Sinclair ZX81
| Description | |
| Manufacturer | Sinclair Research |
| Model | ZX81 |
| Date Announced | 1981 |
| Date Canceled | Unknown |
| Number Produced | 1 million + |
| Country of Origin | UK |
| Price | $200 |
| Current Value | $0 to $50 |
| Specifications | --- |
| Processor | Zilog Z80 |
| Speed | 3 MHz |
| RAM | 1K expandable to 56K |
| ROM | 8K |
| Storage | |
| Expansion | RAM Packs and not much else |
| Bus | Single expansion port |
| Video | |
| I/O | Various through the expansion port including Parallel and Serial |
| OS Options | N/A |
| Notes | The Sinclair ZX-81 (also sold by Timex as the Timex Sinclair 1000) was a very compact Z80 based machine with a membrane keyboard. It was designed and built to be inexpensive and, as such, it was a very common first computer for many people. THe ZX81 was an upgrade to the ZX80 which had half the ROM. |
| Related Items in Collection | A few docs and a few cables |
| Related Items Wanted | Tape player, tape software, etc. |
The Sinclair ZX81 came from the genius of Clive Sinclair and his desire to bring computing to the masses. The ZX81 was a simple, rugged and very inexpensive computer sold both as an easy-to-build kit and as a fully assembled system.
This machine was not intended to serve any business functions. It was a home machine from the outset designed with the goal of making computing accessible.
The Sinclair ZX81 in my collection is boxed in it's original shipping carton.
Pictured are the documents that this unit came with. In addition to those I have a metric ton of books and other documentation donated by Trenton Henry.