Charlie Day demonstrated a browser-based IDE for his LEAP ROMs, which grew out of Jon Becker’s question about putting a bytecode engine in a cartridge.
The editor is an open-source one taught the syntax of each language, with help text drawn from Charlie’s ROM documentation, autocomplete, and a debugger showing variables, stack, registers, symbols and memory, plus breakpoints. The emulator is TS Run, and the IDE includes a UDG editor and a draw editor that converts a sketch into BASIC lines. BASIC compiles to bytecode and runs on a virtual machine; C and Forth compile to assembly. A finished program can be built as a cartridge image and tested on a stock ROM.
Next on his list are Pascal, a sprite-based game builder, and TS-Pico support.
Jon Becker showed a CP/M port for the 2068 that runs from a cartridge using the TS-Pico’s RAM and storage. It uses Oliger-format disk images, and the TS-Pico reads them wrapped in a .tap file. Jon had added Zork and Planetfall to a disk image and tried Zork in the browser.
Jon also described a “personality” system for the Pico: drop an environment into a folder on the SD card and pick it from a menu at power-up. He has built a Spectrum 128 personality that way, with Spectrum BASIC and the Pico’s file commands, and the group discussed using the Pico as an accelerator or to offload floating-point math.
The new TS-Pico firmware adds the 2068 keywords CAT, MOVE, ERASE, OPEN, CLOSE and FORMAT. COPY now copies files, because the Interface 1 use of MOVE for copying struck Ryan as odd; MOVE changes directory and renames. Typing LOAD “” opens a Norton Commander-style file browser, so no other command needs learning.
Stewart Newfeld is working on OpenSpand modules, an open-source (CC BY-SA 4.0) successor to the ZXpand for the ZX81/TS1000. The original uses a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 with an off-the-shelf DAC, real-time clock and SD module, and is slow to hand-assemble. After talking with Stewart, David had Claude design a surface-mount version in Memotech-style module format, with TF card slot, audio jack, USB, nine-pin joystick port and composite video. The Pico generates the video, so the 81 need not be opened.
David showed his new Pico board, which add an ESP32 running Zmodem software for connecting to bulletin boards, plus a General Instrument SP0256 speech synthesizer emulator with text-to-phoneme rules.
John Mark Mobley reported on the 44th Chicago TI-99/4A International World Faire in Evanston, where about 25 people attended and he presented Kip Koon’s LUMEN-99, a web-based emulator with more than a thousand virtual blinking LEDs showing registers and single-stepping code. John Mark is vice president of the Glenside Color Computer Club, and the group traced Chicago’s retro scene through Bob Swoger, who helped start the T-SNUG newsletter ZXir Qlive Alive, which ran about 13 years.
David also showed a portable 2068 prototype with an ESP32, running a Fuse port and the Pico firmware, with a Bluetooth keyboard planned and a 3D-printed case still to come.
The last item was a KiloZed update. David showed Ingo’s enlarged TS1000 case, a real key-switch keyboard, and custom inkjet-printed keycaps made with Loic of 3D Keys in Montreal. Joe Vandezande printed a case, which took a couple of days at fine quality, and added a two-color light-up badge.