In a previous episode, I covered the Sinclair ZX-80, Timex Sinclair 1000, and the 1500.
But now it’s time to show the 4th and final Timex product for the North American market,
the Timex Sinclair 2068. This was the lineup meant to bring affordable computers to the
North American market.
Only 3 years had passed since the initial rollout of the ZX-80. And yet the Timex Sinclair
2068 was an improvement in almost every way. The question is, did it have what it takes
to compete with North American offerings from Commodore and Atari?
Looking at the 2068, you get a chiclet keyboard, a cartridge slot hidden under this little
door here, two joystick ports. One on each side of the computer, which is kind of cool.
It sort of reminds me of the Commodore Max. On the rear you get a composite video port,
cassette ports, power jack, and of course the traditional RF modulator port. The selector
switch for channel 2 or 3 is hidden on the bottom and very tiny. Also the speaker is
on the bottom here and this is where all of your audio comes from.
Let’s take it apart and have a quick look at what makes this thing tick. There are just
a few screws on the bottom, and then you’ll have to unplug this ribbon cable, which is
of an evil design. I hate these. Like previous Sinclair units, it is based on the Z80 processor
running at 3.5 megahertz. This chip here is called the ULA, and much like previous units,
basically handles most functions of the computer, including generating the video signal timing.
But make no mistake, the Z80 still does the heavy lifting of video production. One massive
improvement is the 48K of system RAM. Also, a General Instruments ay-3 sound chip, which
was used in many other computers including consoles like the Sega Master System. And
right next to it, the internal speaker. There is no audio output at the rear, all sounds
are produced internally and there is no volume control. And last, these two chips are the
ROM chips for 24K of ROM.
But wait. This advertisement shows the computer has 72K? And I just pointed out 48K on the
motherboard. How is that? Well, Timex had some very interesting math going on here.
You see, they just took the 48K of RAM, and added the 24K of ROM and came up with 72K
total. And I suppose it is technically correct since they don’t specify that it is 72K
of RAM. But, it is certainly misleading since no other computer advertised it this way.
So, to be clear what we really have here is a British Sinclair ZX Spectrum, which outputs
NTSC video instead of PAL, added a sound-chip, cartridge port, and composite video port,
joystick ports, and an updated ROM chip. But yeah, at it’s heart it is still a Sinclair
Spectrum.
And, one really annoying thing about using any Sinclair computer, and this one is no
exception, is the keyboard. Now granted, the 2068 has a chiclet keyboard, which is miles
ahead of the membrane keyboard of it’s predecessors. But, that’s not the only issue. It’s the
fact that you can’t just type like normal on it. Notice that every key on the keyboard
literally has 5 different functions. There are multiple modifier keys like caps shift
or symbol shift that need to be used either separately or together in order to access
these different functions. Think of them like shortcuts. That’s all fine and dandy, except
for the fact you are forced to use them. So, I can’t just type out the command PRINT
in BASIC, I have to actually locate the command on the keyboard and press it. Which isn’t
too bad since it is on the P key anyway and doesn’t require pressing a modifier key.
But when you want something else, you have to scan the keyboard to find it, and then
figure out which keys to use to make that command appear. Even the backspace of all
things, requires you to press shift and zero. I mean, how hard would it have been to add
one extra little key right there for backspace?! See, it would have even looked nice, right
there!
Now, admittedly, if I were 12 years old again and I were using this computer every single
day, I’d probably eventually get used to where all of the commands are. In fact, I
think I could probably type a BASIC program as fast or maybe even faster than on a traditional
computer. But, it would probably take months or possibly years to become that fast. I’d
also venture to say, it probably makes these computers somewhat less desirable to emulate
on a modern computer because you won’t be able to see where all of the commands are,
you’d never be able to find them.
When I talked about the Timex Sinclair 1000, I pointed out that it basically had no graphics
mode at all, could essentially only display text. This was a pretty significant limitation.
It might surprise you to find that the Sinclair 2068, as well as it’s British cousin the
ZX Spectrum, is exactly the opposite. It has no text mode, only graphics.
The screen is a bitmap of 256 across by 192 pixels vertically. The bitmap consumes 6,144
bytes of RAM, with an additional 768 bytes for color attribute data. So, that’s 6,912
bytes of RAM that is consumed by the screen, even if only text is being displayed.
This means that when text is to be written to the screen, the CPU has to actually copy
8 bytes for every character, drawing them out one line at a time like this. And of course,
for every 8 by 8 pixel cell, there is a color attribute where you can assign colors to the
foreground and background. Timex calls this the ink color and the paper color, but you
get the idea. You get 2 colors per cell.
So, there is a grid of 32 by 24 color cells, and I’ll show you an example graphic from
a Sinclair Spectrum game. As you can see, you’ll never find more than 2 colors per
cell. While Commodore used a similar system, it had a 2-color and a 4-color mode which
made it considerably more versatile.
Another disadvantage to this system besides the extra memory required for text is that
it is no longer possible to read what character is on the screen. And, it takes 8 times longer
to write text to the screen than other computers of the time period. That may not be a big
deal for most applications, but it does start to be an issue if you need to scroll the whole
screen quickly because it would be 8 times more data to move around.
Granted, later 16 and 32 bit computers like the Amiga, Macintosh, or most likely even
the computer you are using right now to watch this video, also have no specific text mode.
But with faster processors, more RAM, and graphical operating systems, this makes more
sense.
So, I’m going to write a little program here in BASIC and this is meant to illustrate
two different things. Screen RAM starts at memory location 16,384 and so I’m going
to fill the screen ram with 255, which should be solid pixels. And the first thing I want
you to notice is that I didn’t need to enter any sort of graphics mode to do this, because
like I said, we were already in graphics mode. The second thing I want you to see is the
screen RAM layout. I’m advancing the loop by increments of one, but you can see the
data isn’t being filled in on the screen in the manner you might expect on other computers.
This does mean your code has to be a little smarter in order to plot pixels on the screen.
This was most likely another cost-saving measure.
What I’ve just shown will come up again here in a little bit. But for the moment,
here’s another little program that does something kind of similar, only it is writing
random values to the color attribute RAM. At least this RAM is organized more or less
like you’d expect. But you may be wondering about the flashing. Well, one of the bits
of the color attribute determines if a character is flashing or not. And since I’m filling
in random data, some characters will be flashing and others won’t be.
You can change the border color by using the border command, which is pretty simple. You
can also change the paper color as well. Customizing your screen colors in 1983 was sort of like
picking your desktop wallpaper today.
In case it wasn’t obvious the Sinclair line of computers ranging from the original ZX-80
all the way to the 2068, were meant to use a cassette recorder for the main storage device.
Disk drives were simply not a thing on these computers, and neither were cartridges.
The Sinclair 2068, however, did offer a cartridge slot, which in theory would allow for much
easier, and much faster loading of games, much like a game console of the era.
However, only around 7 cartridges are known to exist, and none of them are particularly
compelling. Let’s open up crazy bugs here and have a look. These cartridges are surprisingly
small, especially for 1983. They are just barely bigger than a gameboy cartridge. I
took one apart to see what kind of ROM chip it had and was surprised to see an epoxy blob.
While not unheard of, this wasn’t a super common design yet at this time.
Anyway, so I’ll just stick the cartridge in here and let’s see what happens. It does
instantly appear much as to be expected. The game itself is certainly nothing to get exited
about, but sadly this is probably the best game cartridge available. Here’s another
one, States and Capitals. Not really a game, more like edutainment software.
So, let’s try loading a cassette based game instead. I’ll connect up the cassette recorder.
If you just wanted to load pre-recorded tapes with games on them, all you needed was a single
cable connected to ear on the back of the computer and to the earphone output on the
cassette player. In this regard, almost any cassette player would do, even a walkman.
If you wanted to be able to save as well, then you’d need another cable connected
to mic in the same manner. But we don’t need that right now.
To load a game, just use the LOAD command, followed by the filename in quotes. But if
you just type two quotes with nothing in between, it will load the first file found, so that’s
what we’re going to do. Now, you may notice the screen border will do some interesting
things during loading. This is to give the user some sort of feedback of what is going
on. This slow flashing means it is searching for a file. Once you see this, that means
it has found the file and it will even show you the name, in this case androids. And now
it’s loading the intro screen. Now, remember when I told you about the video RAM layout,
notice that it is filling in the screen exactly the same way. That’s because it is loading
a file directly into video RAM from cassette. And it loads in exactly the same pattern as
my little basic program filled the screen. Once it is done loading the graphics, it loads
the color attributes next.
Of course, this intro screen serves no purpose other than to get you excited about the game.
Unfortunately, it adds almost a whole minute to the load time of the game, so whether it
is worth the trade-off is entirely up to you. And here we go. This is androids.
So, there aren’t exactly a ton of games available for the Timex Sinclair 2068. In
fact, if you look at Mobygames, they actually list a whole 12 games. Yeah, huge library
there, huh? But what if it were possible to run games for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, which
this machine is closely related to? Well, it turns out, you can. There are a few different
ways to achieve it. The most elegant way would be by the use of this cartridge, which is
just called “emulator.” All this contains is a different ROM, which is more or less
identical to the ZX Spectrum. It turns out that the Sinclair 2068 is more or less hardware
identical to a ZX spectrum in all of the ways needed to run the games, except for the ROM
code. Granted, the original ZX spectrum didn’t have a 3-voice sound chip, so you won’t
be able to use that anyway. Same with the joystick ports. But everything else should
work. The trouble is, this ROM cartridge is as rare as a unicorn. Finding one is nearly
impossible. However, there’s an alternative way to do this. I had my friend Kevin burn
me a ROM chip for the ZX Spectrum 48K. And just so I don’t get them mixed up, I made
a nice little label for the chip. There we go. I’ll also label the original one here
so that I don’t forget what’s on there. Now, I’ll just pop this chip out and replace
it with the ZX Spectrum ROM.
So what happens when we power it on? Well, It looks almost the same, but the splash screen
is slightly different. If you remember, the old one had two lines and said Timex with
a date of 1983. Now it’s just 1 line and dated 1982. But, everything seems to be working.
My understanding is at this point, I’ve lost compatibility with the sound chip, joystick
ports, and cartridge slot. But it’s a small price to pay, considering now I have access
to a bigger library of software. How much bigger? Well, remember the 12 games for the
Timex version, let’s see how many can I run now? According to this 3,287. I’d say
that’s a fair trade.
Of course the ultimate test would be to try some Speccy games. I don’t actually have
any on hand, but I’ve downloaded a few as WAV files. So all I need to do is plug my
laptop here into the ear port on the Sinclair and it should work just like a cassette recorder.
The first one I’m going to try is one of the most well known games called Jet Set Willy.
And, it seems to be working fine. Granted, I’ve never played this game on a real ZX
Spectrum before, but based on the videos I’ve seen online, it looks more or less correct.
I’ve been told the colors are a little different on this computer for NTSC, but if they are
it isn’t super obvious to me since I’m not a long time speccy user. This game sort
of reminds me of Monty on the Run for the Commodore 64.
While we’re here I’d like to point out a couple of other things. I said earlier that
the 3 voice sound chip won’t work in ZX Spectrum mode. So, what you are hearing here
is the regular 1 voice beeper speaker that is native to the ZX Spectrum, which is also
present on this system. So, it’s almost like a 4th voice on the system. But in this
mode, it is all you are going to hear. Also, you may be wondering how I recorded the sound,
since there is no audio output. Well, I had to temporarily solder in my own audio line
output for the video capture portion of this video.
Anyway, let’s take a look at another game. This time I’m going to load Cybernoid. This
one has a pretty neat intro screen. But what’s even cooler about it is there is this little
count-down timer on the bottom left telling you exactly how long is left for the loading
process. That’s really cool! It does still take several minutes to load, though.
Now, looking at this game, I do see one immediate difference in the colors. See this light brown
area behind all of the text. That’s not supposed to be there. Let me show you a screen
capture from an emulator. As you can see, it’s all black. As I play the game, you’ll
see this background color appearing all over the place. Now, what I think we’re seeing
is a result of the way the game was coded. If you look at the color palette for the ZX
Spectrum, notice that it technically has two blacks. So, it doesn’t really have 16 colors,
it’s more like 15. Apparently the Sinclair 2068 has brown as one of those colors. So,
games like this are expecting there to be two blacks and there aren’t. It doesn’t
look beautiful or anything, but it doesn’t really detract much from the gameplay. So
I’d say it is a minor annoyance if anything. In fact, I’ve read that there may be some
hardware modifications you can do to get the colors to match closer, but I’m not going
to mess with it. So, I think we can safely say this computer is more or less compatible
with the ZX Spectrum if you put the right ROM in there.
While the Sinclair 2068 was an obvious improvement over previous offerings from Timex, how did
it stack up in the overall marketplace in 1983? It’s main selling point was supposed
to be its price of $199. Well, let’s take a look at this magazine from April of 1983.
You can see the magazine shows the ZX81 and Spectrum right on the front cover, and has
numerous articles about it. But the one things that stands out is on page 106, where it shows
you can buy a VIC-20 mail order for $139.
So, how does it compare to that? Well, the VIC-20 already had it beat on price. There’s
no question it had a better keyboard. OK, the Timex unit does have more RAM. The VIC-20’s
graphics chip is considerably more versatile, although admittedly slightly lower screen
resolution. The Timex wins on audio. But what about software library? Being there were only
around a dozen titles for the Timex, I’d say the VIC-20 wins hands down. But, if you
include the ZX Spectrum emulation, then the Timex unit actually wins. But there’s a
catch. The sound chip doesn’t work in ZX Spectrum emulation, so we would have to concede
the sound back to the VIC-20. And last, there’s expandability. There were so many more peripherals
for the Vic-20, especially things like Disk Drives, so there is really no question on
that.
So, let’s say you disagree with some of my comparisons here. Don’t worry. I’m
not done. Let’s look at another magazine. This one from June of 1983, just two months
later. And look here. You can order a VIC-20 for a mere $89, and you can even get a Commodore
64 for $197, that’s less than the Timex unit. And if we compare with the C64. There’s
little question that the C64 beats the Timex in every category without question. So, you
can see the problem. For a computer where price was the main selling point, a computer
that was supposed to be super cheap and affordable at the expense of having good features, it
was simply not a compelling offering in the face of what Commodore had achieved with their
mass production and vertical integration.
As such, the Sinclair 2068 was only produced for just a few months during the year of 1983
and then was pulled from the shelves. Some 80,000 were thought to have been produced,
but most of the remaining stock ended up getting shipped off to countries in South America
where they were a little bit more competitive.
So, to say the 2068 was a market failure is somewhat of an understatement. However, if
you were looking for a ZX Spectrum that could run on North American 120 Volts as well as
output NTSC video then upgrading one of these with the ZX Spectrum ROM chip is not a bad
way to go. It would be much easier than using an emulator since at least you have all of
the different commands printed on the keys. One other quick point I wanted to make is
this does come with a good user manual, and that’s always been a big gripe of mine when
computers come with user manuals that don’t really explain how to program or use the computer.
So, that’s good. There’s also a few third party books you can get like this one from
SAMS which tells you a little bit more in depth how to program the Sinclair 2068, so
that’s also pretty cool. But, this is actually the end of the line for the Sinclair products
here in the USA, but I do have at least one more episode coming up on Sinclair products,
but it’s not a computer. I’ve actually managed to hunt down and locate a Sinclair
C5, which was Clive Sinclair’s pet electric car project. And, I’m getting it imported
to the United States. And actually, I hope to have it in the next few days. And if all
goes well, that’s going to be one of the next videos. So, be sure to stick around for
that, and as always thanks for watching!