Sinclair ZX81
Sign in to saveAlso known as ZX81
The ZX81 is a home computer developed by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and designed to be a low-cost introduction to home computing for the general public. It was hugely successful; more than 1.5 million units were sold. In the United States it was initially sold as the ZX-81 under licence by Timex. Timex later produced its own versions of the ZX81: the Timex Sinclair 1000 and Timex Sinclair 1500. Unauthorized ZX81 clones were produced in several countrie
Key facts
- Information appliance.name
- Sinclair ZX81
- Information appliance.image
- Sinclair-ZX81.png
- Information appliance.developer
- Sinclair Research
- Information appliance.manufacturer
- Timex Corporation
- Information appliance.type
- Home computer
- Information appliance.price
- £49.95 kit, £69.95 assembled (£–/$– at prices)
- Information appliance.discontinued
- 1984
- Information appliance.units_sold
- More than 1.5 million
- Information appliance.os
- Sinclair BASIC
- Information appliance.power
- 9V DC
- Information appliance.cpu
- Z80 @ 3.25 MHz
- Information appliance.storage
- External Compact Cassette recorder at a claimed 250 bit/s or an average 300 bit/s
- Information appliance.memory
- 1 KB (64 KB max. 56 KB usable)
- Information appliance.display
- Monochrome display on UHF television
- Information appliance.graphics
- 24 lines × 32 characters or 64 × 48 pixels graphics mode
- Information appliance.dimensions
- wide by deep
- Information appliance.predecessor
- ZX80
- Information appliance.successor
- ZX Spectrum
via Wikipedia infobox
Internet Archive
dataETSF - Pilotez votre ZX 81: 40 Programmes 1K RAM - Cassette 1 - Sinclair ZX81 - France
View at Internet Archive →via archive.org
Wikidata facts
- Mass
- 350
- Image
- Sinclair-ZX81.png
Show 8 more facts
- Commons category
- Sinclair ZX81
- service retirement
- 1984-00-00
- inception
- 1981-03-05
- Stack Exchange tag
- stackoverflow.com/tags/zx81
- price
- 490
- units sold
- 1500000
- discontinuation date
- 1984-00-00
- publication date
- 1981-00-00
via Wikidata · CC0
~63 min read
Article
21 sectionsContents
- Features
- Comparisons with other computing devices
- History
- Background
- Precursors: the MK14 and ZX80
- BBC Micro bid
- Development and manufacture
- Marketing
- Distribution
- Reception
- Peripherals and software
- Games
- Clones and variants
- Impact and legacy
- See also
- References
- Bibliography
- Books
- News reports
- Other sources
- External links
The ZX81 is a home computer developed by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and designed to be a low-cost introduction to home computing for the general public. It was hugely successful; more than 1.5 million units were sold. In the United States it was initially sold as the ZX-81 under licence by Timex. Timex later produced its own versions of the ZX81: the Timex Sinclair 1000 and Timex Sinclair 1500. Unauthorized ZX81 clones were produced in several countries.
The ZX81 was designed to be small, simple, and above all, inexpensive. Video output is for a television set rather than a dedicated monitor. It contains only four silicon chips and 1 KB of RAM. It has no power switch or moving parts, excepting a VHF TV channel selector switch in some models. It has a pressure-sensitive membrane keyboard. Programs and data are loaded and saved onto compact audio cassettes. The ZX81's limitations prompted a market in third-party peripherals to improve its capabilities. Its distinctive case and keyboard brought designer Rick Dickinson a Design Council award.