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Timex/Sinclar
Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2010 2:09 pm
by yusha
Hello,I have a Timex/Sinclar "laptop" computer.In original box ,power supply,and manuals.Anyone interested or collecting these oldies?Offers?
Re: Timex/Sinclar
Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 4:39 am
by dacflyer
i had one of them timex sinclair 2000 when i was a kid.. they seemed to have a software all their own. i kinda hated it, because the PS was too weak for the darn thing. you spend over 1-2 hrs playing with it, and then it died on you , and then restarted..lol
what language did that thing use anyway ? had a lot of weird symbles etc.
Re: Timex/Sinclar
Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2010 8:40 pm
by kalasek
dacflyer wrote:i had one of them timex sinclair 2000 when i was a kid.. they seemed to have a software all their own. i kinda hated it, because the PS was too weak for the darn thing. you spend over 1-2 hrs playing with it, and then it died on you , and then restarted..lol
what language did that thing use anyway ? had a lot of weird symbles etc.
Hi
I built a few from a kit and they ran a version of basic that used keywords for the basic functions, you could either type the command words or use a shortcut that used less memory.
bob
Re: Timex/Sinclar
Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2010 4:43 am
by dacflyer
but what about the symbols they used to use. thats was i was curious about.. i know it was not basic..lol
Re: Timex/Sinclar
Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 9:53 am
by kalasek
dacflyer wrote:but what about the symbols they used to use. thats was i was curious about.. i know it was not basic..lol
the extra symbols were sinclair's version of ascii they added a lot of little custom symbols for the unprintable code. ascii has been around a long time some codes were "bel" 07 hex rang a bell on the teletype but it was not printed. When computers came around programmers started adding graphics in the spaces of code that was no longer used.
bob
Re: Timex/Sinclar
Posted: Mon Dec 06, 2010 8:17 pm
by dacflyer
cool. thanks for the info
Re: Timex/Sinclar
Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2010 8:06 am
by MrAl
Hi,
I didnt even see this thread until now (Dec 19th). I liked the Timex quite a bit when it first came out.
The program rom was all done in assembly, and believe it or not, i have a complete program dump of the entire ROM complete with notes as to what that section of the asc code did for the computer (ie routines all have human descriptions not just address locations). It shows how each part of the code was done and what it does. Basically, everything was done with an interrupt with various parameters pushed onto the stack such as arithmetic arguments and stuff like that. Different operations had different interrupt service routines. Pretty cool really. For example, they used Chebychev polynomials to generate the trig functions rather than Taylor, because of the better error distribution.
The disassembly was done by Dr. Ian Logan and Dr. Frank O'Hara.
I always though about how cool it would be to translate that ROM into something that could be used on the PC, to emulate the Sinclair, but it would be a lot of work.
Re: Timex/Sinclar
Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2010 8:07 am
by MrAl
MrAl wrote:Hi,
I didnt even see this thread until now (Dec 19th). I liked the Timex quite a bit when it first came out.
The program ROM was all done in assembly, and believe it or not, i have a complete program dump of the entire ROM complete with notes as to what that section of the asc code did for the computer (ie routines all have human descriptions not just address locations). It shows how each part of the code was done and what it does. Basically, everything was done with an interrupt with various parameters pushed onto the stack such as arithmetic arguments and stuff like that. Different operations had different interrupt service routines. Pretty cool really. For example, they used Chebychev polynomials to generate the trig functions rather than Taylor, because of the better error distribution.
The disassembly was done by Dr. Ian Logan and Dr. Frank O'Hara.
I always though about how cool it would be to translate that ROM into something that could be used on the PC, to emulate the Sinclair, but it would be a lot of work.
Re: Timex/Sinclar
Posted: Sun Jan 30, 2011 10:20 am
by dacflyer
mine used to drive me crazy.. it would crash 1/2 way thru program loading.. poor power supply..