Creator of our fave home computer, Sir Clive Sinclair is fifty this year. Last month we looked at how he started the ZX range of computers and now we complete the story: from the launch of the ZX Spectrum in 1983 up until the present day.
At £125 for 16k, or £175 for 48k, the Spectrum was very cheap and powerful for its day. The 48k model seemed such a good deal that it sold eight times as well as the 16k model from the start, so a new version was produced - the issue 2 - which could hold 48k on one board. The issue 2 had blue keys rather than grey ones, to make the lettering on them easier to read under electric light.
Meanwhile Altwasser and Vickers left Sinclair to set up their own firm, Jupiter Cantab, selling a small fast computer that was a cross between a Spectrum and a ZX-80. Their Jupiter Ace flopped.
Sinclair refined the Spectrum again in 1983, making BEEP slightly louder, using a cooler logic array, and adding a minor tweak which unfortunately stopped lots of sloppily written games recognising the keyboard. This Spectrum was the infamous Issue 3.
Meanwhile in the USA...Timex was bemused by the success of the TMS-1000 and tried to follow it with a 16k variation, the TMS-1500. It flopped, so Timex came out with the TMS-2068 - a super Spectrum with graphics much like the SAM Coupe, sound like a Spectrum 128K. That flopped too, mainly because of competition in the US Market and poor software compatibility. Timex gave up in February 1984.
The rubbery Spectrum keyboard was universally hated, so Sinclair tried to develop something better looking. The result was the Spectrum Plus. Brilliantly, with the plus, Sinclair preserved total compatibility by using exactly the same circuits as in an old Spectrum, in a new box. And the Plus sold well for a while, though the routines to read the keys still insisted you pressed them one at a time - fine for rubber keys, but now frustrating.
In 1985 Sinclair`s main distributor, Prism, collapsed. The QL price was slashed in half. Sinclair, now a knight, was bust advertising electric tricycles. Robert Maxwell stepped, sniffed the air, and stepped out again. And by now the Spectrum was not considered sophisticated, even with the new keyboard. People began to demand more memory, interfaces and better sound. A mixture of new and TMS-2068 features were cobbled together to make the Spectrum Plus 128K. The money for the 128 came from Spain, so that's where it was launched.
In January 1986 the Spectrum Plus 128K was launched in the UK, in a desperate bid by Sinclair to look busy as debts piled up. But by March the bank had closed Sinclair`s accounts and the company staff were paid on the firms behalf by a large retailer who took stock in return.
A few Sinclair staff moved to Amstrad and produced the Plus 2: a 128 in a new box with a cassette drive `glued on` as Amstrad boss Alan Sugar put it. A year later came the first true Amstrad Spectrum - the Plus 3, minus Sinclair chips and plus the disk system from Amstrads CPC range. The Plus-3 was a new design, not very compatible with the old Spectrum and its wealth of 48K hardware and software.
Sir Clive Sinclair went on to sell a portable computer called the Z88, designed by Jim Westwood and using the same Z80 processor as the ZX range. Latest reports indicate plans for a C-15 electric car...!
At the 1988 PC Show, Amstrad launched its own machine - the Sinclair Professional PC 200. The machine found many critics - mainly because no-one understood who it was aimed at - it wasn`t a good games machine (it features only four colours and, at basic starting price of around 350, is wildly expensive) and not powerful enough for a serious PC alternative. Not really Sinclair stuff at all.
3,000,000 Plus Spectrum Issue 3s sold: new low power ULA, louder BEEP, runs cooler, no colour tweaks, key port incompatibility. Prices cut to £100/£130 (16K/48K).
TIMEX TMS-1500
$80; 8K ROM, 16K RAM; ZX-81 with better keyboard - a flop.
TIMEX TMS-2068
$150/$200; 24K ROM, 16K/48K RAM; paged in 8K lumps up to 256K. Improved BASIC
sound and much better display, but very incompatible. UK PAL TV version
never marketed.
SPECTRUM 128K
£180; 32K ROM and 128K RAM, in 16K pages; RGB; old box and chunky heat sink;
no key-words; three channel sound, clumsy screen editor; MIDI/serial port;
funded by Investronica.
SINCLAIR PROFESSIONAL PC 200
16-bit processor 8Mhz 8086, 512K RAM, One 3.5 inch 720K disk drive. Medium
resolution CGA graphics 320x200 pixels in four colours. Never hit big-time.
To be continued....?