Tynemouth Software Kits

Tynemouth Minstrel Kits are extremely well put together. They come with every part you will need, typically which includes a very well thought out keyboard. Another quality touch to these kits, is the outstanding manual that comes with them. The kits are well labelled and more often than not in our experience, work first time. The Minstrel 3 is a Sinclair ZX81 Clone, which was fun to build and compatible with our ZXpand. The Minstrel 4 is a revelation. It’s a Jupiter Ace clone. For those that aren’t aware the Jupiter Ace was made by former Sinclair employees and is extremely rare machine. The Minstrel 4th kit is, obviously much cheaper to buy and seems completely compatible. Just be aware the Minstrel 4, like the Jupiter Ace, uses ‘Forth’ as its programming language, which is quite a learning curve for anyone only familiar with BASIC. That said, by comparison, Forth is extremely fast language We highly recommend these kits for beginners and experts alike.

Mahjong ZX81 +38

(without ULA)

The Mahjong ZX-Clone is not a kit. You can order the bare PCB off of the internet, then it’s down to you to source the parts. This is not as easy as it sounds, and there are lots of pitfalls a first timer will undoubtedly fall for. That said, once complete it works and works well. And watching it blink into life for the first time is extremely rewarding. It too is compatible with the ZXpand and will fit into a standard ZX81 case, admittedly with some carving of the case. We chose not to put our Mahjong ZX81 in an original case, however. It was decided that after all the blood, sweat and tears put into making the system, we weren’t going to hide away the fruits of our labours. Additionally, we made a mechanical keyboard for our system, which included making our own key caps. Obviously essential for a quick game of 3D Monster Maze.