Thomas B. Woods – Timex/Sinclair Computers

Tom was an early adopter of the Sinclair computers and became an enthusiastic user and supporter, writing programs that were meant to entertain, be useful and teach people how to program.

He wrote a database program for the ZX81/TS 1000 called Pro/File, which he later adapted to the TS 2068 and was involved in publishing SyncWare News, among other accomplishments.

In his later years, Tom was still active in using electronics and microcomputers to expand human capacity.

Tom passed away August 29, 2024.

Articles (99)

Title	Author(s)	Publication	Date
“DO Files” Revisited Perhaps the most powerful, but also the most under-used and misunderstood function in the Pro/File program is the “DO File”.		Pro/File Updates	April 1985
“DO” The Menu Approach There is nothing to prevent a “DO FILE” from branching to a menu of options. Leonard G. Holmes, a clinical...		Pro/File Updates	April 1985
2068 Buggy Software It isn’t considered normal when а magazine like SyncWare gives you а program that’s riddled with bugs. But then, we...		SyncWare News	Mar-Apr 1986
32K Non-Volatile Memory Updates Here is a simple modification you can make to the NVM which enables you to remove an old battery and...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Summer 1986
A Forum on Hardware Suppliers? How ’bout some comments on Timex hardware suppliers? There are lots of ads in SYNC and elsewhere, but who is...		Pro/File Updates	April 1984
A Hearty Welcome! Welcome to Pro/file Updates! Charter subscribers are members of a very exclusive group, indeed: 123 people world-wide. Keep the faith,...		Pro/File Updates	January 1984
A Message from Thomas B. Woods Dear Fellow Timex Computer Owner, The bad news that Timex has dropped out of the personal computer market comes to...		T-S Horizons	April/May 1984
A Mystery Arises Some people report bugs in ZX PRO/FILE such as report-4 (out of memory) errors, report-5 (not enough room on screen)...		Pro/File Updates	January 1984
A Splendid Idea! Our old friend Irving Helbling wrote, “although I spent my entire adult life writing lengthy reports, I find that words...		Pro/File Updates	January 1985
A&J Micro Drive Replaces the CAI Stringy Floppy The A&J Micro Drive is the “new and improved” version of the old CAI ESF stringy floppy, a very high...		Pro/File Updates	January 1985
Accelerated Saving with ZXLR-8 ZXLR-8 is a program that speeds loading and saving time with the ZX/TS. You can use it with Pro/File to...		Pro/File Updates	October 1984
Additional Selections from the Display Options Menu Add these lines to Pro/File to eliminate many tedious unnecessary key presses. They incorporate into “ZX” much of the flexibility...		Pro/File Updates	July 1984
Additions to Linear Search Expansions to Linear Search routine by Tom Woods.		ISTUG Newsletter	December 1988 - January 1989
After the Fall… Bill Jones of Panama City, FL sent an interesting note. He says, “UPDATES has the potential of being a National...		Pro/File Updates	July 1984
And in This Corner Tom Woods, the venerable publisher of SyncWare News, will be stepping down from that post іп the near future. An...		SyncWare News	September/October 1987
And Speaking of Water…. Peter G. Govus reports that his West Paterson, NJ home was flooded by 4 feet of water not long ago....		Pro/File Updates	July 1984
And the Winner Is… SET LISTS! We have a little country western band and we play for dances in our local Austin Texas area....		Pro/File Updates	October 1984
Another Way To Save Data In Pro/File 2068 When you’re running Pro/File 2068 and you type “SAVE” from the main menu, program line 107 is executed which performs...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Winter 1986
Autosearch Won’t Work Several readers have written of problems when trying to make an ordered search. In order to utilize this function in...		Pro/File Updates	April 1984
Big Advance In Programming The 32K NVM Here’s some good news for 32K Non-Volatile Memory owners. Now there is a way to store your Basic programs in...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Spring 1986
Block Delete “DO File” Purges Unwanted Data This function allows you to clear out files that you no longer want. If you use Pro/File to catalog your...		Pro/File Updates	April 1985
Bugs, News, and Miscellanea Pro/File 2068 owners take note! A few frustrated folks who added the new Machine Code Sort capability from the BREAKTHROUGH...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Winter 1986
Build A Computerized Anemometer Using The Experimenter’s I/O Port This project is the first in a series of articles which will chronicle my ongoing experiments in the development of...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Winter 1986
Byte-Back P-2 Printer Software Mods Add or alter these lines of ZX PRO/FILE to make it work with Byte-Back’s P-2 serial print< er driver. P-2...		Pro/File Updates	April 1984
Compusa Disk Implementation of Pro/File Available Anthony John Oresteen is offering an upgraded version of Pro/File which works on the Compusa disk drives. In addition to...		Pro/File Updates	April 1985
Computer Weather Station: Part 2 Tell Which Way The Wind Blows In the last issue’s “anemometer” article, I showed how to build a simple but effective (and cheap) device to tell...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Spring 1986
Editing the Asterisk When I initiate a search for “*”, I find I am unable to EDIT the first file called up. This...		Pro/File Updates	July 1984
Editorial In case you hadn’t noticed, a few changes have occured with SWN in the last couple of months. The appearance...		SyncWare News	Sept-Oct 1984
Expanded 2068 Input Prompts One day, as I was rummaging through the TS2068 ROM, I discovered that there was more to the INPUT command...		SyncWare News	Jul-Aug 1985
Field Labels Anyone? Myles Cohen from New York uses the ADD modification given in UPDATES vol. 1, #3, to simulate “labels” such as...		Pro/File Updates	January 1985
From the Editor… As with Fred, my entry into computers came about three years ago, but my reasons were slightly different. A change...	Tom Bent	SyncWare News	1984
George Erickson’s Ultimate Loading Solution: Batteries UPDATES has devoted considerable space to improving loading speed convenience and dependability. Disk drives, stringy floppies, and fast load-type programs...		Pro/File Updates	July 1984
Glaring Errors Dept. In “Upgrading to Larger Memories Without Losing Data” (page 6, vol. 1, no. 1) step 7 of the instructions was...		Pro/File Updates	July 1984
Good News for TS1500 Owners! Many readers interested in using ZXLR-8, the fast load program described in the last issue, but who are discouraged to...		Pro/File Updates	January 1985
Good News: “THE NEWS” Lives! Shortly after SWN 1:4 was mailed, letters started coming in from concerned readers, encouraging us to continue publishing. It is...	Fred Nachbaur	SyncWare News	1984
Goof-Proof Line Editing How many times have you been adding or editing a file and suddenly found yourself face to face with the...		Pro/File Updates	October 1984
Here’s A Cheap Home Brew Tone Decoder That Works Great!! What’s a tone decoder, you ask? Well, a tone decoder is a vital piece of equipment which must be hooked...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Winter 1986
HOT Z Clinic Hot-Z for both the TS1000 and 2068 has been in constant demand since I first first added it to my...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Spring 1986
HOT Z Clinic Last time, we looked at the details surrounding HOT-Z’s READ mode. This issue, we’ll use HOT-Z to write some machine...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Summer 1986
How To Connect An IBM Keyboard To Your Timex 2068 This article shows you how you can use a full size IBM compatible keyboard with your computer and create a...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Summer 1986
How to Connect Pro/File to a 32K RAM Pack To run a 32K version of “ZX”, follow these instructions.		Pro/File Updates	July 1984
HOW To Use The ROMPAK TS1000 PRO/FILE My old pal, Floyd Cox, writes, “How do I use the Rompak Quickload and Pro/File cartridge on my TS1000?” Answer:...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Spring 1986
Important Pro/File 2068 Note If you purchased a copy of PRO/FILE 2068 and you’re wondering why you haven’t received a copy of the manual...		Pro/File Updates	October 1984
Introducing the Experimentor’s Universal Input/Output Port Some of you may remember that a LONG time ago, I said I wanted to offer a simple parallel port...		Pro/File Updates	October 1985
Introduction To Channels On The 2068 Did you know that your 2068 has a feature built-in to it which allows you to link new peripherals into...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Summer 1986
Keyboard Interfacing Tips Inside! The first chapter of the explanation of Pro/File’s inner workings is inside this issue and covers the INs and OUTs...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Summer 1986
Machine Code in Pro/File: Where to Stick It Enhancements to PRO/FILE that are written in machine code can present a problem in deciding where in memory you should...		Pro/File Updates	April 1984
Mid-West TS Computerfest A Smashing Success In early May I packed up my bags and headed for Cincinnati, Ohio to attend the Mid-West TS Computerfest. What...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Spring 1986
New Full Size Printer Interface Works With “ZX” Peter McMullin reports in SINC-LINK, the newsletter for the TS Users Club of Toronto, that the EPROM SERVICES Centronics I/F...		Pro/File Updates	April 1985
New Light on the Memotech Memory Mystery In UPDATES No. 1, I noted that several people experienced unusual behavior of their computers when the Memotech 16K RAM...		Pro/File Updates	July 1984
New SYNCWARE Group Publication Starting Attention QL owners: Now you’ve got a magazine of your very own. “Quantum Levels” is our newest project and the...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Summer 1986
New Uses Dept. Jim Cripps of Central Islip, NY has compiled a large foreign language translation data base using ZX PRO/FILE. His family...		Pro/File Updates	January 1984
Number Crunching “ZX” It’s not often that a short piece of new programming can add a whole new dimension to a program, but...		Pro/File Updates	January 1985
PC Findex from Tom Woods PRO/FILE, the popular data base program for ZX/TS computers has been refitted for use on PC compatible machines, says Tom...		SyncWare News	May/June 1987
Port Project #1: Data Communications Between Two Computers This first project gives you the basis of a very useful application involving I/O ports–communicating between two computers.		Pro/File Updates	October 1985
Pro/File 2068 Plug-In Cartridge Almost Finished I do not want to make it a habit of filling the pages of Computer Updates with a lot of...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Spring 1986
Pro/File 2068? Sadly, ZX PRO/FILE will not work on the new TS2068 without a substantial re-write of the machine code. Even general...		Pro/File Updates	January 1984
Pro/File Basic Add/Edit Routines How many times have you been adding or editing a file and suddenly found yourself face to face with the...		Pro/File Updates	October 1984
Pro/File Bits & Pieces Charles Stelding from Tyler, TX writes… Pro/File 2068 makes an excellent calendar and daily schedule. I use it in my...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Summer 1986
PRO/FILE Cartridge Update By the time this issue of Updates reaches you, I anticipate that I’ll be up to be up to my...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Summer 1986
Pro/File Plus Cassette Clarification Last issue I stated that cassettes of “ZX” which contained many enhancements published in Updates was available. Apparently it was...		Pro/File Updates	October 1985
Pro/File Sings at the Tabernacle From Bill Hall, Laurel, MD: One of my duties as Minister of Music for the Tabernacle is to compile a...		Pro/File Updates	January 1985
Pro/File Works with COMPUSA Disk Drives Too Last issue there was an extended modification to run “ZX” with the AERCO disk drives. This time, Steve Cottrell of...		Pro/File Updates	July 1984
Program Changes and Data Capacity: A Symbiotic Relationship Memory space in a computer — regardless of how much you have plugged in — is allocated for certain jobs....		Pro/File Updates	January 1984
Q-Save with Pro/File John Willi, Louisville, KY, and Phil Williams, Wilmington, DE, sent these instructions to make PRO/FILE work with Q-SAVE. Willi comments,...		Pro/File Updates	April 1984
Sinclair QL Computer Examined Not long ago I managed to get my hands on Sinclair’s latest machine, the QL. A cursory inspection reveals a...		Pro/File Updates	April 1985
Special Number Cruncher Issue In keeping with a promise made long ago, I now have added math Capabilities to ZX Pro/File’s repertoire. Read all...		Pro/File Updates	January 1985
Speedload and “ZX” If you own SPEEDLOAD, a fastloader put out by Intercomputer, Inc., you’ll be interested in this modification made by Alfred...		Pro/File Updates	July 1984
Stringy Floppy Notes If you use a CAI Stringy Floppy for high speed program saves, you’re not alone if you tried unsuccessfully to...		Pro/File Updates	January 1984
Teach Kids to Count		LISTing Newsletter	October 1993
Teach Kids to Count with the ZX81 Some education theorists suggest that learning to count and read is enhanced if you create a large, sharp image in...	Thomas B. Woods	Syntax	August 1982
The Beat Me, Kick Me, Abuse Me, But This is Too Much Dept One fellow whose name shall remain annonymous wrote, “can you teil me how to extend the VU-FILE to 64K?” Try...		Pro/File Updates	January 1985
The Display/Pause/Display “DO” File Finally, this routine will make Pro/File search and display a file. Then, it automatically goes to the next file without...		Pro/File Updates	April 1985
The Great Computer Depression (What is This World Coming To Dept.) A few weeks back, I took out a subscription to INFOWORLD, a weekly...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Winter 1986
The Incredible “Not” Search These changes allow ZX PRO/FILE to perform “NOT” searches. This is equivalent to printing all files EXCEPT the word you...		Pro/File Updates	January 1984
The Label Maker “DO File” Here’s a neat utility that I use all the time to make return address labels. You can change it accordingly...		Pro/File Updates	April 1985
The Linear Search Do you want to store and retrieve information with your computer? This program uses a machine language search routine that...	Thomas B. Woods	SYNC	November/December 1983
The New Updates This issue marks a dramatic change in the newsletter. In our first two years, subject matter was limited rather strictly...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Winter 1986
The Pro/File–AERCO Connection Linking Pro/File’s data management capabilities with the rapid access and large capacity of a disk system is probably the single...		Pro/File Updates	April 1984
The SyncWare News Story Three years ago, I received my first ZX81 computer kit in the mail. Only three short years ago, I considered...	Fred Nachbaur	SyncWare News	1984
Timex Computer Corp. Fades If you haven’t heard already, Timex followed in the footsteps of Texas Instruments not long ago, leaving computer owners and...		Pro/File Updates	April 1984
Tom’s Soapbox: Sink or Swim, We’re All In This Together Editorial about copying versus supporting individuals/companies directly.		SyncWare News	Jul-Aug 1986
TS1000 and ZX81 Parts Available As our lowly ZX computers fade into the setting sun, die-hards among our ranks have expressed concern over where to...		Pro/File Updates	January 1985
TS1000/1500 EXTENDED BASIC SCREEN, DRAW, and FILL DEMO Here’s a program written in Extended Basic to demonstrate the use of the new commands DRAW, FILL, and SCREEN. For...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Spring 1986
Turning Point This issue of Pro/file Updates closes out the newsletter’s second year. I want to thank all of you for your...		Pro/File Updates	October 1985
Updates Updates Our little newsletter is growing up. Not in numbers of pages or in circulation but content. This issue is the...		Pro/File Updates	October 1984
Upgraded ZX Pro/File Cassettes Available Many readers who would love to spruce up their old Pro/Files with the enhancements covered in this newsletter, but who...		Pro/File Updates	July 1985
Use “DO” Files To Change Printer Format In ZX Pro/File If you find that you frequently need to change the print format (DEFP) in ZX Pro/File for the TS1000, you...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Winter 1986
What to Do for the RS232 Are there any Memotech RS232 serial interface owners out there who have ZX Pro/File running through this device to their...		Pro/File Updates	April 1985
What, We Worry? For those of you who thought that we were just a couple of non-existent characters beyond your end-of-line marker, we...		SyncWare News	September/October 1985
What’s New for Volume Two Volume 1 ends with this issue. For all but a tiny handful who have already renewed for next year, its...		Pro/File Updates	October 1984
With Apologies Well, here it is February and the January issue of Updates has just reached you. I’m sorry for the delay....	Thomas B. Woods	Pro/File Updates	January 1985
Yeah, But Does It Work with Pro/File? Sure Does! T.A. Jacoby all the way from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia writes: The Stringy Floppy Notes contained in Updates Vol....		Pro/File Updates	January 1985
Z80 Chip Replacement Update Many readers reported that last issue’s suggestion to replace the Z80 microprocessor chip inside the computer to solve unexplained crashing...		Pro/File Updates	October 1984
Z80-B, Bent EPROMs, ROM-PAK Notes Please note that the ROMPAK edition of ZX Pro/File has many program lines (all the DIM lines plus 9960/9970) which...		Pro/File Updates	October 1985
ZX Maze Have you dreamed of writing a graphics game complete with maze, treasure, and gobbling hunter? Perhaps you figured out how...		SYNC	March/April 1983
ZX Pro/File Sails the Seven Seas… D.A. Diemand, HMC, USN writes, “I’m using Pro/File aboard ship with great success keeping track of the dental status of...		Pro/File Updates	July 1984
ZX Super File? R.C. Combes from Atlanta, GA writes: Pro/File Updates has presented a proliferation of goodies which should be incorporated into a...		Pro/File Updates	April 1985
ZX81 Extended Basic Notes Robert Shade from Philadelphia was studying the DEMO program which comes with Extended Basic and asked what function all the...	Thomas B. Woods	Computer Updates	Winter 1986

Companies (1)

Thomas B. Woods

Products (14)

Title	Company
2068 Programmer’s Cartridge (AROS) Toolkit 24K program has many built-in features (including tri-base arithmetic) and printer drivers. Available on tape ($9.95) or EPROM ($39.95)	Thomas B. Woods
Computer I/O Data Communications Lets your 2068 speak to your TS1000. Use your TS1000 (must have 64K RAM) to store data for your 2068....	Thomas B. Woods
Experimenter’s Universal I/O Port Control and sense external devices using any TS computer. 8 bits parallel input, 8 bits latched output plus 2 handshaking...	Thomas B. Woods
Linear Search In-depth treatise on machine language technique for searching data. Construct a fast and highly personalized data base program. 16K.	Thomas B. Woods
Mad Dog Tank Blaster Play vs computer controlled tank. Move your man, plant mines and avoid the tank. Tank shoots or can run you...	Thomas B. Woods
Morse Code Translator Accepts tone decoder input, outputs English on the TV screen or printer. Full screen display, auto scrolling. 5K buffer. Unique...	Thomas B. Woods
Pro/File 2068 Machine language information storage and retrieval database for the 2068. Later available as a DOCK cartridge with more memory for...	Thomas B. Woods
ProFile +3 Additions to Pro/File 2068, including all the improvements from the manual except where they are no longer appropriate (the machine...	Thomas B. Woods
ProFile +5 Additions to Pro/File 2068, including updates of Pro/File +3. This version allows file merge and dating files. Compiled by Robert...	Thomas B. Woods
Pseudoscope for TS2068 A serial bit stream analyzer which mimics the action of an oscilloscope. Use to graphically portray low frequency digital signals...	Thomas B. Woods
Sort Data collating/sorting tool. Count and file thousands of items in up to 29 categories with just 1K RAM. Listing and...	Thomas B. Woods
ZX Data Finder High capacity file manager; versatile catalog/index/reference tool; edit, search, and display routines explained in text; a course on file and...	Thomas B. Woods
ZX Pro/File Machine language database with multi-word search, ordered displays, definable printer functions. Flexible file size, instant file access. 59 page manual...	Thomas B. Woods
ZX Telephone Book Directory holds 720 names; complete add, edit, delete functions, auto-save and more. Documentation gives a thorough, easy to understand introduction...	Thomas B. Woods

Periodicals (1)

SyncWare News

Downloadable Files (12)

Title	Type	Company	Download
2068 Buggy Software	Program		Download
2068 Programmer’s Toolkit AROS	ROM	Thomas B. Woods	Download
Extended Basic Demo	Cassette		Download
Mad Dog Tank Blaster	Program	Thomas B. Woods	Download
ProFile +5	Program	Thomas B. Woods	Download
ProFile 2068	Program	Thomas B. Woods	Download
Profile 2068 AROS	Program	Thomas B. Woods	Download
ProFile 2068 AROS	Cartridge	Thomas B. Woods	Download
ProFile with Machine Code	Program	Thomas B. Woods	Download
ZX Data Finder	Program	Thomas B. Woods	Download
ZX Profile	Cassette	Thomas B. Woods	Download
ZX Profile and Quickload	ROM	ROMPAK	Download

Documents (6)

Events (1)

1986 Midwest Timex/Sinclair Computerfest

Videos (1)

Title	Date	Watch
Timex Sinclair Online User Group meeting June 6, 2022 This meeting features Thomas B. Woods, Wes Brzozowski, Jeff Mazur, Tim Horner, Ryan Gray, Jeff Burrell and Stewart Newfeld.	June 6, 2022

Blog Posts (1)

Pro/File +5: The Machine-Code Module