TS Pico

What is the TS Pico?

The TS Pico is a modern expansion platform for the Timex/Sinclair 2068. It comes with software that lets you load and save from/to digital media. It plugs into the back of your TS 2068, works with your tape recorder, other digital devices, and gives you ultra-fast load and save.

At its heart, it’s a Raspberry Pi Pico, 512K Flash ROM, 512K RAM, an SD card slot and supporting circuitry that connects to your Timex/Sinclair 2068.

It can be a lot of things because you can program the Pico in MicroPython. Talking to it from BASIC or machine language is as simple as an OUT/IN statements.

The TS Pico comes with a custom version of the TS 2068 ROM, on the Flash ROM, that enhances the TS 2068 BASIC with new commands that will let you load, run and save existing and new software.

The TS Pico

Powered by a Raspberry Pi Pico (the green module on the left), it has 512k of static RAM (big chip in the middle), 512k of flash ROM (big chip on the right), and SD card.

TS Pico and Expansion Board

The TS Pico connects to your T/S 2068 via a 2 or 4 slot expansion board.

How Does It Work?

The TS Pico extends the Timex/Sinclair 2068 BASIC LOAD and SAVE commands with a special prefix that sends commands to the Pico processor.

LOADing a File

The TS Pico supports .TAP files, a very common file format for the ZX Spectrum and TS 2068. TAP files are faithful re-creations of the data stored on a cassette tape and, like a cassette tape, you have to put the TAP file in the "player." We call this "mounting the TAP file."

Next, you use the standard TS 2068 LOAD command to load programs or files stored in the TAP file.

The following commands will mount the Spacewar TAP file and load the game:

LOAD "tpi:spacewar.tap"
LOAD ""

Price

$69.00

1 in stock