Once you learn a Sinclair keyboard, muscle memory takes over. When I was 13 I could type out a BASIC program faster on a squishy Speccy keyboard than anyone could on a 'proper' typewriter style keyboard and that was down to the keys having the BASIC commands on them. It only took weeks to master too. I grant you that it is not as easy to learn these things as an adult though 😉

There's something incredibly cool about playing a wave file on a modern laptop and having an old computer able to load a game from that.

Advertising the computer as 72K reminds me of companies advertising a computer today as having "20GB" when it actually has 4GB of RAM plus an Intel Optane caching SSD...

The single keypress based commands on this line of computers is a legacy from the 1K ZX80 - as well as only requiring one keypress to select a command keyword, only one byte is required to store it in memory; furthermore, this makes the BASIC interpreter much simpler (=more compact) to implement as it does not have to parse text as such, and does not have to handle any syntax errors of spelling

Some Timex 2068 were made in Portugal. All of them sold here had the "unicorn" emulator cartridge bundled for free. We also had the 2048 which was ZX 48K fully compatible.

This was the last Sinclair computer sold by Timex in the USA, but it was not the last Sinclair computer sold in the USA -- Sinclair Research in Nashua, NH sold a U.S. version of the Sinclair QL via mail-order in 1985, although obviously it was another failure in the marketplace. Sir Clive's Cambridge Z88 portable computer was also sold here and was somewhat more successful.

This was my first computer in Argentina, although I learned with a ZX-81 so I was already familiar with the whole keyboard tokens thing and it was pretty fast to use (in the other hand I began working as a programmer in a company in which I had access to the IBM-PC, some friends later on bought Commodore 64s, a Sinclair QL -what a beauty killed by its tape cartridges-, and few years later I worked on a Logo public workshop with over 30 computers that included Spectrum, TI-994A, MSX, Commodore 64 and an IBM-PC Jr. so having the chance to extensively using what was on the market, and even knowing the drawbacks, I wasn't that unhappy with my 2068). As a curiosity, after buying it I found and bought from a book store a 2068 tech manual that included the entire Z80 assembler code for its ROM. I have no clue of how it got there, for it seemed to be a Timex-Sinclair document meant for in house use: it was printed in a light blue recycled paper in an odd font that seemed to be vectorialy drawn, with the covers made in the same paper, so it seemed to be a draft copy, and it was about 10 cm thick, about the size of a white/yellow pages (phone guide) from that time. Even later I got a thermal printer lent, it was incredibly noisy and looking trough this tech manual with a friend, we managed to change the internal clock speed hence altering the pitch of the printer noise, so we had the wrong idea of making music with it. We fried some components from the motherboard in the attempt, with a puffing noise and a little cloud of white smoke, and that was the end of my 2068 experience.

12:25 Great to see your cat helping with the filming

''This Old Bird has crashed more times than a Sinclair ZX81 '' ....Kryten

My first computer and where I learned to program!

In my C64 days I was hardly interested in the alternatives like the Sinclair. But now its a joy to see these machines in action and get the technical backgrounds. This channel is gold, thanks!

I had a ZX Spectrum as a kid and it was the first computer I learned to program on. I actually found the preset commands on the keys quite useful when learning - especially if English is a second language. You also knew for a fact the full command set - no hidden commands. All in all, I quite enjoyed learning basic this way.

Nostalgia. In my childhood, I had a ZX Spectrum (Leningrad) clone assembled by my uncle.

16:45 Looking forward to see the electric """car""" in action!

As a 12 year old I got used to the keyboard entry system right away, and could type listings in pretty fast within months and I previously had used traditional keyboards on other computers. One thing to remember is that the UK versions had a colour coded system on the keys, which did help to speed up the learning of that entry method.

Let me say it, your content is probably some of the best you can find on KZfaq, period. The dedication put to the videos, the research, the edition... Everyting is so polished that I can't complain. There's not a thing I can objectively say 'this can be improved'. Congratulations, David. You deserve a place in history, for bringing history to us.

Ah, the days when magazines printed out entire programs for you to type into your computer. The first game I remember typing in was a Basic version of Air Attack for the Commodore Pet in 1980 or thereabouts. I probably still have the magazine somewhere...

Correction: the SEGA Master System didn't use the GI AY-3-8912; it actually used the TI SN76489, which is similar, but not the same. Also, the AY-3-8912 was the sound chip in the ZX Spectrum 128, +2, and +3 models, supplementing the horrid little beeper from the original Speccy and Spectrum+.

11:50 I'm getting goosebumps. Jet set willy was probably the very first game I played on a spectrum back in 1986 or so, along with Psssst and Jetpack.

Duuuude, I'm so stoked for you next video now! Love your intro/outro tunes by the way, feels good

That bit with the game loading with the commentary over the top of it - did anyone else imagine the loading sounds in their head while they watched it? :-)

Those shortcut key commands were no problem at all for me back in the day when I was 12 years old. Great computer. It taught me assembler programming and I ended up writing an emulator for it on the PC later on. The ROM in it is very good.

You know what's cool? Since every ZX Sprectrum software is stored in a sound file, this means that you can load a game from pretty much anything. Phone? Yes. Computer? Yes. Walkman? Yes. Kinda cool ngl.

Another awesome video 8BG... Thanks for all the content.

The 8-bit guy: the keyboard is annoying to use Chyrosan22: it's HHHHHHIIIIDEEEEEOUS

I'm SUPER excited to see your upcoming video on the Sinclair C5 car!!

A really informative and entertaining video that is well done… it gave me the info I needed about the Timex Sinclair 2068 which I’ve always known about but never took the time or found a summarized source about it.

When Sinclair released the Spectrum 128k in 1985 it came with with the AY-3-8912 sound chip the 128k BASIC mode had a normal keyboard typing system.

11:30 - I almost fell out of my chair when he pulled MacBook and just put mini jack into it and ran games that way.

After 2 years I guess we can say the C5 never made it.

Your uploads are the highlight of my week

I should have said this years ago, but your channel is so good that even though I am not into neither know anything about vintage computers I always enjoy your videos

5:45 technically speaking, most modern computers still have a text mode which is mostly used in Real mode or beginning stages of Protected mode and can be accessed with bios interrupt commands.

We used to spend ages in computer club at school playing Jet Set Willy. It was a marvellous game!

I just got my hands on one of these. Cant wait to play with it your videos got me hyped lol

my boy dave cruncing out content for us to watch during quarantine, mad respect bro

You didn't mention the Timex extended screen modes. There's an extended colour mode where the colour cells are 8x1 pixels instead of 8x8. Then there's a monochrome mode of 512x192 pixels, doubling the horizontal resolution. I don't think much software made any use of these though because they're unique to the TS2068. I'd expect that the AY sound chip is still accessible with the ZX Spectrum ROM in place, but ZX Spectrum software won't have been written to use it. The 128K Spectrums used the same sound chip, but present at a different I/O port address. There are 48K Spectrum games that use the 128K sound chip, so theoretically it would be possible to patch one of these to use the TS2068's sound chip address. The computer also lived on until 1989 in Portugal and Poland.

Feels like it's been a while since you've published a video. Super happy to see that you're in good health and spirits. Solid video, as always.

Really enjoy your channel!

Congratz on trending, 8bit guy!

I weep for the pour souls that would've had to use that keyboard for their typing class.

Definitely need to make a bigger EPROM for those 2 ROMs, with a switch on the top address line to switch between them so you dont have to swap out chips to go between modes!!

man the idea with the MacBook Air, wave file and audio cable - priceless!

It’s great you can bring back the joy we had in those times, thank you

Both the Spectrum and Apple ][ had "messed up" screens...I don't remember the Apple ][ being classed as cheap. The Apple ][ screen mapping is described as deliberately messed up in the manuals. Looking at the maps you'll see it's not for cheapness (it's probably cheaper to go from one row to the next like the PET), but for efficiency (and speed) of putting characters on the screen. On the Apple ][ the top row is the 1st 40 bytes of the screen RAM, the next 40 bytes are the 40 bytes of the 9th screen row, the next 40 bytes are the 17th row of the screen. The next 8 bytes are off the screen. That's the first 128 bytes of screen RAM The next 128 bytes are rows 2, 10, 18 and 8 spare bytes, and so on, with each row in each third of the screen starting 128 bytes after the previous row! The spare 8 bytes in each 128 bytes of the 1024 bytes allocated to the screen are allocated to the peripheral cards (in the slots). This weird mapping is carried over into the high res screen. The Spectrum screen is designed for fast character insertion: Think of the screen in character cells. For 8 character rows, there are 32 cells across the row, and the next row starts 32 bytes further on in memory, taking 256 bytes of memory. But each character is made up of 8x8 pixels. The 8 pixels across are stored in a byte, so 8 bytes,are required for each character. These are stored 256 bytes apart in memory - the second pixel row of a character is 256 bytes in memory after the first row, and so on for each 8 pixel rows. This means that the definition of the character pixels can be stored in 8 sequential memory locations accessible by incrementing the low byte of the memory pointer by 1 each time, but when transferring to screen memory, the locations are I incremented by 256, or an increment of 1 to the high byte of the memory pointer each time. The next two blocks of 8 rows follow the same pattern. This pattern makes it easy and quick to convert a screen x,y position to a memory location, and back again, via (fast processor) bit operations (unlike the need to multiply or divide by 40 for, say, a PET), along with reading screen pixel patterns to compare against character definitions.

The game audio will also play out the cassette MIC jack.

Always a great watch David... loved the exit music btw.

Oh, my God! I had one of these. Talk about a blast from the past. My father bought me one from Kmart in 1983, of all places. But, I graduated to an Atari 800XL soon afterward.

8:50 So THAT'S where Guru Larry gets his transition card templates from!

Wow, I didnt even know I was still subscribed to this channel! Havent received any of his content on my feed for god knows how long

In Chile we had 4 different ZX Spectrum compatible NTSC microcomputers during the 80s: Timex Sinclair 2068 , Timex Computer 2048, Microdigital TK-90X and Sinclair ZX Spectrum (16K and 48K, NTSC). Both the Timex Computer 2048 and the TK-90X were 99.9% compatible with the ZX Spectrum 48K.

Absolutely fascinating! Brother, you are one of the most knowledgeable guys on all of KZfaq. This machine was way before my time and I love learning about this stuff. At any rate, if you were to emulate this microcomputer you could just make extra keys for those commands. You could practically do this almost anyway you want. Yes it will make it a bit more cumbersome but it could be done. I would add a shift key function when pressed with the number one for the first set, number 2 for the second set, 3 for the third set, and so on. You could even stack the keys on top of each other so you could essentially flip between the different keys. Hell, you could use a mouse wheel and eliminate my shift key function idea all together.

I've been waiting for this so long

I had the 1000 and the spectrum. I played with those things everyday back in the 80's. Loved them!

I love the MacGyver job you did with the ROM and audio output!

The last thing I expected you to be getting a hold of was a C5. Can't wait to see how it all turns out, along with the rest of the studio build!

The most feel-good intro on the entirety of youtube! :)

The AY sound chip was not used in the master system, that was a SN76489

Hi tech guy do enjoy your videos thanks for all the Sinclair coverage. One advantage of the "keywords" on the Sinclair units, was each had its own "sinclair custom ascii" code. So for example storing the command PRINT only took up one byte in memory not five. Having space savings like this helped allow much larger BASIC programs to be written into the somewhat limited memory.

You'd be amazed how many UK games programmers started their careers with the ZX Spectrum, including me. The display RAM layout isn't that weird - if you're not crossing one of the boundaries, all you had to do in machine code to get to the next line down was to increase the high byte of the address.

The C5 = Sinclair's Doom! Speaking of ROMs, you can find one or two online that implement a regular keyboard input (similar to ZX Spectrum +2 implementation). Anyway, very nice video!

As usual: UK People: "Sinclair is the bees knees I learned programming and such stop hating", 8 Bit Guy and US People: "C64 is Superior."

My 1st computer! Made me so happy to see it in action after all these years. Those shortcut key commands were pretty annoying...I would program for hours every day as a 12 year old, and never really got fast using them.

Ahh hahaha - looking sooooo much forward to the C5!! :-D Great job and vids 8-bit guy

Remember that the ZX Basic language was tokenised, so took up less memory than other computers of the time, where you typed the whole word in, plus meant fewer typos. In your example, PRINT took one byte, whereas on other computers it was six bytes (P, R, I, N, T & SPACE). It also meant that runtime interpretation could be quicker. It very quickly became easy and fast to use.

Those days, I miss them.

Thanks for uploading this 💓👍👍👍

Loved the ZX Spectrum as a kid. My dad bought an upgrade kit to give it a more normal plastic keyboard as apposed to the rubber keys.

1:36 Correction! Regarding the Sega Master System, it used a Texas Instruments SN76489 PSG and not the General Instrument AY-3-8912.

The Spectrum was my first computer in the UK, loved it. BTW that's one of the many mods of Jet Set Willy, not the original

Nice presentation! Big like for the excellent floppy intro!!

I've got one of these in a box somewhere. You've inspired me to dig it out and see if it still works!

12:26 - The 8-bit Cat!

The ZX Spectrum was my first real step on the road to a career in IT, I have fond memories of the tape loading noises and less fond memories or R-Tape loading error.

Good vid. Having been an owner of a ZX81 and moving to a ZX Spectrum back in the day it took about 3 months to get used to the majority of key combinations. That resulted in much faster programming for sure. I moved to a C128 after the Spectrum and found the programming on the C64 and C128 to be much more complicated.

Is this the first 8 bit guy episode to get on trending? If so, congrats, and thank God youtube finally put good content on trending.

“the C64 beats the Timex in every category” ... except in the quality of its BASIC, of course!

The Sega MAster System didn't use the AY-3-8912, instead it used an integrated version of the SN76489.

The keyboard is scanned in an amazingly cheap way - 5 row bits read via the ULA port and 8 rows controlled by the high byte of the address bus. Thus 40 keys max.

You can feed the output from the mic port into an amp to get sound externally, no soldering required. On my speccy 48k I used to just push up the record sensor pin in the cassette recorder and press record+pause. instant amp. There were also dedicated Spectrum cassette units that had a switch to enable sound output without messing around with the pin and putting up with motor noise. The later 128k spectrums had the same soundchip as your machine and output via the tv speaker. Carts were an option with an external interface and joystick ports were built into the Amstrad models of the 128k.

You're incorrect about "All Sinclairs" having no option to type commands without using the shortcuts, the Sinclair 128K model introduced 128 BASIC which allowed normal typing. The 48K+ and all subsequent Sinclair branded models also had a vastly improved keyboard, it still wasn't perfect by modern standards but it did the job. When Amstrad took over they improved on the keyboard still further and retained 128 BASIC. In any case, once you got used to the weird shortcut layout you could program very fast, I still remember all the shortcuts decades later!

The Master System used the SN76489 by Texas Instruments (integrated into the video chip), not the AY-3-8912.

Congrats on getting on to trending

Very nice!! Would love to see an episode about the BBC Micro. Born and raised in the US I had heard little about this but became fascinated upon reading 'Electronic Dreams: How 1980s Britain Learned to Love the Computer' and learning about their national computer literacy project and the BBC producing their own easy-to-use and program computer. Compared to all the PEEKS and POKES I had to put up with as a kid I was shocked to learn how the BBC made the included BASIC easy to use for graphics , music, sounds and thus games. Even the manual (which I recently downloaded to read) was easier and more friendly than either the VIC or C64 manuals; including coding projects to make your own custom charters and code for a lunar lander type game as just one example - wow!

When you will record about Commander X16?

Awwww I was hoping you'd do more on the Sinclair computers, especially the one I had, the ZX Spectrum 128k+ (the grey one with included / built in cassete player). I know ZX Spectrums weren't that famous in the US but I was still hoping you'd do a video on them eventually... oh well...

grew up w/ a v20 and c64 but always wanted one of these because of the enhanced basic... never knew it was basically a zx spectrum.... still lusted after this ... .and watched it in awe at places like BEST merchandise in arlington etc...

This was my first computer here in Europe. Still got it and running. Still love it, with the ZX Spectrum emulator cart.

How about the: SAM Coupé computer, the best 8-bit computer I believe and the last(?) to be released?

I would love to see you work with @Aging Wheels on the Sinclair C5. I wonder how it would compare to the other electric cars he has reviewed.

It's been a while, good to have you back ;)

This comment is about the speccy vs. C64. As an 8 yr old, the C64 didn't have any graphic commands or commands to make sound. The speccy had lines, circles, and beep commands. As an 8yr old, this was so much easier. I never understood C64 sprites till I was an adult many years later, but did understand "UDGs" on the speccy and also how to make your own fonts. I also thought Z80 was easier than 6502(10) as a 10yr old (though didn't spend much time on C64 assembler, but spent a lot of time on Z80). Main reason for using the speccy is because all of my friends had them. I the UK, there were a ton of peripherals for them, more so than the C64 - different kinds of disk drives, many different printer interfaces, many different joystick and multifunction interfaces where you could store a snapshot of the RAM onto a storage device (tape or microdrive). I do agree that technically, the C64 was the better machine, but as an 8-10yr old in the UK, nobody had a C64, but I knew 10 people that had a spectrum. I never knew anyone that had a Vic20. I don't remember even stores having them.

I'm always fascinated to see the American perspective on Sinclair's computers. I was a Commodore 64 head (still am) anyway, but it's still interesting. It would be really cool if you could get hold of a BBC Micro - a very popular (and powerful) British home computer that was mostly used in schools and sometimes industry/business.

Just one thing to note: there are like 24,000+ ZX Spectrum titles on World of Spectrum. So I think the reason to own a Timex would be to replace the ROM and explore that library.

I actually got one of these a couple of years back for $10 with 2 brand new Sinclair 1000's, but the 2068 had no power supply. I thought I had one, plugged it in, and a second later BOOM! I was looking everywhere I could to figure out what chip I blew up and couldn't find it due to every image on the internet being that of a different board design, but your's is identical, and it turns out it was the sound chip! Thank you!

I bought a Sinclair A-bike a while ago...what ever clive conceived it is always worth checking out.

Sir Clive Sinclair developed the Spectrum as a programming machine. It just so happened that a lot of software was developed for it.

It's like they combined the 48k Speccy with the Interface 2 and the sound chip that would go into the later Spectrums.

Fun nostalgic video. Was the Timex Sinclair librarian in Toronto. Went as far as the Sinclair QL. We used small tape drives. Spent many nights programming and playing with the whole line of Sinclair computers. Sent my computers to a PC museum in Madison. Still have 2 Sinclair A bikes.

next video sounds amazing!