Timex Sinclair 1000

In 1982, when they first came out, I was given a Timex Sinclair 1000 as a Christmas Gift.  A few years later it was in the trunk of my car when it was stolen.

Off and on over the last few years, I’ve thought it would be fun to have another one.  Prices on ebay, run around $50  plus shipping, which is more than I wanted to spend.  A couple of weeks ago, I found one in my local Good Will for $4.

When I got it home and opened up the box, it contained the Timex Sinclair, a power pack, an AV cable and a set up two cables for hooking up a cassette player for loading and saving programs/data.  It was in the original box, with the original Styrofoam, unfortunately no manual.

I  plugged the power pack into the Sinclair and into the outlet.  After connecting the AV cable to my TV, I was unable to make it work.  There is a channel switch on the Sinclair for 2 or 3, so I tried both channels on my TV, with no luck.

After sleeping on it I remembered that there was supposed to be another box between the Sinclair and the TV, a switch box.

I had one from my Apple //c, so I tried it and it worked.

The next day I went back to Good Will and found a cassette player for $3, so that I could load and save programs.  I checked to make sure the player would play a cassette, but haven’t tried it with the Sinclair yet.