2024 Summer Fun: Upcoming Projects That I have Planned!

In this journal entry we'll take a quick look at all the projects I have planned for the summer. I'll look to fix an old Sony cassette recorder and attempt to recover a long lost ZX81 assembler with it. I'll also tinker with networking on the Spectrum and QL, try and finish my Atari joystick mouse, play with my newly acquired stuff including a TS1500 and programmable Spectrum joystick interface, and experiment in making plastic molds. It's going to be a fun retro summer!
#ZX81 #Spectrum #QL #TS1500 #Sinclair #Amiga #A600 #Networking #Assembler #Moldmaking #MacBook
Index:
00:05 Introduction
00:52 90s cassette recorder refurb
01:45 ZX81 Assember in BASIC
02:20 Spectrum to QL Networking
05:16 Spectrum Programmable Joystick Interface
06:44 Mold making
08:20 Homemade "Atari Style" mouse
09:45 Mac PowerBook battery refurb
11:40 QL's Abacus and Easel
13:48 Scripting QLDOS with SuperBASIC
16:18 Looking for ZX81 case
17:35 Timex Sinclair 1500
19:20 Wrapping up

[@johnsouthern7413]

@3:03 Q68 review mentioned is at kzbin.info/www/bejne/b3rVpZeLf5qnZ5I

[@8BitRetroJournal]

I forgot to put it in at 7am but added it a couple of hours later...should have been there by the time you posted this.

[@RacerX-]

Cool. Although I am never used the Timex/Sinclair computers back in the 80s I find it more interesting now to see what people were doing with them. We were a Commodore home so I only had experience with Vic-20 and C64 and later Amiga. In fact although I knew about the North American market Timex computers I did not know they sold the QL in an NTSC version. Where did they sell those computers over here back then? Was it mail order? Very curious how you got on the Sinclair track as that was a pretty rare thing over here in the USA.

[@8BitRetroJournal]

I got mine through mail order from Sharps in Virginia. That was in 1989 though. Sinclair had an office in downtown Boston in the mid 80s and of course they were directly selling (at least ZX81 and its products) out of 3 Sinclair Plaza in Nashua, NH -- I did a video last July driving to that location. I'm guessing they may have used that NH location to initially sell QLs through mail order as well.

[@8BitRetroJournal]

There's a KZbin video where it shows Sinclair presenting the QL to the Boston Computer Society at MIT in 1984.

[@RacerX-]

@@8BitRetroJournal very cool. I will check it out. I am on the west coast, sf bay area and in a pretty small city, err it used to be anyway. We had exactly 1 computer store in town that mainly sold Apple II and later Amigas. Since they sold Commodore stuff virtually everywhere around us there was no shortage of stores to buy hardware and software. I think because of that I was mainly oblivious to anything but C=, Atari, Apple, Tandy, etc. Thanks and keep up the good work.