ZX Spectrum for USA: Timex Sinclair 2068 / BASIC Type-In

[@vwestlife]

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.

[@stevethepocket]

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.

[@8_Bit]

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 :)

[@timexsinclairfans]

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.

[@DavidYoud]

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!

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

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.

[@ropersonline]

The Timex Sinclair 2068 keyboard: Less powerful than vi, but just as difficult to master.

[@colinstu]

seriously. same thought. This is masochistic.

[@ropersonline]

@@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._ :-/.

[@Ehurst01]

Hahaha while I was watching this I was thinking that Spectrum users grew up to be VI users. They were the target market!

[@andrewakrause]

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.

[@mattirwin9005]

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!

[@nneeerrrd]

Poor child... You suffered so much

[@powervr]

me also... but I played mostly speccy games on this so no programming.

[@Di3mondDud3]

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.

[@SpudsterZZ]

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.

[@scottfromderby]

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 :)

[@spodula]

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.

[@JohnnyWednesday]

Shush! do you want to reignite the key wars?! let the Dragon 32 rest in peace!

[@csbruce]

Maybe the ZX-80 keyboards were so awful that they wanted users to type as few keys as possible, and that stuck around.

[@BertGrink]

@@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.

[@AnnatarTheMaia]

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.

[@Kwstr42]

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

[@filipstamate1564]

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.

[@8_Bit]

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.

[@filipstamate1564]

@@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.

[@filipstamate1564]

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.

[@BertGrink]

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 KZbin showing how they did this mod.

[@filipstamate1564]

@@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.

[@KrzysztofC-1]

This brings back memories. I was so lucky to get Timex 2048 from my parents for Christmas, while living behind Iron Curtain.

[@noland65]

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.! 😆

[@obsoletebutneat]

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.

[@8_Bit]

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!

[@csbruce]

@@8_Bit: Plus, the C64 has lots of two-key abbreviations for keywords.

[@dgmt1]

@@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.

[@BottIsNotABot]

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!

[@piwex69]

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.

[@elbiggus]

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...

[@borayurt66]

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.

[@drPeidos]

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.

[@danielt.8573]

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.

[@lesterpayne7419]

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.

[@braderickson9996]

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!

[@50shadesofbeige88]

Odd to see the Commodore King working with a different machine. Good find! I've never seen this machine before!

[@MicrophonicFool]

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.

[@mikegarland4500]

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.

[@Ensoniq5503DOC]

Thanks Robin - especially for the "rapidly colorful" easter egg ;-)

[@uriituw]

I could’ve coped with this as a kid. I wouldn’t have the patience for it as an adult.

[@darkstatehk]

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

[@marred2277]

lol i'm 2 minutes in and you're snarkier than usual, i'm loving it! :D

[@chrisdixon5241]

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 :)

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

After already owning a C64 with its very straightforward editing, I think the editing facilities of this computer would drive me insane. That bit about the 72K "onboard memory" is about as devious as Atari calling its Jaguar a "64 bit" machine back in the day.

[@JohnnyWednesday]

Now you know why British people are the way we are. We spent the 80s typing in listings on such an interface and we're very grumpy about it.

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

@@JohnnyWednesdayHa! This comment made me laugh, though most of the British people I've met have been pretty good natured (though there's one British guy I work with, Callum, who is occasionally really hard to understand when he talks fast. Even other British people sometimes struggle to understand him).

[@BigCar2]

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.

[@JohnnyWednesday]

(Every monocle falls from every eye in the UK) good heavens! they built it, they actually built it!

[@DaveF.]

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.

[@8_Bit]

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.

[@chrismason7066]

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

[@DaveF.]

@@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.

[@DaveF.]

@@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.

[@meneerjansen00]

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?

[@CutieHoney]

That looks excruciating!

[@swk38]

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

[@8_Bit]

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.

[@swk38]

@@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)

[@Petertronic]

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.

[@8antipode9]

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.

[@SYS280870]

My first home computer was a Timex Sinclair 1500 (I'm from Argentina) in 1985

[@beakt]

LOL I love how you said "data.... BASES"

[@PatrickDunn13078]

What sunk this machine besides no disk drives was Timex doing it's own thing ROM wise so one couldn't use Spectrum software at all. Around where I live there was a computer store about an hour away that sold programs for the 2068. I had Fighter Pilot I got from them I think by DK Marshall and it was fun. I read in a magazine that Tomahawk helicopter sim was out for the Spectrum and coming "soon" to the 2068. Well 9 months later the port was done and I finally had a copy. I see there are folks who put a spectrum ROM and others to make it compatible. Also on the Joystick thing - you could use 2 joysticks with Fighter Pilot and Tomahawk (AH-64 sim). In fighter pilot left stick was throttle/rudder and right stick was main flight controls and guns (nope no missles in that game). Tomahawk left stick was collective (power) and right stick cyclic/weapons. Pretty neat stuff. I loved using this computer back then when I was a teen then I got a C-64 but still used the 2068 on occasion for fun and writing database software for sale. Love this video!

[@8_Bit]

I even loved my Timex/Sinclair 1000 when it was the only computer I had. Any computer is better than no computer, and clearly the 2068 has a LOT more to offer than the 1000 did. I'll see if I can get some software for mine.

[@PatrickDunn13078]

@@8_Bit Oh yeah - I remember when I hounded my dad while mom was away on a trip for T/S 1000 that was $50 at Wegmans (grocery store chain) in the camera department. I even bought a paperback book about it a week before. I used that for over a year before I got the 2068. I still have a pair of 1000's in the garage along with a manual. Very neat machine inside to see how few chips. If you can look for "Fighter Pilot" which is very simple to play but hard. The idea was to intercept enemy fighters before they bombed your 4 airfields. There was a mode where you took off, intercepted and try to shoot the enemy plane down and it got harder the further you played. Also you had to land to take on fuel and ammo to continue so you had to master flying the F-15 too. There was a mode where you could just go practice flying.

[@OtterlyInsane]

You could get a Spectrum cartridge that was essentially a Spectrum ROM that disabled the extra features like the enhanced audio and joystick port. Fairly compatible with software, although some NTSC PAL timing issues. Worth noting the expansion connector is identical in features as the Spectrum but the pin out is different.

[@franktriggs]

You set the caps lock before you started typing in the program. So the cursor was always C for caps.

[@AhjonKliff]

You missed 'S-SHIFT C' after switching back to "TRUE VIDEO" at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1898">31:38</a>. If I understand correctly it gives a ? (question mark), and if you look at the program listing at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="2412">40:12</a>, there is also an = (equal sign) after the question mark. Could this be why the program looks worse every time you run it?

[@giuseppe74921]

My only real life memory of the spectrum48k was a schoolmate that had it. It was the only person in town i knew that his parents bought him a spectrum instead of a commodore, everyone had c64 back then at last in my place (small town, in southern Italy). I remember when i went to visit this schoolmate he showed me jetpac, but i didnt like it, he thought it was a great game with hires graphics (lol). But what made me and my schoolmate to fight was "Camelot Warriors" a game i loved on the c64 and one of the few i could complete, loved the medieval intro music and the ingame strange atmosphere, now it is a simple game, but when i was 12 i thought it was a super fantastic experience of a game (and i still think it's a very nice little game now), i was impressed so much when i discovered at the end of the game it was all a dream, that was why u had to collect all modern objects like tv, light bulbs etc. Now, turning back to the schioolmate (we were in 2nd year of middle school, 12 years old both), well, he dared to say that Camelot Warriors was better on his little quirky computer, i was so angry because i loved that game, so we had a fight. In the end i think the only think better on the spectrum were the sprites of the big fishes in the Neptune level, (in hires mono, so they looked more definite, but the c64 ones were in color mode, double orizontal pixels but with color added). But for me the best of the best version of Camelot warriors is the Commodore 64 one.

[@m0nde]

Scary Halloween weekend video!

[@klocugh12]

Love the outro song!

[@MarcoMugnatto]

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)

[@johnathanstevens8436]

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.

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

Love this very interesting.

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

What a score!

[@cpm1003]

"A cassette deck with seven buttons" LOL!

[@nickpalance3622]

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.

[@coyote_den]

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.

[@8_Bit]

Aha, yeah, I was wondering why it was so terrible when we finally got some colour on the screen.

[@coyote_den]

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.

[@briangleeson1528]

Oof. Great video! You have more patience than I do!

[@G.B...]

Whoever designed THAT kind of keyboard layout was smoking a lot of stuff.

[@JohnnyWednesday]

That's inappropriate - British people in the 80s only LOOKED high - it's mainly camera lenses and hairstyles

[@neilthomas6042]

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.

[@nagyandras8857]

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.

[@AnnatarTheMaia]

Clumsy, but I could see someone with vi / vim "muscle memory" getting used to this and becoming quite efficient with it.

[@domramsey]

I have 3 boxed Max Machines. I would happily swap one for a 2068!

[@RemnantCult]

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.

[@8_Bit]

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.

[@paul_boddie]

@@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.

[@8_Bit]

@@paul_boddie Yeah, when it's optional like that, it's good! The TRS-80 MC-10 also had optional keywords.

[@TheHighlander71]

Videogame-like timing is twitch programming. Like Jeff Minter once said: the spectrum fights you every step of the way.

[@charlesjmouse]

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.

[@damianvila]

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…

[@zidane2k1]

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?

[@csbruce]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="147">2:27</a> 56KiB seems like an odd ROM size. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="192">3:12</a> So, you give it commands in Morse Code, like with EDC flashlights! <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="345">5:45</a> 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. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="427">7:07</a> Seems redundant to the cartridge port. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="505">8:25</a> It's a wonder Chiclets® gum didn't sue people for trademark infringement. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="522">8:42</a> So, it's a variation of the Plus-4 strategy, except with a better computer that lacks software compatibility. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1100">18:20</a> So it has multi-statement lines, unlike the ZX-80. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1105">18:25</a> Or, you can get yourself a Commodore-64 and just press the DELete key. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1387">23:07</a> Why did they call the SHIFT keys CAPS SHIFT if the machine doesn't appear to have lowercase? <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="2818">46:58</a> 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).

[@KronK0321]

You're the only comment I could find that mentions the upper/lowercase issue. I thought it was weird as well!

[@Okurka.]

56 = 32 +16 +8

[@MD_il_microcanale]

wonderful computer that I'm also thinking of buying for my collection, but it would be the first Sinclair... I have all commodores! At the moment I am restoring a Canadian silver label C64 with card 326298, of which I have made some videos. Also I have an atari 2600 heavy sixer to restore, it has a very bad signal, I tried to adjust the RF modulator and the other circuit on the PCB, but nothing. I think I'll have to do a complete change of capacitors. It is an NTSC unit, but while the Canadian (or American) C64 with the 5-pole video output that ends in scart can be seen well on my television, the Atari 2600 with its RF output does not. I think the TV understands when you switch from PAL to NTSC with the C64 with the 5-pole video output, but does not understand this switch with the RF modulator of the Atari 2600. In this case you should see black and white instead I get an out of tune screen!

[@ColinJonesPonder]

I think the only real advantage to single key commands was that they didn't have to put a tokenisation routine into the ROM.

[@sevinPackage]

Another credits banger at 1.5x!

[@borayurt66]

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.

[@realtiosalamanca]

Wow, after that whole delete thing, this thing was so intuitive. No wonder it was the #1 computer in the world. Oh wait...

[@stefanmarinescu5086]

Growing up with a zx clone, i find it hard to understand all The drama about keyboard but yeah..... Time are a changing.

[@mikegarland4500]

Did you ever figure out why the 'L' cursor didn't appear at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1260">21:00</a>? 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 <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1520">25:20</a>. 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. 😀

[@pedrotimoteo329]

He was in Caps Lock mode (S-shift 2). It sticks around until disabled (by the same key combination).

[@mikegarland4500]

@@pedrotimoteo329 ahh, makes sense. Thanks!

[@pedrotimoteo329]

Sorry, C-shift 2. :)

[@mikegarland4500]

@@pedrotimoteo329 no problem. I wasn't able to contradict your answer anyway! 😛

[@MD_il_microcanale]

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!

[@8_Bit]

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.

[@MD_il_microcanale]

@@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.

[@Metal_Maxine]

It takes out the key advantages of the spectrum and removes them.

[@BeeUseful]

Where the heck do you get all this stuff!?

[@8_Bit]

Always on the lookout for interesting stuff for good prices :)

[@Flashy7]

I understand why they thought that it would be easier to parse command lines that are somewhat already tokenized by the input method, but I think if you have more than let's say a dozen possible commands, the effect reverses and everything becomes much more complicated: the keyboard layout, the keys, the tokens, symbols, the typing, and also the on-the-fly parsing... Also: with your expertise how do you overcome the urge to try to _type in_ the command words?? :)

[@8_Bit]

I actually did type RUN in full at one point, producing: "RUN UN" :)

[@velipso]

"that's better than a kick in the head" lol you said it

[@ErazerPT]

Fun seeing my first computer, though mine was a TC2068, the Portuguese version of it. Few things though. Yes, compatibility sucked as the ROM was A LOT different. Later models (and all TC2068's) came with a "compatibility cartridge" that was basically a Speccy rom in a cartridge, which made it 95%'ish compatible with the Spectrum. There was expansion option, including 3'' floppy, the Timex FDD. Pretty sure on the TC2068 it was on the box sleeve instead of the modem, but... it was some 40y ago, memory fades :D The worst part of the TS/TC2068 was imho the joystick ports. They were NOT Kemston compatible, and boy, did that hurt as far as games go... On a fun note, the Portuguese division took the 2048 "prototype should have been" you mentioned, slapped a (more Speccy compatible) rom in it, made the joystick port Kempston compatible and enjoyed a minor success with it. And kept part of the 2068 enhancements. Then went on to make the Timex FDD 3000 which is as janky a thing as you can get :P

[@MarcKloos]

Did the TC have a Kempston compatible joystick? I should try an IN 31 on it to see it with my own eyes! (I have a black and a silver TC, 2 Unipolbrit UK2086'es and a TS2068, thus plenty to try it on). I always thought all 2068's were incompatible with Kempston!

[@ErazerPT]

@@MarcKloos You're right. As i wrote, the TC/TS2068 are NOT Kempston compatible. The TC2048 IS. Getting one (at a reasonable price) might be a challenge though. The agreement with Sinclair meant they were only sold in Portugal and Poland so not quite common. But a few tens of thousands were made so... you might get lucky.

[@MarcKloos]

@@ErazerPT of course I also have a TC2048 😁. In fact I have 2; 1 with PAL written on it, the other with NTSC, as I got it from Chile!

[@waterup380]

fun to watch and what keyboard did Timex steal

[@stevethepocket]

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.

[@NeilRoy]

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.

[@jantimmerby]

I didn't know that Timex had changed the way you use the keyboard. Also didn't know they had made another BASIC. I can see keywords that were not on a Sinclair Spectrum.

[@8_Bit]

Yes, I think they extended it from the ZX Spectrum BASIC. If nothing else, they added that DELETE keyword to the Delete key making it even more frustrating to use :)

[@anon_y_mousse]

The manual lied. It didn't *seem* complicated, it *was* complicated. :))

[@pedrotimoteo329]

That wasn't the actual manual, I think, but a different book.

[@Lion_McLionhead]

Not very different from a modern phone keyboard, but much simpler & no monthly fee.

[@KAPTKipper]

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.

[@SimonJustesen]

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

[@andrewdunbar828]

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 (-:

[@SimonJustesen]

@@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

[@DaveF.]

Before it's time - a 40% TKL keyboards with multiple layers. If only it were clickly.

[@weedmanwestvancouverbc9266]

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

[@richardkelsch3640]

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.

[@8_Bit]

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!

[@andrewdunbar828]

@@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.

[@philipstephens5960]

I suppose I could get used to that keyboard, but the way the book only shows the keys to press makes it impossible to know what should appear on the screen, which is downright confusing.

[@8_Bit]

Very strange they didn't put the full line of code above the detailed type-in description, where they've got a large LINE 10: etc. heading for each line anyway.

[@andrewdunbar828]

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?

[@MichaelDoornbos]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="594">9:54</a> while very odd, I find the look of the overall machine quite fun. Too bad it’s a Z80. <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="780">13:00</a> this keyboard is loved by JavaScript developers everywhere. Doesn’t make sense and is hard to use? Great, ship it! <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1181">19:41</a> this makes a VIC-20 seem like a users dream computer from the future <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="2040">34:00</a> 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 ;)

[@greatquux]

All the disadvantages of the Speccy but without a huge software library! What a deal.

[@evileyeball]

And here I am watching this video on a machine with 524,288 Commodore 64's worth of ram in it.

[@davidmcgill1000]

Looks confusing but I imagine there is somebody out there that made all of this second nature to themselves.

[@andrewdunbar828]

There were many thousands of us.

[@BenLindelof]

It's like a souped up programmable calculator!

[@andrewgillham1907]

Enjoyed seeing how terribly this keyboard design worked again. Now I’m wondering though… what was the “worst” originally North American machine from a keyboard modes / modifiers and all that? And yes I get these Times-Sinclair machines were created just for North America. I mean systems that started here versus imported variants. I know the Apple II basic editor has its issues but it looks awesome compared to this mess.

[@igorszamaszow171]

Atari 400 featured a membrane keyboard, didn't it?

[@DaveF.]

@@igorszamaszow171 Yes - I was going to say, the Atari 400 also had a crappy membrane keyboard too - there's also, of course, the PCJr which origianlly had a god-awful keyboard.

[@8_Bit]

From a typing/physical point of view the Atari 400 and original "chiclet" PET 2001 keyboards are some of the worst, but I think Andrew's after the worst software interface/editor. I think the original TRS-80 has a very simple line editor that doesn't even pretend to be full-screen. But at least it has a working backspace/delete key unlike the Apple!!

[@andrewgillham1907]

Right. Definitely some physically bad keyboards but at least entering code/commands was straightforward enough. There were plenty of bad cursor arrangements and bad text editing options. I suppose I should have said the “turn your Atari 2600 into a full computer” hardware didn’t count. Now that I think of it those were pretty bad. I was thinking of machines intended as personal computers that shipped with keyboards and just terrible ways to enter code like these Timex-Sinclair systems. Potentially the Apple II was the worst popular machine from that perspective?

[@CRCO1975]

The TI 99/4 had a pretty terrible keyboard also. Chicklet keys like the 2068 here, but only 1 modifier key (Shift) that either produced punctuation characters, or caused things to happen, depending on the key. Shift-1 gives an ! but Shift-Q resets the computer, for example. Strangely, there's an extra "SPACE" key to the left of A that just duplicates the space bar.

[@basicforge]

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?

[@8_Bit]

It's pretty bizarre how "crawly" that is. It seems they didn't figure out how to make a good colour NTSC video signal?

[@basicforge]

@@8_Bit Yeah, very strange.

[@TheSudsy]

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.......

[@8_Bit]

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.

[@TheSudsy]

@@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 !!

[@pdgnews]

@@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.

[@andrewdunbar828]

@@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.

[@Breakfast_of_Champions]

All data bases are you's!

[@ybergik]

I heard Tolstoy wrote War & Peace in less time than it takes to write a useful program on this machine.

[@pedrotimoteo329]

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

[@archivis]

platypusses uysing them in austrailia?