Timex Sinclair TS 1000

[den68]

http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/images/ts1000.jpg

I found one of these saturday for $6. It had the box and manuals. I tested it yesterday and it does work.

Anybody else have one?

I hit a few sites looking for info. I don't have the RAM expansion pak which I gathered is necessary if you want to run any programs.

All software is on cassette???

I saw a few games on ebay. Is it worth picking up a few? do any have sound? It does not appear there are controller for it.

It's sure is a tiny little sucker.

any thought swould be appreciated.

[bargora]

I used to have one, many years ago. I don't know if my tape player was uber-crappy or what, but I had a bitch of a time ever reading saved programs from cassette. I didn't have the RAM expansion pack either, so I had, what, 1 or 2 Kb of RAM built in?

I remember typing in a couple of the BASIC game programs and being awed by the progression of ASCII characters weaving and scrolling across the screen. Never did get the hang of all that "PEEK" and "POKE" stuff, though.

I didn't realize that you could BUY games for the thing. I'd bet that you'd need a RAM expansion pack to get anything to play, though. I suppose that the games would indeed come on cassette, as there was no mention of a floppy drive.

[sonnenhexer]

The Sinclair has 1k Ram, you can use any tape-recorder with chinch as a datasette.
Due to the basic-codes not completely typed (you type them using the Symbol-shift or any other shift-key) you can code large programs in 1k.

Hope that helps a little

Michael

[Tempest]

The Sinclair was an underpowered piece of junk. I don't think it could even do color graphics. Ick!

I do have one game for it though, Androids. I got it for a buck at a flea market.

Tempest

[den68]

yeah, I did notice it was only black and white. there's no on/off switch either, you plug it in and it's on.

still kind of a cool piece to have in the collection for it's historical significance in computing history.

I guess it was the first computer to retail for less than $100 bucks new.

[sonnenhexer]

Yeah, but for 100 bucks you had to assemble it yourself. ;)

Michael

[video_game_addict]

I have one too. It IS very small, but I'd bet this thing cost several hundred dollars new back in the day. I have two Ram modules, one is in the box, and it has a $49.88 price tag on it from Payless, never heard of the company, I assumed it was like a Biglots deal with marked down stuff and all.

I also have two cassettes, Money Analyzer 1 (2K RAM) & FUNdamentals of Math (16K RAM) I guess you can tell why I've never had a reason to test it out. ;)

There was a Frogger game for it, at one time I thought about buying games for it too, but lost interest. Now it just collects dust.

If you want my boxed RAM module Den, it's yours for the cost of shipping. In fact if you want ALL of it just let me know, I can pack up everything I have and send it your way.

[den68]

cool! yes I am interested. I'll shoot you an e-mail.

thanks

[Tepic]

I have one hanging around somewhere collecting dust.

The Sinclair ZX81 (as it is known in the UK) represents quite a landmark. It cost less than £100 which was unheard of at the time. The ZX81 came assembled here, the ZX80 however didn't.

[Goblin]

I had one back in the day, and I beleive the base unit has 2k, not 1k as previously reported. It was a simple computer that was originally designed in the UK and was marketed in the US by Timex. The 16 ram module was extremely flakey, I actually had a molded rubber platform that conformed to the computers body that effectively 'locked' in the ram module to prevent it from getting loose. Any tape player worked, which was helpful in lowering cost. They did a decent business just because of the $100 price point. This was people could say they had a computer, it didn't matter that they couldn't do anything with it.

I also had a Z-81 printer that wasn't much bigger than the PC itself. It used rolls of special metalic paper (about 4 inches across) that a spark basically burned the characters into. Similiar in operation to thermal paper only it was metalic (silver in color). The membrane keyboard was a major hassle, but then again I was 10 so my hands were the right size for it.

There were a number of game tapes, the most known being frogger. It wasn't a bad version, but after playing games on my atari 800, using the 1000's little arrow keys was poor in comparsion.

I still have my original unit for nostalgia purposes. I long ago sold off my accessories, books, magazines, and extra machines. I used to mail order some stuff from a company called Zebra, they seemed to be the only company supporting sinclair in the mid 80's.

[Tempest]

Got any screenshots for the games? I'd love to see some.

Tempest

[revivalstudios]

Yep, nice little machine.

In fact i actually develop new games for it. I currently have 4 games released on cassette tape. I also released 2 tech demo's for it.
You can check out my website at: http://www.revival-studios.com/?page=127 (http://www.revival-studios.com/?page=127http://) for more information about the games (including trailers).

[Nebagram]

Yep, got one, the RAM cartridge, the printer, and the blu-tack. :-) Not up to much gaming-wise but has a few gems, especially the seminal 3D Monster Maze.