>> 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
Received on Tue Nov 03 1998 - 10:24:51 GMT