ce magazine january 2018 issue

Come a Long Way Baby!
Happy Birthday, Sinclair ZX81 Computer!
BY Chris Higgins
March 5, 2017
On March 5, 1981, Sinclair Research launched the ZX81 home computer in the U.K. (It was also known as the
Timex-Sinclair TS1000 in the U.S.) It came with just one kilobyte of memory, and was a self-contained unit
with a rather crappy keyboard. The keyboard didn't have moving key switches; instead it used membrane
buttons similar to those often used on microwave ovens.
Despite its limitations, the ZX81 was a revolution, because it cost just £49.95 in the U.K.—massively cheaper
than anything else on the market. It was also available in normal retail stores, rather than specialty computer
shops.
It really was the people's computer, and for many it was their introduction to home computing and computer
programming. Incidentally, at that cheap price, it was a kit you assembled at home (a soldering iron was
required). You'd have to pay an extra £20 if you wanted a pre-assembled unit. In the U.S., the fully-assembled
unit cost $149.95.
The ZX81 was also expandable. You could upgrade it from its RAM using an external cartridge to bring it up to
16k—making it vastly more usable for real work. If you needed to store programs, you saved them on cassette
tapes using a tape recorder. This was a finicky process, as you had to fiddle with the volume to get things just
right...but for the price, it was unbeatable.
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