Sinclair Research - Products

Products

Wrist Calculator

The Wrist Calculator was released by Sinclair Instrument in 1977.

MK14

The MK14 (Microcomputer Kit 14) was a computer kit sold by Science of Cambridge of the United Kingdom, first introduced in 1977 for UK£39.95.

ZX80

The ZX80 home computer was launched in February 1980 at £79.95 in kit form and £99.95 ready-built. In November of the same year Science of Cambridge was renamed Sinclair Computers Ltd.

ZX81

The ZX81 (known as the TS 1000 in the United States) was priced at £49.95 in kit form and £69.95 ready-built, by mail order.

ZX Spectrum

The ZX Spectrum was launched on 23 April 1982, priced at £125 for the 16 KB RAM version and £175 for the 48 KB version.

TV80

The TV80 was a pocket television. Launched in September 1983. It used a flattened CRT unlike Sinclair's previous portable televisions. The TV80 was a commercial failure selling only 15,000 units and not covering its development costs of £4m.

Sinclair QL

The Sinclair QL was announced in January 1984, priced at £399. Marketed as a more sophisticated 32-bit microcomputer for professional users, it used a Motorola 68008 processor. Production was delayed by several months, due to unfinished development of hardware and software at the time of the QL's launch. Hardware reliability problems and software bugs resulted in the QL acquiring a poor reputation from which it never really recovered.

ZX Spectrum+

The ZX Spectrum+ was a repackaged ZX Spectrum 48K launched in October 1984.

ZX Spectrum 128

The ZX Spectrum 128, with RAM expanded to 128 kB, a sound chip and other enhancements, was launched in Spain in September 1985 and the UK in January 1986, priced at £179.95.

Computer peripherals

Sinclair created various peripherals for their computers including memory expansion modules, the ZX Printer, and the ZX Interface 1 and ZX Interface 2 add-ons for the ZX Spectrum. A number of QL peripherals were developed by other companies but marketed under the Sinclair brand. External storage for the Spectrum was usually on cassette tapes, as was common in the era. Rather than an optional floppy disk drive, Sinclair instead opted to offer their own mass storage system, the ZX Microdrive, a tape-loop cartridge system that was rather unreliable. This was also the primary storage device for the QL.

X1 Button FM Radio

In June 1997 Sinclair Research released the X1 radio for £9.50. This miniature mono FM radio, powered by a CR2032 battery was inserted in the ear and had a fixed volume. The X1 radio had three buttons, an on/off switch, a Scan button and a Reset to restart the scanning process. It came with a short length of aerial and a detachable ear hook.

Sinclair X-1

In November 2010 Sinclair told The Guardian newspaper that he was working on a new prototype electric vehicle, called the X-1, to be launched within a year. "Technology has moved on quite a bit, there are new batteries available and I just rethought the thing. The C5 was OK, but I think we can do a better job now." The X-1 was to have been available on July 2011 at the price of £595, however as of July 2012 the product still has not been released.