0044 The ZX Spectrum of North America: The Timex Sinclair 2068 

I have chatted with someone familiar with this machine, and it definitely should color (and a color burst.) There will be a future repair video where I dig into what might be wrong with this machine to get it fully working!

FYI: do not buy the book "The Essential Guide to Timex/Sinclair Home Computers". It's 90% a boring BASIC tutorial and 10% a reprint of the TS1000's manual. Its "special section on the Timex/Sinclair 2000" is vaporware, and sheds absolutely no light on the Americanized version of the ZX Spectrum that was shown at CES but never produced.

My mom worked for Timex in the 1980s at a distribution center in North Little Rock, AR. The facility had a PDP-11 installed that was never used. She and her team opened up the manuals and learned how to get it bootstrapped and load the custom inventory software needed to automate the distribution instead of relying on all paper ledgers. The company remembered this several years later and gave all of her team that still worked there free 2068s. At the time we had an Atari 800 and dad used both a C128 and an XT clone which ran AutoCAD. I remember mom buying a little portable TV and setting up her 2068 at her rolltop desk with the TV perched on the top shelf at roughly eye level. She used that thing into the early 1990s when it went out completely. Dad bought her a 386 DOS laptop from Zenith and she used it but even years later talked about how much she missed her "Timex PC".

The Sinclair ZX80, released in 1980, was a machine of its time. The Sinclair ZX81, released in 1981, was a machine of its time. The Timex Sinclair 2068, released in 1983, was a machine 85 years before its time!

Wow! This is fun. I just got my TS2068 out of its box a few weeks ago! Here's some info for you: 1. The thick white bodge wires are from the factory. Some of the others were added by the former owner. 2. You aren't running the Timex ROM, but the ZX Spectrum ROM. If you have the Timex ROM, you get TWO copyright lines at bootup. I think you're missing the Timex ROM, which would have gone in the other socket of the add-on board. 3. You need the voltage up around 15V for some of the circuits to work. 4. The Russell company made lots of ZX81/TS1000/ZX Spectrum/TS2068 add ons in the 1980s. There would have been a reed switch under that label and a button magnet that you'd slide back and forth to switch between them. 5. I suspect the little add-in board near the edge connector is a video adapter board. Unlike the ZX Spectrum, the TS2068 had RGB signals available on the edge connector (TTL RGB). This could drive a CGA-type monitor. But, the Hsync and Vsync signals are NOT available separately. You have to extract them from the composite video with a small circuit. The technical reference manual that you had up on your phone discusses this and includes the recommended circuit. However, several people sold circuits that worked better for this purpose and used ICs instead of discrete transistors. Another odd omission is the I signal. Although the TS2068 will show 16 colors via composite and RF, there's no way to get the I signal and feed it to an RGBI monitor. So, an RGB monitor will give a much nicer picture but only 8 colors. Incidentally, the interference that you see on the composite signal is normal. The crude switching regulator makes a ton of noise. Many current TS2068 owners replace the power section of their computer with a modern regulator to clean up the composite video. Looking forward to seeing what you do with the TS2068 next! And hang in there. Once you get the knack of the keyboard, you can type code VERY fast.

Actually, they weren't the same hardware. The TS2068 had extra video modes, a real sound chip, joystick ports, a cartridge port that was a separate memory bank. The edge connector was also different. It even had CGA compatible RGB on the edge connector. The 50/60 Hz differences were obvious. Nearly all software used the vertical blank timer for timing. So Sinclair software would run a bit faster on the TS2068. Even when using a genuine 48K Spectrum ROM, it was still only 96% compatible. The bodges and the daughter board are factory. The TS2068 had two ROM chips. One was in the primary memory bank (16K) and one was bank selected in (8K) the EX-ROM bank. The cartridge also was bank selected. The TS2068 had advanced bank selection and the 16/48K ZX Spectrum did not. The ROM switcher board only selected the ROM in the HOME bank. The hissing is normal. You need to burn a TS2068 HOME ROM to use the computer's actual ROM which is an enhanced version (and why Spectrum software is not compatible). This was the first computer I owned. I made expansions and improved the OS using the bank selection logic. Also, the Timex Technical Manual is available for download. Yes, it's color and should have colorburst. The joysticks were proprietary to the Timex. Sinclair joystick assignment is not compatible.

Those bodge wires are factory. The "Upside down" PCB is also factory. The T/S 2068 was really not fully baked when it was released. Timex needed to get the computer out for the Christmas 1983 season so they did what they needed to do to get a working system out to consumers. The "Hissing" noise is from the switching regulator and there is an OP-Amp inside the switching regulator chip that picks up the switching regulator frequency and amplifies it through the speaker. I bought one of these machines (actually pre-ordered it) back in 1983 when I was 15 Years Old. I am very familiar with this system and we even have monthly Zoom meetings. you can see old meetings I believe on the Timex Sinclair Fans RU-vid channel.

The ZX81 and the Spectrum were hugely popular in Australia and New Zealand, too.

I don't know much about the 2068 itself, but that's definitely the original Spectrum ROM you have there. The Timex ROM shows a “© 1983 TImex Computer Corp” message under the Sinclair one. Also, as others have mentioned, the hardware isn't identical. The Timex has some (very interesting) extra graphics modes which are supported in BASIC, but only in its own ROM. Also, the GI sound chip is on different I/O ports to the one in the 128K Spectrums, so any Speccy software that uses it won't work. I believe the joystick ports are also incompatible with any of the Spectrum standards, but don't take that as gospel.

This was my very first computer. The keyboard was horrible, but I have to say, if you did a lot of BASIC programming on until the key combinations became natural - you could actually code faster than someone who had to type every keystroke of every keyword. In a sense, this keyboard is the godfather of autocomplete. LOL

Defaulting to Celsius? Your Canadian is coming out. lol

My first computer was a TS-1000 and I remember a brochure in the box that advertised the 2068, and I wanted one so bad! Well, didn't happen, got an Atari 600XL and was as happy as could be.

Fun fact: The Timex Sinclair 2068 actually had 2 clones: -The Timex Computer 2068, sold in Portugal -The Unipolbrit Komputer 2086, a Polish clone

I think Noel from Noel's retro lab created a diagnosic rom for the spectrum last year, you might be able to download that to test it out further.

I think VR stands for "variable resistor" on the board not voltage regulator so they don't necessarily control supply voltages. :) love your videos BTW, thanks for creating them! :)

The TS2068 has additional graphics modes that the ZX Spectrum does not have. The AY chip is mapped differently from a ZX Spectrum. There is AY support in the BASIC ROM. You probably want the TS2086 ROM as well.

Oh I really enjoyed digging into this computer a few years back. First, you are probably not getting color because you are only using 9V. The video section of the computer need +12V and that is generated by a linear regulator off the +15V input, so you are severally under powering that section of the circuit. This computer was supposedly desperately rushed out to the market and the PCB design really shows. The little PCB you saw at the top of the computer as well as the flying wires are all how it was shipped. The noise you are hearing is because the switching regulator runs at audio frequency (the inductor likes to ring at the switching frequency) AND the speaker is driven from the op-amp on the switching regulator itself! The ULA (SCLD) has a bug when they ported from PAL to NTSC and the color reference is incorrect, resulting in wrong color. The video output is noisy and the expansion port is not pin compatible with the Spectrum, the sound chip is mapped differently from the Spectrum (to be fair, this computer implemented this before the Spectrum) and the joystick does not follow any of the regular Spectrum standard. It was really fun converting mine into a machine with switchable rom, improved power supply, S-video output, fixing the color, re-mapping the sound chip and joystick when in spectrum rom mode to be Spectrum compatible. Drop me a note if you want any of the technical details.

There is an european version, the Timex Computer 2068. Some may call it a clone but in fact it is the same computer, designed by Timex Portugal with some hardware differences. It uses the same ULA and ROM, the big differences were the rear edge connector which is ZX Spectrum compatible (the TS2068's edge connector is ZX81/TS1000 compatible, and can be made ZX Spectrum compatible with a Twister board), the cartridge port can receive thicker cartridges, and it uses 9V DC center-negative power supply like the ZX Spectrum (in fact, the PSUs are compatible). Also the TC2068 was sold with a ZX Spectrum compatibility cartridge (Emulator Cartridge), which basically when inserted disables the internal ROM and replaces it with a ZX Spectrum ROM, increasing substantially the compatibility with most ZX Spectrum software. The TC2068 was made like this to be compatible with lots of peripherals and software already existing in Europe, that don't exist in the US since the ZX Spectrum was never released there. Timex Portugal also launched the TC2048, a ZX Spectrum 48k compatible, that uses same ULA of TS/TC2068 but it's more compatible with the ZX Spectrum than the TC2068 with the Emulator Cartridge. It has a slightly modified Spectrum ROM and it retains the hi res modes of the TS/TC2068, and a Kempston compatible joystick port. Usually the compatibility problems arise when software expects a true Spectrum ROM and with the audio generation (no sound in some games). The TC2048 is unrelated with the canceled TS2048 Timex US project. The Unipolbrit Komputer 2086 was a modification of the TC2068 manufactured on Poland under license of Timex Portugal. For almost all purposes it is a TC2068, with some hardware changes. The ROMs were slightly modified and one of the joystick ports was replaced by a Centronics port. More information about Timex computers, clones (TS1000 compatible) and peripherals is available on this site: timex.comboios.info/PT/home.html

So cool to see this on the channel, and that it sort of works! Those are definitely joystick ports on each side, but I haven’t the faintest idea of what joystick protocol they talk for the software. I wonder what happened to the other ROM? I definitely remember using that machine in ZX Spectrum mode a few times, but it was very wonky. My brother was somehow a Sinclair authorized dealer in the US for a while in the early 1980s. I remember he had a Sinclair QL, which alas was stolen from his house in the 1990s. Now that I know this uses a 9V center negative power supply, I’ll have to dig out my TS2068 (I have an unmodified one we got when they were being blown out for real cheap back in the day) and see if it works.

Adrian, could that white post with the brass nut on it be the "guts" of the color trim capacitor?

ZX Spectrums were immensely popular in the rest of Europe too, especially in Greece and Spain. Also plenty of clones behind the iron curtain too.

Well, it does say “Personal Color Computer” on the front of the case, at the lower left. 😊

It's so nice to know the history of ownership and that that was the first machine someone used, everyone's first machine is like a first love. I think it's great that you're preserving computing history, both the hardware and the knowledge.

I love these retro computer videos. Had a C64 back in the day... but did pick up a Timex Sinclair 1000 at Kmart... on clearance... for 50 whole cents! Really!

As far as I remember, TS2068 had a ZX Spectrum "emulation" cartridge, which supposedly was supplied with the computer (at least its Polish version - Unipolbrit 2086 was). There was also TC2048, which was much more ZX Spectrum compatible.

I remember seeing a ZedX for sale new in the store, and I waited for my turn with the display model. I had the cash in my pocket to buy it, but after 10 minutes with that keyboard I bought a Vic 20 instead.

Hi Adrian, the only ZX Speccy I have is the Soviet/Ukraine Made Robik computer. I have the original box, Diagrams in Russian, and I have opened it up totally amazing insides. Maybe you will tackle one of these if you ever get one. John :-)

That form factor reminds me of two computers launched in Brazil in the '80s, the CP200 (compatible with the ZX81) and the CP400 (compatible with the CoCO 2).

I'm amazed that after 3 decades, there is NO polarity standard for barrel connectors!

@Adrian: RU-vid has the extremely bad habit of making lengthy comments, or comments with reference url supplied, disappear. Check below my comments from my another account (N NAP), with hopefully answering most of your questions. After watching your video: A)The video out is NTSC in color. B) VR1, VR2, VR3 on board are for color adjustment. C) Check the link to the Tech Manual of TS2068. Schematic is on P.299 D) Bus comparison diagrams between TS2068, Spectrum, ZX81 are on P.295 E) The ROM you got is the Spectrum ROM, judging by the Copyright message. F) TS2068 provides besides Sinclair Research Copyright message on opening screen, also provides Timex Copy Right message. G) The two joystick ports are controlled by the General Instruments chip, and unfortunately not Kempston compatible. H) The ROM carrier board accommodates two ROMS, switchable by a REED switch controlled by a magnet on top of the machine. I) Cartridge port schematic on page 113 of the Tech Man. J) P289 has the board layout. K) The small circuit board to the North of the board is a kludge by Timex, correcting an error, and continued till the end of production.

@Adrian: The TS2068 , the American version of Spectrum, had The General Instruments Sound Chip AY-3-8912. The Spectrum ROM could be put on a small card in the cartridge slot, and then the machine ran as Spectrum. The buses between Spectrum and TS2068 were different. It needed an adapter, named a Twister (I was the designer) which enabled one to run Spectrum hardware like micro drives, etc. With the twister one could run 3” floppy system (designed by Timex Portugal) as well as other British floppy systems on the TS2068. The Portuguese made 3” floppy system ran both CPM, as well as rudimentary Timex DOS. The Portuguese made Timex 2068 was nicer., with same GI sound chip. It looked exactly like TS2068, had the Motorola MC1377 providing RGB signals on the output bus. Here is the schematic for TC2068: timex.comboios.info/Timex/tc2068squematic.jpg The Spectrum emulator supplied by Timex Portugal was on a cartridge, and made the machine fully Spectrum compatible. That same cartridge, with a very minor circuit modification (which I made, and was marketed by Zebra Systems) made a good Spectrum emulator on the TIMEX TS2068, using a bank-switching command. There were also Brazilian made Spectrum ripoff called TK90X (Sir Clive sued the Brazilians, but lost). It is a good machine with RGB out. I have both TC2068, and TK90x. There were also Soviet knockoffs, Polish knockoffs and I think Czech copies. The Soviet machine is on the RU-vid. To facilitate troubleshooting here is a link to the Technical Manual for TS2068. The schematic is at the end of the manual: ia801307.us.archive.org/8/items/TimexSinclair2068Manuals/TimexSinclair2068_TechnicalManual.pdf. Have fun 😁. I also had prepared a comparative ROM Atlas, comparing Spectrum and TS2068 routines and usage. The Atlas was published in two user monthly newsletters at the time (August 1986). Now I will watch the video, and if need be will comment later.

I am very interested in seeing more on this. I had a Z81. I had a tape player and RAM expansion pack. Was one of the very first computers I owned. I got it at a garage sale. I learn to program on it. Though it was hard to use. It made programming everything else seem easy after that. I never had the printer. Never even seen one ever other than in pictures. I thank had it before my Texas Instruments 99/4a home computer I keep on thinking was my first. I wanted a Timex Sinclair 2068. I never could find one I could afford at the time.

Spectrums were popular in the UK because at the time, most people were POOR. A new 48k spectrum could be bought for £180 whereas the 64 retailed at £299. This is also the reason C64 disk drives never really took off here.

This was my first computer, so many memories, I was going to hack the world with that machine what set me in my actual career as a programmer, I remember clearly the hissing but never knew what did produced It. So sorry the machine didn't came with the manual, BEST MANUAL EVER!!!

The Spectrum in was later upgraded to 128K from 1985 with a brand new ZX BASIC which did away with the annoying command key typing system and had more commands the utilised the AY-3-8912 sound chip the 128K Spectrums were using. After Sinclair's computer division was sold to Amstrad in 1985 the Amstrad designed Spectrum +2/+2A/+2B resembled Amstrad's CPC464 which had a built in cassette datacorder when the Spectrum +3 was released in 1987 it used Hitachi CF2 3" disks which the Amstrad PCW, CPC664 & 6128 were also using the Spectrum had another BASIC update called +3 BASIC which utilised CP/M

The parts falling out was for the voltage regulator, check if the other brass nut is shorting something under the pcb. hissing noise???

Great video. I'm hoping you get round to bringing the Timex back to its full glory soon, as it's an unusual machine. Obviously, here in the UK, we didn't get these, but I can't understand why Timex messed around with the hardware and ROMs, making it largely incompatible with Speccy software and hardware add-ons. The major attraction of the Speccy were it's low price and huge software library. Timex should have stuck to making watches. 😁

I'm guessing the reason it failed in the US was that it was too late to compete with the C64. The Sinclair was little cheaper than the C64 in the US, but by late 1983 when the Sinclair was released there would've been a pretty big library of software available for the C64, compared to a pretty thin list of release titles for the Sinclair. Plus the quality of the software would've been much better on the C64, since the hardware was a lot more capable in graphics, sound and CPU power.

I'm from buenos aires, i had it in the early 1990s, i remember attaching it to the antenna input of the Philips Trendset tv at home and struggle with v-scroll lock despite being a colour tv made in the 1980s. What i still would like to know if Trendset TV's from Philips were created by Philips of the Netherlands or they were conceived in Brazil for South America..

🤔😉😀😀👍👍👌👌👍👍 WoW! I wouldn't mind to have this computer in my small collection! It will for sure enrich my small channnel... Interesting to see this "American ZX Spectrum"! In my country Timex computer were always treated as being superior than British versions. Why... Difficult to say... Perhaps they had some small things which were better like video composite signal socket. And all those small things were creating such a better image.

I had a Timex Sinclair 1500 at one time (dad found it at a "resale shop" many years ago). The case looked more like a silver-and-beige ZX Spectrum, although I understand it was more of an upscaled TS 1000. Even had a matching thermal printer with it. It went missing years ago, I suspect I lost it in a house fire, along with my 3 TS100 machines and their accessories. Never actually *used* any of them, they were just in the machines I was collecting at the time.

From memory as an old Spectrum owner. The three pots you pointed out are to adjust video timing, early Spectrums needed tweaking to get a good stable colour picture. Worth trying to sort out your colour problems. The ROM probably contains both Sinclair and Timex code. The lifted pin and bodge wire are acting as a bank switch for the lowest 16K of memory.

You don't have to press space after the line number. 😉

UK ZX Spectrum's were also manufactured by Timex at their factory in Dundee, Scotland. 5.5 million units were sold across all versions of the system. My first computer was a ZX81.

En Argentina toda la línea Sinclair fue muy famosa junto a los Commodore 64, Tuve una TS2068 y era espectacular aunque cargar programas desde la casetera era un dolor de cabeza.

I wonder if the cutout on the base under the keyboard connector was done so that an external keyboard could be bodged in.

It’s only confusing because it’s new to you. Once you understand the layout you can really fly. I also thought there should be a Timex copyright message if your running off a Timex rom.

I still have my dad's Timex Sinclair 1000, which is pretty old at this point. I'm pretty sure it doesn't work and I'm afraid to even try 🤣. It even has a RAM expander.

Those 2068 can work with 9v or some units with 15 volts, the last one is what i had..

If that hole in the back is near the keyboard connector, it may be he had an external keyboard at some point. That was quite common over here with the ‘81 and Speccy, where people had ribbon cables out to a more robust keyboard 👍

I'm pretty sure i wasn't alone back in the day passing on any Timex computer because of the horrible keyboard. As you demonstrated. still fairly interesting though.

There were game cartridges for the ZX Spectrum but you needed the optional "Interface 2" expansion which added the cartridge slot and joystick ports. They never really took off as the cartridges were more expensive to produce than cassette tapes and the Interface 2 was not that common as there were other cheaper joystick interfaces like the Kemptston. Even in the later versions of the Spectrum that included joystick ports as standard the external Kempston interface was more common for game support as it was well established.

No, it wasn't possible to simply use a 64K RAM chip and just use 48K of it. The reason is the way the bus sharing works between the ULA and the Z80 in the spectrum architecture. The ULA only has access to the lowest 16KB of RAM and if the Z80 tries to access that, when the ULA needs to fetch data, the ULA gets priority and the Z80 skips a cycle. This would create a terribly slow computer if this would be the case for all of the RAM. Therefore, if the Z80 accesses the upper 32K of the RAM, the bus is split in two, and the ULA and Z80 each have their own set of RAM chips that they can communicate to in parallel. Therefore a Spectrum always needs two separate RAM banks.

The bodge wires look factory as does the daughter board thingy.

Fascinating! I'd not heard of the 2068 before. Do you know how much it cost when initially launched in the US? And why is it called 2068? I'll check out that replacement parts source you mentioned, I have loads of Spectrums I want to repair. One unit though, which works ok and has a composite mod, has a different kind of keyboard mounted on top; looks rather klunky but makes typing a bit easier.

The 2068 has a brown in its colour palette along with a black whereas the ZX Speccy had 2 blacks so there can be problems translating the correct colours in ZX Spectrum games when installing the ZX Spectrum ROM into the 2068. A nice looking machine we never got in the UK.

That was my second computer after the TS1000 (US ZX81) and was better than the speccy of the time by a lot. Hm its running the speccy rom instead of the timex one. That means compatibility, but none of the more advanced features of the 2068 will be working. Composite is color. Atari standard joysticks (IIRC), Clock is a bit faster, but blanking time shorter, so about a wash in speed. Also has AY sound and extended color modes. To see all that stuff working ,you need to take out that added rom board. Should boot with two lines of text - sinclair and timex

the 'half duff' 64k chips werent just used by sinclair, they were officially sold by the manufacturers under unique type numbers and had 4 'variations' of the duff bank, either duff row or duff column, and each of those either high or low bit duff , one manufacturer sold duff row ones, the other duff column ones,

if the TS2068 says only (c) 1982 Sinclair Research, the eprom was from the original spectrum. The TS2868 original rom welcome screen says "(c) 1928 Sinclair...." AND "(c) 1983 Timex...." Your TS-2068 are missing the original Timex's eprom!

Is that a zx spectrum rom or a ts 2068 rom? I am sure TS stuff booted with a different start up line of text. I have a 2068 boxed. Yeah, see the 8 bit guy... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fTKckoSj-OE.html

Hi. It should be colored. Try to rotate slightly VR2 and VR3 variative resistors. And could you check with oscilloscope RGB output signals? On my Timex I see signal only in the Green channel and I suspect my ULA is partially brocken (Composite out works fine and it's colored). Allow me please to send you photos via Twitter :)

Can't wait for the next part. Are you sure it's not just the Retro Tank making the signal monochrome?

Hissing or buzzing TV is normal on ZX Spectrum, as the sound was coming from the speaker in computer. Sound on TV must be muted or set to zero. Also, "baseline" ZX Spectrum 48K (including "plus" version) is the main and most massively produced-16K version was soon dropped in favor of 48K, and those with bad RAM chips are also early "issued" mainboards, (Sinclair used the word "issue" instead of "version" "v."or "ver." for motherboard revision). It was hugely popular in Europe, and when past its prime there (late 80's, early 90's) it became popular in former Eastern Europe, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. It got new DOS and was reverse-engineered to the point that ULA chip was "de-constructed" into discrete components and built in that form!

The lack of success may have been timing (TImex pun intended). Coming out in the middle of a price war and the collapse of the home computer plugging in your TV market in the US? Hard to find? No software (Games, productivity, etc)?

No, they could not use 64k chips for memory in ZX Spectrum. The bottom 16k of memory is used by the ULA for video generation and ULA turns off the CPU clock in case of contention. The upper 32k can be accessed independently, but only because it is in separate chips.

Wonderful video thank you. Very interesting. As a British (actually Manx) citizen, I am overjoyed to hear you say Zed-Ex Spectrum, rather than Zee. My favourite Sinclair game is Elite, have you played it on the Spectrum?

Interesting. So the "68" part of the name likely refers to the 68-pin Timex chip. I guess a quad pack was still something worth bragging about back in 1983.

What a good memory... This was my first computer! I recall playing in commando with a friend of mine for a whole afternoon and in the end by accident he pushed the on/off switch on the side of the machine... Damn, what a great test to the resistance of that machine this was... 😅😅👀

interesting trivia re: Z80. in the 80s, spectrum programmers would often code on the BBC computer and then port the code back because the speccy couldn't run code in protected mode, so if the program crashed while you were testing it, you would have lost the lot (saving to tape was time consuming too). well, now 50 years after the Z80 was created, someone found a semi-protected mode on the CHIP !!! unbelievable. youtube z80 protected mode, fascinating!!! and you can imagine what the programmers would have given to know about this in the 80s :)

I have one of these. As a Commodore guy used to just typing the commands, I agree the the keyboard is murder. Mine makes the hissing noise as well, seems to come from the square shaped inductor. I encased mine in clear silicone sealant and that made it quieter, but not totally silent. I'd be curious to know if there is a modern substitute component. The power supply mine came with indicates it outputs 15 volts, I believe it is factory original. My screen says on two separate lines "1982 Sinclair Research Ltd' and "1983 Timex Computer Corp" so I wonder a little bit about the rom you have. I see on ebay a cartridge for the ZX Spectrum rom, may experiment with that at some point. Mine does output color. For quick test, press shift-b and then pick a number - this will change the border color.

My dad had a TS 2068. I had the TS 1500 that looks like a black-and-silver ZX Spectrum case but it's mostly a ZX81 inside, and the thermal printer. (all on clearance after Timex gave up) I never tried to play games on the TS 1500 - it would not have been able to compete with our Atari or the Apple II I played Ultima on at school. Looks like that plastic post and brass nut, along with the thermal pad that fell out of the case early on, may have been for heat sinking the voltage regulator on the far left side of the motherboard.

that is not using the original timex sinclair rom... but the sinclair (zx spectrum) one...(I know this because there is no timex at boot) I made an pcb to replace the original rom ... using the cartridge for the sinclair rom. I will even put 128k on my timex in the future.. hahah could be the color wrong because of that rom? I wonder... I have the portuguese version timex computer 2068 ... that was produced for portugal and poland I think.

Seems more like a clone of the Spectrum 128 (joystick ports, AY sound chip) than of the original spectrum.

The bus at the back is not fully compatible with ZX spectrum addons. So be careful of that. Input should be centre neg 15v. It may need 12v to produce colour. 9v may not be enough.

The 'bodge' wires are original. They are part of an attempt to eliminate interference caused by power supply ripple and feedthrough from digital to analog signals inside the ULA. It doesn't work very well. I replaced the switching power supply with a small dc/dc module, removed the video ground bodge and soldered thick copper wires between the ULA ground, composite output, and rf modulator. It's better now, but not perfect. Investigations continue...

You could get ROm games for the Spectrum, just needed the expansion with rom and joystick ports. I Dont however, remember anyone in school ever having rom games.

I had a Timex 2048, it was smaller ( no card port ) , it also had 2 joystick ports and it had RF for ntsc or pal. I remember that it had on the manual a code that open some eprom that was able to be write from the basic, but I do not remember any eprom on the main board. It use a 9V - 1 Amp power brick. From what I remember did not had any "extra" boards on the main board. I had to repair my when it blow up a cap. It was a strong (like a tank) machine, besides the cap nothing more got damage. Good video, 😉

I don't know if you have had the answer yet, but from what I remember from the ZX 48K the joystick ports were 9 pin D-shaped port like the old pc mice.

You should test some of the homebrew for the spectrum. There's a lot from Eastern countries and another lot from Europe. I clocked the game I developed to the IM2 interrupt, but some games just lock to the CPU speed.

I mean... It says, "personal color computer" on what looks like the original chassis. How could it not output color? Did monochrome versions have that sticker/metal keyboard cutout thing too?

I disagree. On a cold day, you cannot beat either chicken noodle soup (AKA Jewish penicillin), or tomato soup. And if your chosen comfort soup is tomato, then you need a nice grilled cheese sandwich. Sure, there are a lot of good comfort soups. But these are mine. And i stand by them!

I was hoping you'd open that seemingly separate bottom panel, perhaps figure why there's a hole. I'm thinking ventilation???

I bought one of these with my allowance money when I was 13. I wish I could go back 39 years and convince my 13 year old self to not go poking around inside it with a multimeter while it was on. I touched something I shouldn't have and ruined it. Been trying to find one on ebay lately but not having much luck.

7.40 it'a "Sinclair ZX Spectrum" not a "Timex ZX Spectrum"

The cassette connection on many of these old machines were mono audio cables to whatever old mono cassette recorder you had around, as long as it wasn't complete garbage. Nothing brand specific like the Commodore Datasette. The user would be instructed to press play or record at the right time. Some fancier machines had a smaller 2.5mm jack for controlling the pause function via the input normally connected to a button on the microphone. Of cause these days it would connect to some other audio storage as modern cassette drives use the same awful cheap mechanism with very few quality options such as a slightly heavier flywheel.

I had one of these new in box about 15 years ago. It was an interesting curiosity, but its compatibility with ZX software was quite poor, and cartridges were like unicorn poo, quite unobtainium. I ended up selling it onto someone who was more excited about it than I was.

Off-topic: I can recommend you Zayaz's remix of Resonance from Home, seeing it on the tablet there.

I have one of those and they output colour signal for sure. The main difference is that mine runs on 12V... Maybe that's what it needs?

I still have a Timex Sinclair 1000 kicking around somewhere.

I think I saw a video on zx spectrum diagnostic rom at noel retro lab channel.. maybe..

I know someone who has a PAL 2068 as they were sold in Portugal. They also have the rare Spectrum BIOS cartridge for it, so you could natively run Spectrum software on it

A neighborhood friend had one of these and I was jealous because I only had the TS1000.

The hole in the back: I bet it was an attempt at making an external keyboard, or even just tapping in to one or two special keys for some external functionality.

The TS has an indepedent BREAK key which the Spectrum has not.

I have one that my Parents bought for me brand new in 84 I think. I never opened it but if you would like I can open it and take some pics of any thing you need, if it helps.

I seen the power supply. It a DVE power supply. Model No. DV-141A. Input: 120V AC 60Hz 26W. Output: 15V DC 1A

Maybe it's just my nostalgia talking, but I think the ZX Spectrum is a design classic; that Timex version just looks so ugly in comparison. I find it strange that Sinclair partnered with another company for the U.S. market, and even stranger that the design was modified so radically. Did Timex or Sinclair fear that the original Spectrum was too lame compared to the American competition and needed to spice it up? Regarding programming, I got so used to using the keyword entry method that typing in programs on other computers just felt so slow in comparison. :) Of course, this all changed when Sinclair introduced the 128K Spectrum, but I always wished they had used some kind of auto-complete method of keyword entry for speeding-up typing of programs...

nice, i picked one of these up posted from the usa (i'm in the uk) in the mid 2000s , very uncommon to find them here, not surprisingly,

I had a TC2068, european version (portugal), and I couldn't run any zx spectrum game on it, except with a zx spectrum emulator cartridge.. not sure if it is the same in the US version..

retro man cave did a video on that model and he did do a rom swap as well. I do have a timex sinclar 1500 the one in a zx spectrum case along with a few 1000's