Help Needed With Sinclair 1000 - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

3 Nov 1998

...
 > I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Solid?
Translucent? Seems to me from 
> the few Timex models I've seen in action, the video is not so hot. Can be
> tempermental depending what TV it is hooked to. Bad sync (not rock 
> stable), noisy and rather unsharp. Cheap design and manufacture all 
> around. At least it translated to a cheap price.
>  
...
  Well, there's a gray background, with black
lettering.  The  bar(s) are
 solid black, and are about 2" wide, and scroll from the top to the bottom. 
 It does this on every TV I connect it to. 
The Background should be white - I guess you just have to change
brightness and the Bar will also change translucent - almost
invisible. The bar is common to all ZX81 and Timex and an is
artefact of the generation routine.

Maybe the output voltage of the video circuit don't reach
a sufficient height. As far as I remember there is an
adjustable resistor for that, so you don't have to change
all TV sets.

...
 > Bingo. Save your own programs or use commercial
ones. There are a few 
> programs of the "home accounting" ilk released by Timex Sinclair as 
> cassettes. 
...
  Hmm.. Cheap design shows through here, too.
There's not even a connector to
 hook up the "motor remote" on the cassette.  You have to turn it on and off
 yourself (or have a VSR tape deck).  All in all, even though bigger, the
 CoCo is about 2k times better (bigger IS better...). 
Hey, what you want - the ZX81 was just 300 Mark at introduction !
Every other computer just trippled this price (or 10 times, like
an Apple //e). And speaking of the Apple: no motor control !

And for the keyboard: there have been plenty of kits, and it
should be possible just to assemble some switches as a keyboard.
Try a web search.

Gruss
Hans

--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK