Timex Sinclair 1500
The TS1500 was a slightly-upgraded development of the TS1000. Timex Sinclair (TMX Portugal) designed the TS1500 and offered it to the Timex Corporation; they used the TS2000 (ZXSpectrum) silver cases that were never used because of the launch of the TS2068. The TS1500 replaced the earlier machine's ZX81-like case with a silver ZX Spectrum-like case, the same ZX Spectrum rubber keyboard, a custom ULA, and increased the onboard RAM to 16K. The TS1500 did not incorporate the Ferranti ULA.
The TS1500 used a standard television for its display, "broadcasting" on either channel 2 or 3. It defaulted to TV channel 2, but if the "3" was pressed on the keyboard within a few seconds of turning the computer on, it changed to channel 3 instead.
Although the TS1500 came with 16K internal RAM, an external 16K RAM pack could be added for a total of 32K RAM. A few keyboard commands (POKEs) were required for the system to recognize the additional memory space (the RAM pack is multiplexed to the start of the RAM).
In spite of this, it was not a commercial success because it was launched too late. The ZX 81/TS1000's successors, the ZX Spectrum/TS2068, were already available, and the home computer market in general was dominated by Commodore, Atari and Apple. It was sold in the USA and Portugal.
Read more about this topic: Timex Sinclair 1000
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“An involuntary return to the point of departure is, without doubt, the most disturbing of all journeys.”
—Iain Sinclair (b. 1943)