On Saturday September 14 1996, Jim Dunmyer of (1:234/2) wrote to Chris 
Harper:
 >> The old Timex/Sinclair computers are pretty good on power too. For
 >> limited stuff like recording numbers or controlling a single thing
 >> like a throttle or an axis, they'd be pretty good too.
 JD>  There's more to it than low power consumption. The Timex/Sinclairs had
 JD> almost nothing else going for them. No keyboard (to amount to anything), 
no
 JD> interfaces, and no display. And I'd almost bet that the power 
onsumption
 JD> was MORE than a Model 100.
What do you mean, "no interfaces"?!? It had it's entire buss available at the 
back, that most people added RAM to. And once programmed for it's use, you 
wouldn't need a display. Also, it's power consumption is considerably LESS 
than a Tandy 100's. Probly because it doesn't have to drive several ports, 
like a Model 100 does. It had only the cassette port and it's video driver.
For a single purpose controlling device, like for a throttle control or an 
axis control on a solar tracking device, it'd be ideal. Especially if the 
program fit in under 2K of RAM, which was all it had onboard. You could use 
the buss as the output for the control by assigning a memory location and 
sending the proper value to set one of it's bits high or low for on/off, or 
use the entire byte for 0-255 varying values. For more complex controls, you 
could use several bytes. Either as ports, or for wider range. Since you're 
going to need to make your own interface anyway, why not go direct to the 
buss, and Timex give you VERY easy access to it. You don't even have to open 
the case! Not only that, they are much less expensive than 100's. ;-)
RYL,
    Chris
--- GoldED 2.40+
---------------