2-Bit Software of Del Mar California, has introduced a software four-pack that satirizes the suburban homemaker. Mad Dash tests your ability to race through the house when you haven’t had a break all day, while Carfool demands you figure out how to use the least amount of gas while running errands all over town. Harried Housewife rewards you with a hot bath and nap after a hectic day that includes a dazed search for your car in the parking lot of Shopping Mall.
“We may have a keyboard for the T/S1000,” Pegasus Micro Systems of Chestertown, Maryland, tells us, “that will allow you single stroke or at least you will only have to hit one shift key to get a command. This differs from the current keyboard where you have to hit five keys to get the command you want.” Pegasus comprises a group of programmers who have recently turned to marketing their own products; their winged-horse logo is distinctive. Their product list includes programs written in-house and by outside programmers; it is limited at the moment to a program of lists and an astromap, both of which need the 16K RAM pack. They plan more software and hardware for the proposed T/S2000.
Syntech has brought out a motherboard known as MicroMother which will attach to the T/S1000 through a ribbon cable and will accommodate up to four circuit boards. The company also has developed a series of boards for use with the mother and known as MicroDaughters. They include a PROM programmer, an IBM keyboard driver, modem, and a real time clock.
Orbyte Software of Waterbury, Connecticut, is offering a software package that pits you against the computer in a four-tiered version of the old standard, Tic Tac Toe, a game that prehistoric men must have played on the walls of their caves. Expo Tic-Tac-Toe can be played at four levels of difficulty from beginner to impossible.
In their newsletter of March 1983, the Sinclair Users’ Network of Palatine, Illinois, recommends the E-Z Key 60 keyboard by E-Z Key. Quotable quotes: “Now … we can all benefit from depressable keys without knowing what a good solder joint looks like … The keys feel good and provide excellent tactile and audible feedback … It has been found to be easy to connect, trouble-free, and a great aid in the entry of keywords and data.”
ZX-Panding Ltd., of Newton, N.C., has introduced what it claims is the first complete data storage program with graphing capabilities for the T/S1000/ZX81. Their Data Storage and Display System ($14.75) “allows you to closely monitor stock market, experimental or any numerical data… These values can be stored in up to 25 files in the computer and then recalled as a tabular list or graph accompanied by a data summary.”
E. Arthur Brown Company of Alexandria, Minn, has published the Timex-Sinclair 1983 Directory, a 90 page softcover book that lists, describes and provides photographs of available peripherals and software for the T/S1000/ZX81. The book, which will sell for $5, is subtitled “Where to Find Practically Everything for the Timex-Sinclair Computer.” and includes an up-to-the-minute directory of suppliers.