Sinclair Research — BrandWiki

Sinclair Research

Overview

Sinclair Research Ltd

type	Limited company
founded	Cambridge, England, UK (1973)
defunct	October 14, 2025‡R1R‡
hq location city	London
hq location country	UK
key people	Nigel Searle, Director (1979 to 1986) Jim Westwood Rick Dickinson, Designer
num employees	140 (1980s) 3 (1990) 1 (1997)
revenue	£102 million GBP
revenue year	1985
industry	Computing Electronics
products	Sinclair ZX Spectrum Sinclair QL
founder	Clive Sinclair

Sinclair Research Ltd was a British consumer electronics company founded by Clive Sinclair in Cambridge in the 1970s. In 1980, the company entered the home computer market with the ZX80 at £99.95, at that time the cheapest personal computer for sale in the United Kingdom. A year later, the ZX81 became available through retailers, introducing home computing to a generation, with more than 1.5 million sold. In 1982 the ZX Spectrum was released, becoming the UK's best selling computer, and competing aggressively against Commodore and Amstrad.

A combination of the failures of the Sinclair QL computer and the TV80 pocket television led to financial difficulties in 1985, and a year later Sinclair sold the rights to its computer products and brand name to Amstrad. Sinclair Research Ltd continued to exist as a one-man company, marketing Clive Sinclair's inventions.

History

Founding and early years

On 25 July 1961, Clive Sinclair founded his first company, Sinclair Radionics Ltd. in

Mid-1980s developments

The Sinclair QL was announced on 12 January 1984, shortly before the Apple Macintosh went on sale.[8] The QL was nowhere near as successful as Sinclair's earlier computers. It suffered from several design flaws,[9] and Your Sinclair noted that it was "difficult to find a good word for Sinclair Research in the computer press".

Fully working QLs were not available until late summer and complaints against Sinclair regarding delays were upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority in May of that year. (In 1982 it had upheld complaints about delays in shipping Spectrums.) Especially severe were allegations that Sinclair was cashing cheques months before machines were shipped. In the autumn Sinclair was still publicly predicting it would be a "million seller", and that 250,000 would be sold by the end of the year.[10] QL production was suspended in February 1985, and the price was halved by the end of the year.[11]

The ZX Spectrum+, a repackaged ZX Spectrum with a QL-like keyboard, was launched in October 1984 and appeared in WHSmith's shops the day after release. Retailers stocked the machine in large numbers in expectation of good Christmas sales. However, the machine did not sell as well as expected and, because retailers still had unsold stock, Sinclair's income from orders dipped alarmingly in January. The Spectrum+ had the same technical specifications as the original Spectrum. An enhanced model, the ZX Spectrum 128, was launched in Spain in September 1985, with development funded by the Spanish distributor Investronica.[12] The UK launch of this was delayed until January 1986, because retailers had large unsold stocks of the previous model.[13]

At the January 1985 Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show, Sinclair re-entered the United States market, announcing the "FM Wristwatch Radio", an LCD wristwatch with a radio attached.[14] However, the watch had several problems and never went into full production.

Sinclair had long had an interest in electric vehicles, and during the early 1980s he worked on the design of a single-seater "personal vehicle", eventually starting a company called Sinclair Vehicles Ltd in March 1983. He launched the Sinclair C5 electric vehicle on 10 January 1985, but it was a commercial disaster, selling only 17,000 units and losing Sinclair £7,000,000. Sinclair Vehicles went into liquidation later the same year. The failure of the C5, combined with those of the QL and the TV80, caused investors to lose confidence in Sinclair's judgement.

Products

The Wrist Calculator was released by Sinclair Instrument in 1977.[19]

A digital multimeter with an LED display, measuring voltage (DC and AC), current and resistance, released in 1975.

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

The ZX80 home computer was launched in February 1980 at £79.95 in kit form and £99.95 ready-built.[5] In November of the same year Science of Cambridge was renamed Sinclair Computers Ltd.

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.

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.

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[20] selling only 15,000 units and not covering its development costs of £4m.

The Sinclair QL was announced in January 1984,[8] 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 recovered.

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

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.[13]

Sinclair created various peripherals for its 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 that era. Rather than an optional floppy disk drive, Sinclair instead opted to offer its own mass storage system, the ZX Microdrive, a tape-loop cartridge system that proved unreliable. This was also the primary storage device for the QL.

In June 1997 Sinclair Research released the X1 radio for £9.50. This miniature mono FM radio, powered by a CR2032 battery, had a fixed volume and was inserted in the ear. The X1 radio had three buttons, an on/off switch, a Scan button, and a Reset button to restart the scanning process. It came with a short length of aerial and a detachable ear hook.[21]

Wrist Calculator

Multimeter DM2

MK14

ZX80

ZX81

ZX Spectrum

TV80

Sinclair QL

ZX Spectrum+

ZX Spectrum 128

Computer peripherals

X1 Button FM Radio

Cancelled projects

The following computer products were under development at Sinclair Research during the 1980s but never reached production:

Standing for "Low Cost Colour Computer", the LC3 was developed during 1983 by Martin Brennan and was intended to be a cheap Z80-based games console implemented in two chips, using ROM and (non-volatile) RAM cartridges for storage. A multi-tasking operating system for the LC3, with a full windowing GUI, was designed by Steve Berry. It was cancelled in November 1983 in favour of the QL.[22] Intended to be a 68008-based home computer, equipped with built-in ZX Microdrive, joystick, RS-232 and ZX Net ports. Sinclair's SuperBASIC programming language was originally intended for this model but was later adopted for the QL. SuperSpectrum was cancelled in 1982 after the specification of the ZX83 (QL) had converged with it.[22] This project is not to be confused with Loki, which was described as the "SuperSpectrum" in an article in the June 1986 issue of Sinclair User magazine. This was to be a portable computer with an integral flat-screen CRT display. Initially to be ZX Spectrum-compatible with a faster Z80

Sinclair Research

History

Founding and early years

Calculators

Development of the ZX80

Commercial success and home computers

Mid-1980s developments

Amstrad acquisition of assets

Spin-offs

Return to invention

Products

Cancelled projects

See also

Further reading

External links

References