Timex Sinclair 2068

[hex65000]

So today I'm cleaning out the basement and I stumble across the Timex Sinclair 2068's that we had when I was younger along with some tapes and two 'productivity' cartridges. (State's and Capitals and the finance cart). Now I'd like to get these resurrected and if I'm lucky the tapes still work (but I doubt it). I also need a power brick, since the original has wandered off.

 

As a side note I had located the 2068 box ages ago and thought I had either given the machines away or they got thrown away.

While not a total victory since they lack a power supply, I'm calling it a win.

 

I'd like to get some software for these to play with it again, any good resources out there? I know the 2068 pretty much bombed in the US.

 

Hex.

[ Also has a ZX81 (sinclair 1000) with a kludged on full keyboard that his dad rigged up way back when... ]

[The_Laird]

I know somebody else with one of these in America who I can speak to, he is no longer a member here.

 

Otherwise I suggest signing up at World Of Spectrum and ask the good folks there, I have seen talk about the 2068 many times.

[Jess Ragan]

What you've got there is essentially a souped-up Spectrum. You can run hundreds and hundreds of games for the 48K Spectrum on that machine, if you can find the Spectrum ROM cartridge. Without it, the compatibility rate drops from ninety-seven percent to seven percent.

 

I covered the Spectrum in detail on 1UP.com over the summer and it's an interesting machine... not even close to as impressive as many of the home computers we had in the United States, but extremely popular in the United Kingdom thanks to its budget price. Deep isometric adventures are common on the Spectrum, so if you like Solstice on the NES or Landstalker on the Genesis, this will be heaven for you. (If heaven had color clash. Ahem.)

Edited September 6, 2010 by Jess Ragan

[icbrkr]

Yahoo has a 2068 User's Group, and on that group is a few directories full of games, apps, and whatnot. I used an .TAP->.WAV application and an iPod to load the stuff onto my 2068.

 

I've still yet to find that emulator cart... Been looking but nothing.

[kool kitty89]

What you've got there is essentially a souped-up Spectrum. You can run hundreds and hundreds of games for the 48K Spectrum on that machine, if you can find the Spectrum ROM cartridge. Without it, the compatibility rate drops from ninety-seven percent to seven percent.

 

I covered the Spectrum in detail on 1UP.com over the summer and it's an interesting machine... not even close to as impressive as many of the home computers we had in the United States, but extremely popular in the United Kingdom thanks to its budget price. Deep isometric adventures are common on the Spectrum, so if you like Solstice on the NES or Landstalker on the Genesis, this will be heaven for you. (If heaven had color clash. Ahem.)

Any idea why Timex modified it to have such compatibility problems? Was it an oversight or an intentional form of lockout. (if it was an oversight, it's odd that the Spectrum ROM cart wasn't an official accessory) And also a bit odd that Sinclair didn't use the same I/O mapping for the AY-3-8910 as the 2068 did 2 years earlier.

 

Oh, and color clash isn't a problem if they simply opted for monochrome. (which sometimes looks better)

Then there's some late games that used some of the "high color" modes. (ie smaller attribute cells, including 1x8 rather than 8x8 -so any 2 colors per row of 8 pixels, much less artifacting, I think the Ninja Turtles game used that)

[Jess Ragan]

Here's the scoop from Wikipedia:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_2068

 

If I were to hazard a guess, the Spectrum was a severely stripped down machine, with practically no I/O ports other than the proprietary expansion port on the back. American home computers were more sophisticated, and the 2068 was improved to be a more worthy competitor to the Commodore 64, TI 99/4A, and the Atari XE/XL series. Here are some of the improvements made according to Wiki:

 

* an AY-3-8912 sound chip, as later used by Sinclair in the ZX Spectrum+ 128K (but mapped to different I/O ports and thus incompatible)

* twin joystick ports

* a slightly better "chiclet keyboard" with plastic keycaps

* a cartridge port to the right of the keyboard for ROM-based software

* an improved ULA offering additional screen modes:

o The standard Sinclair 256×192 mode with a colour resolution of 32×24

o An "extended colour mode", 256×192 pixels with colour resolution of 32×192

o A monochrome 512×192 mode

 

The system was released in late 1983 and I suspect that Timex didn't realize the machine would be so successful in its native Britain. The company likely thought that improving the badly deficient hardware took precedence over core compatibility. It didn't really matter, though, because Commodore's too-low-to-be-legal prices resulted in a home computer clusterfuck that drove many of its competitors into extinction. The 2068 was one of those casualties... Wiki says that the computer wasn't discontinued until 1989, but I'm pretty sure it was taken off American shelves much sooner than that.

 

The 2068 was popular in Portugal, though, probably because of that Spectrum ROM cartridge that greatly expanded its software library.

[kool kitty89]

Here's the scoop from Wikipedia:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_2068

 

If I were to hazard a guess, the Spectrum was a severely stripped down machine, with practically no I/O ports other than the proprietary expansion port on the back. American home computers were more sophisticated, and the 2068 was improved to be a more worthy competitor to the Commodore 64, TI 99/4A, and the Atari XE/XL series. Here are some of the improvements made according to Wiki:

Yeah, the 48k (and Plus I think) needed a peripheral adapter for the expansion port for joysticks, cartridges, and such. (there was the built-in tape interface of course, which was the primary form of media used.

 

The system was released in late 1983 and I suspect that Timex didn't realize the machine would be so successful in its native Britain. The company likely thought that improving the badly deficient hardware took precedence over core compatibility. It didn't really matter, though, because Commodore's too-low-to-be-legal prices resulted in a home computer clusterfuck that drove many of its competitors into extinction. The 2068 was one of those casualties... Wiki says that the computer wasn't discontinued until 1989, but I'm pretty sure it was taken off American shelves much sooner than that.

Yeah, this came up in a recent discussion on Sega-16: an argument over whether the Speccy could have found a niche in the US market at the time by being even cheaper than the C64 without dumping the price. (though the speculation hinges heavily on software support from Europe as well)

Given that there already were price competitive (or cheaper) machines on the US market that didn't fold after the 1983 price war it sort of seems unliky that the Speccy would have carved a niche where they somehow missed out.(Atari 8-bit, CoCo, maybe some of the lower-end Apple II clones -the hardware should have been cheap enough, the factor would have been availability on the market at razor thin profit margins and minimalistic case/keyboard/packaging, though the fact the Apple II's software was heavily disk based wouldn't fit well)

Well, perhaps the European software support would have helped.

 

Then there's the whole issue of the Atari 8-bits totally missing out on the European market at the critical time. (apparently marketing wasn't particularly good -the XL machines were also delayed of course- and critically, documentation for 3rd party European software houses seems to have been poor as well; a lack of emphasis on tape based software was one of the marketing issues)

 

Or maybe if the Spectrum had been brought over in '82 it might have mattered more, who knows? (maybe it would have gotten interest like the Timex 1000 did for a brief time due to the low price, but persist longer due to being more useful -granted you had the VIC-20 being dumped too, though the onboard RAM of the speccy and the bitmap graphics were significant vs the character only VIC with only 5k unexpanded) Then again, CBM had the potential to bring out the MAX as an even lower-end solution too.

 

 

Heh... yeah, anyway the 2068 is a bit of an odd one, but it's interesting.

Edited September 9, 2010 by kool kitty89