Sinclair ZX80 / ZX81 / Z88 Forums

Has anyone heard of this device? The only thing I can find online is from http://www.worldofspectrum.org/timex/ showing a fairly low resolution ad scan: http://www.worldofspectrum.org/timex/kradle.jpg

From what I can make out it's basically a mod case that you swap your Timex 1000 board into and it replaced the keyboard, power jack, audio jacks, adds a peripheral port (parallel? serial?) and 64K of RAM...

Anyone have any more background information about it?

Received the unit today and took some pictures.

It adds a lot of heft, a snappy keyboard (looks like rubber domes) with extra useful keys, a single joystick port, a peripheral port, and supposedly extra memory.

It came with a modded Timex 1000 (old composite mod and TreeForth ROM daughter board) but it only works on the Forth ROM with the RF modulator (composite mod seems to be broken). Keyboard is clean but the cable is of course cracked.

I'll likely just remove the motherboard and install it into the Kradle permanently... But I thought this was a really cool find and wanted to share!

Nice!

Just realized I didn't take pics of the outside. Attached.

Thank you for posting the photos

From the serial number, it does not look they made many of these. Maybe that is why there is not much information and documentation on line.

Mark

God that's nice!!


@ draketungsten

I notice you're running what looks like an original treeforth EPROM.
Could I ask a small favour?

Could you compile and run the following and post a screen shot please?

ED OFF
CO REV

: z 1000 0 do i . loop ;

I've never come across an original Forth EPROM before, having to make do with emulator copies, and this might just satisfy a curiosity I have re re screen layout.


Regards.

Moggy.

What Moggy really, really wants, is an image of the contents of a "real" EPROM chip

Mark

1024MAK wrote: ↑Thu Jul 20, 2017 4:19 pm What Moggy really, really wants, is an image of the contents of a "real" EPROM chip

Mark

DAMMIT FOILED AGAIN!!!


Not really though there's a maths bug in the real thing, well the UK one at least.

As soon as I get my correct power supply I'll do that. Right now all I have is my Atari 2600 power supply which tops out at 500ma. It's enough to make the base board work, but apparently not enough to run the Kradle. I've read that 1200ma is a good value to hit to give enough power. I'm guessing the Kradle likely came with a more powerful than stock wall wart but seeing as how I can't find any information...

I suppose I could try my hand at snipping the keyboard ribbon... couldn't make it worse than it is. I'll report back when I have some output for you.

The keyboard ribbon split almost the moment I pulled on it a bit to inspect it. It'll have to wait until I get my new power supply...