FDD3000.
> and i regret that i never bought fdd3000 disk drive. i was very
> popular at the time...
Very good bit of kit. I bought my Timex recently so I'm still looking for
one of these. I was offered one from Portugal but the price was
ridiculous.
> >Otherwise it's just a bog standard Speccy with a built
> >in Kempston port and a couple of extra video modes with virtually no
> >software support.
If you add the extra RAM you should be able to emulate the TS2068
sufficiently to run its titles (with support for the extra video modes).
> with some keyboard codes changed. as i can remember uridium and few
> other games needs the keyboard reading routines changed if you wanted
> to play them on timex2048.
Never had a problem with the keyboard routines but I'll trust you on this one.
> and exttra video modes, heh, i can remember
> my effords (quite good i can say ^_-) to remake few exelent game
> graphics and loading screens to 512x192 mode with art studio.
512x192 is nice, but hi-colour top half of screen and hi-res bottom of
screen would have made for some nice adventure games.
> btw. is there some timex2048 with 512x192 mode emulator or maybe some
> graphics file format you can store 512x192 screens with?
There are a couple of Timex emulators around. Warajevo and MESS spring to
mind as the first two, but the only one which supports saving hi-res
screens is vbspec:
http://freestuff.grok.co.uk/vbspec/
And never mind hi-res graphics. Go and have a look and see what can be
done with the hi-colour mode using BMP2SCR and an MLT to Timex conversion
utility:
http://freestuff.grok.co.uk/vbspec/timex.html
waste the madman
>> actually i am from poland ^_^ it was imported here in a mass scale by
>> "Centralna Skladnica Harcerska" shops, along with spectravideo tape
>> adapter (svi767-tp). i guess it had at least popularity of original
>> spetrum, and much better than polish elwro/elwro jr. clones.
>
>Of course most people selling them tend to be from Portugal. And it's
>bloody hard to get Zloty outside of Poland. I know because I've tried. I'm
>looking forward to Poland joining the EU so I can start using Euros
>instead of US dollars.
i hope Poland join EU soon, and hope it make our live standards at
least little better, either. but in nowtime i think it wouldn't be
difficult to make Euro deal instead of USD with polish people. we can
change Euro to PLN (Zloty) almost everywhere. heh, and even now you
can buy a spectrum or russian bajt on the www.allegro.pl (polish
auction service).
>Well, the horizontal MMU from the TS2068 is still in place but not used.
>That means you can add an extra 128K RAM for a start - 64K in the EX bank
>and 64K in the DOCK bank. The two banks are mutually exclusive but you can
>page out the whole addressable RAM if you want, which means you can run
>CP/M without an FDD3000.
but isn't there hard to get software which use this additional banks?
i guess this isn't common solution and you have to write it yourself
alone. of course i can be wrong, like i said - have no experience with
soldering iron. ^_-
>> with some keyboard codes changed. as i can remember uridium and few
>> other games needs the keyboard reading routines changed if you wanted
>> to play them on timex2048.
>
>Never had a problem with the keyboard routines but I'll trust you on this one.
because it occurs very, very rare. i own my timex2048 since 1985 and
i've found only few games with bad keys reading, maybe because i used
kempston joystick... but this few games was a problem and even Bajtek
(1st polish computer magazine) has few articles about it, and also few
solutions. i can find and translate that art if anybody care.
hm... that gives me idea, maybe i could make an online version of this
magazine. it was begining for many computer dinosaurs in poland. ;)
>512x192 is nice, but hi-colour top half of screen and hi-res bottom of
>screen would have made for some nice adventure games.
heh, never thought that way ;) i agree, it could be great ;)
>http://freestuff.grok.co.uk/vbspec/
>http://freestuff.grok.co.uk/vbspec/timex.html
thanks for help ^_-
Chris Cowley
<w_a_...@poczta.onet.pl> wrote:
>because it occurs very, very rare. i own my timex2048 since 1985 and
>i've found only few games with bad keys reading, maybe because i used
>kempston joystick... but this few games was a problem and even Bajtek
>(1st polish computer magazine) has few articles about it, and also few
>solutions. i can find and translate that art if anybody care.
I'd be very interested to have some technical information about the
differences between the TC2048 keyboard and the normal Spectrum one if
you can post a translation. vbSpec treats the keyboard exactly the same
in TC2048 and Spectrum modes, and it sounds like this might be wrong.
Also, if you or anyone else knows of accurate timing info for the TC2048
I'd like to see that too (cycles per scanline, scanlines per frame,
precise clock speed and interrupt frequency, etc). The timings used in
vbSpec are based on a certain degree of guesswork and are almost
certainly slightly out.
--
Chris Cowley
Fredrick Meunier
Chris Cowley wrote:
> I'd be very interested to have some technical information about the
> differences between the TC2048 keyboard and the normal Spectrum one if
> you can post a translation. vbSpec treats the keyboard exactly the same
> in TC2048 and Spectrum modes, and it sounds like this might be wrong.
Keyboard reads (port FE) are different to other spectrum models on the
TC2048 - bits 5 & 7 are always reset. This leads several games (like
Uridium) to push you up and to one side of the screen.
> Also, if you or anyone else knows of accurate timing info for the TC2048
> I'd like to see that too (cycles per scanline, scanlines per frame,
> precise clock speed and interrupt frequency, etc). The timings used in
> vbSpec are based on a certain degree of guesswork and are almost
> certainly slightly out.
Me too (fuse could do with accurate screen emulation as well!).
Fred
Chris Cowley
wrote:
>Keyboard reads (port FE) are different to other spectrum models on the
>TC2048 - bits 5 & 7 are always reset. This leads several games (like
>Uridium) to push you up and to one side of the screen.
Thanks for the info Fred. I've now modified vbSpec to take account of
this in the next release (which is fairly imminent).
[TC2048 timing info]
>Me too (fuse could do with accurate screen emulation as well!).
:) How is fuse's TC2048 support coming along? I'm looking forward to
seeing it!
--
Chris Cowley
waste the madman
>I'd be very interested to have some technical information about the
>differences between the TC2048 keyboard and the normal Spectrum one if
>you can post a translation. vbSpec treats the keyboard exactly the same
>in TC2048 and Spectrum modes, and it sounds like this might be wrong.
i can see this is not needed anymore ;) F.Meunier write about it in
other replay;) as about timing, i've got no info about it.
Fredrick Meunier
> [TC2048 timing info]
>
>>Me too (fuse could do with accurate screen emulation as well!).
>
> seeing it!
It should be in the next release and a little birdy tells me that
should be very soon :)
It is at about the same level as vbSpec's emulation at the moment, I
was hoping to get it better, but I have been sidetracked by the move
to Mac OS X. Once fuse has an aqua GUI and mac sound support I'll be
moving back to working on the TC2048 emulation...
Fred
Andrew Owen
> i hope Poland join EU soon, and hope it make our live standards at
> least little better, either. but in nowtime i think it wouldn't be
> difficult to make Euro deal instead of USD with polish people. we can
> change Euro to PLN (Zloty) almost everywhere. heh, and even now you
> can buy a spectrum or russian bajt on the www.allegro.pl (polish
> auction service).
I'll have to start looking for an FDD3000 there.
> but isn't there hard to get software which use this additional banks?
Modify some TS2068 cartridge software to run from RAM or write it yourself
really. Makes for a handy RAM disk/custom ROM development environment.
>> Never had a problem with the keyboard routines but I'll trust you on
this one.
>
> because it occurs very, very rare. i own my timex2048 since 1985 and
> i've found only few games with bad keys reading, maybe because i used
> kempston joystick... but this few games was a problem and even Bajtek
> (1st polish computer magazine) has few articles about it, and also few
> solutions. i can find and translate that art if anybody care.
That would be cool.
> hm... that gives me idea, maybe i could make an online version of this
> magazine. it was begining for many computer dinosaurs in poland. ;)
Sounds like a plan.
> >512x192 is nice, but hi-colour top half of screen and hi-res bottom of
> >screen would have made for some nice adventure games.
>
> heh, never thought that way ;) i agree, it could be great ;)
Well, I plan on doing one one of these days just to demonstrate what the
TC2048 could do.
Andrew Owen
fr...@spamcop.net (Fredrick Meunier) wrote:
Ooh, you just said the magic words (Mac OS X). Get Chris to send you the
TC2048 info I sent him if you don't have it already (not sure where I put
my copy). I could really use a Mac based TC2048 emulator.
Fredrick Meunier
> Ooh, you just said the magic words (Mac OS X). Get Chris to send you the
> TC2048 info I sent him if you don't have it already (not sure where I put
> my copy). I could really use a Mac based TC2048 emulator.
no sound and using the X gui). It's good enough to run Chris Cowley and your
2048 demos, but switching screen mode mid screen does not work correctly (yet).
If you'd rather wait for the aqua GUI, well progress is slow but steady...
I already got the TC2048 info you gave Chris. It was handy, I don't think
the timings are correct though. On the real machine they are similar enough
to the 48K that the Aquaplane border effect is perfect, but different enough
that the left border effect is one line too low in the Academy menu. Are you
sure about the CPU frequency? I can't find any documentation that is
inconsistant with what you suggested, but the timings don't seem to match.
Fred
Andrew Owen
I did the best research I could, but if someone can provide me with some
better testing software I'd be happy to see if I can get some more
accurate info (once I get my machine back from Poland where I'm having it
serviced).
Fredrick Meunier
[TC2048 timing]
> I did the best research I could, but if someone can provide me with some
> better testing software I'd be happy to see if I can get some more
> accurate info (once I get my machine back from Poland where I'm having it
> serviced).
Thanks! I was just hoping that you'd know off the top of your head.
The only ideas I have come up with for measuring the frequency without
any electronic meters are:
1) disabling interrupts and playing a wave from non-contended memory,
sampling the wave and measuring the time, and
2) Sampling the speccy play a note, wait a large amount of cycles,
play another note, and measure the time between the notes to figure
out the clock speed.
Does anyone have any better ideas for getting an accurate measure of a
speccies clock speed?
Are you getting the 128K upgrade? Does that give you the AY as well?
Is it all internal? I would be love to get a Fuller box for mine, but
it would be fantastic to get 128K compatibility as well - it could
replace my Sinclair 128K!
Fred
Andrew Owen
> Andrew Owen wrote:
> [TC2048 timing]
> > I did the best research I could, but if someone can provide me with some
> > better testing software I'd be happy to see if I can get some more
> > accurate info (once I get my machine back from Poland where I'm having it
> > serviced).
>
> Thanks! I was just hoping that you'd know off the top of your head.
Sorry, I've been at sea for most of the past five months and haven't
really been thinking about Speccies much.
> The only ideas I have come up with for measuring the frequency without
> any electronic meters are:
> 1) disabling interrupts and playing a wave from non-contended memory,
> sampling the wave and measuring the time, and
> 2) Sampling the speccy play a note, wait a large amount of cycles,
> play another note, and measure the time between the notes to figure
> out the clock speed.
> Does anyone have any better ideas for getting an accurate measure of a
> speccies clock speed?
This could be problematic as the upgrade I'm having done could affect
memory contention.
> Are you getting the 128K upgrade?
I'm getting the 144K upgrade. That's like the 128K upgrade but with an
extra 16K at 0C000h. I'm also getting an additional 128K added via the
DOCK and EXROM banks to bring the total memory to 272K.
> Does that give you the AY as well?
The 144K upgrade doesn't but I am having an AY chip fitted, addressable
via the 128 and TS2068 ports with ACB stereo output.
> Is it all internal?
Except for the PC-AT keyboard interface yes. I'm also getting an NMI
button, and the Kempston joystick port upgraded to support auto-fire and
an Amiga 2-button mouse.
> I would be love to get a Fuller box for mine, but
> it would be fantastic to get 128K compatibility as well - it could
> replace my Sinclair 128K!
Get the 144K upgrade from www.yarek.com.
Of course that doesn't give you the MIDI/Keypad or RS232 ports but you
could build them if you wanted since the 128 ROMs are used. Actually I'm
using a modified ROM on mine (no surprise there for regular css readers)
with a slightly modified editor and the original 48K BASIC ROM for added
compatibility. I'll probably end up SE Basic quite a lot by loading it
into the EXROM bank and paging it in over the HOME ROMs.
gulliv...@gmail.com
> http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2047065127
The Timex 2048 aren´t rare !!!