Sinclair Research Ltd was a home computer company founded by Sir Clive Sinclair in Cambridge, England. Sinclair's emphasis had always been on developing cheap, consumer-oriented electronic products that were quick to market and cheaper than their competitors. The home computer is a consumer-friendly word for the second generation of microcomputers (the technical term that was previously used), entering the market in 1977 and becoming common during the 1980s. ... Sir Clive Marles Sinclair (born July 30, 1940), is a British entrepreneur and inventor of, among other things, the worlds first pocket calculator, in 1962 and the beloved ZX Spectrum computer in 1982. ... The city of Cambridge is an old English university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire. ... Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (French: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population - Total (mid-2004) - Density Ranked 1st UK 50. ...

Background

Early companies (1961–1977)

On 25 July 1961 Sir Clive Sinclair founded Sinclair Radionics, a company developing hi-fi products such as amplifiers, speakers and radios, calculators and scientific instruments. Sinclair Radionics Ltd was founded by Clive Sinclair in Cambridge, England on 25 July 1961. ... High Fidelity is also the title of a book by Nick Hornby and a film directed by Stephen Frears, based upon Hornbys book. ...

In September 1973 Sinclair bought an shelf company called Ablesdeal Ltd so that he would be able to avoid the delay of incorporating a company if it became convenient for him to shift his ambitions away from Sinclair Radionics. A shelf company is a previously-incorporated company which can be purchased off-the-shelf. Its main advantage is that it already exists, and therefore the buyer does not need to spend much time setting it up. ...

This proved to be necessary when losses caused by delays in the Black Watch project meant Radionics had to seek extra funds to be able to complete a mini-TV project that had been in development for over 10 years. In February 1975, Sinclair changed the name of Ablesdeal to Westminster Mail Order Ltd, which was then changed to Sinclair Instrument Ltd in August 1975.

In August 1976 the National Enterprise Board bought a 43 per cent stake in Sinclair Radionics for £650,000. Finding it inconvenient to share control of "his" company, Sinclair encouraged Chris Curry, who had been working for Radionics since 1966, to leave and get Sinclair Instrument off the ground. The National Enterprise Board (NEB) was a government body set up in the United Kingdom in 1975 to implement the Wilson Labour governments objective of extending public ownership of industry. ... Christopher Curry was, along with Hermann Hauser and Andy Hopper, one of the co-founders of Acorn Computers Ltd. ...

Science of Cambridge (1977–1980)

In order to generate some cash, Sinclair Instrument quickly developed the Wrist Calculator, which sold in surprising numbers. In July 1977 Sinclair Instrument Ltd was renamed to Science of Cambridge Ltd. Around about the same time, Ian Williamson showed Curry a prototype computer based around a National Semiconductor SC/MP and some parts scavenged from a Sinclair Cambridge calculator. Curry was impressed and encouraged Sinclair to adopt this as a product; an agreement was reached with Williamson but no contract was ever signed - Nat Semi had offered to redesign the project so that it used only their components and they also offered to manufacture the boards. Categories: Electronics companies of the United States | Companies based in California | Corporation stubs ... The SC/MP from National Semiconductor was an early microprocessor, becoming available in early 1974. ...

Curry took Nat Semi up on its offer and in June 1978 Science of Cambridge launched a microcomputer kit (marketed as the MK14) based around the National SC/MP chip.

In July 1978, a computer project was got underway at Radionics. When Sinclair learnt that the NewBrain could not be sold at below the sub-£100 price that he envisaged, his thoughts turned to the ZX80. In May 1979 Jim Westwood got the ZX80 project underway at Science of Cambridge. The Grundy NewBrain was a microcomputer sold in the early-1980s by Grundy Business Systems Ltd of Teddington and Cambridge, England. ... The Sinclair ZX80 was a home computer brought to market in 1980 by Sinclair Research. ...

The Sinclair ZX80 was launched in February 1980 at £79.95 in kit form and £99.95 ready-built. In November Science of Cambridge was renamed to Sinclair Computers Ltd.

Sinclair Research (1981–present)

Home computers, QL, C5

One variant of the Sinclair ZX81

ZX Spectrum (1982)

In March 1981 Sinclair Computers was renamed to Sinclair Research Ltd (SRL) and the ZX81 was launched at £49.95 in kit form and £69.95 ready-built. The Timex computer was a Sinclair ZX81 variant with 2Kbytes of static RAM onboard This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... The Timex computer was a Sinclair ZX81 variant with 2Kbytes of static RAM onboard This image has been released into the public domain by the copyright holder, its copyright has expired, or it is ineligible for copyright. ... Download high resolution version (2168x1593, 439 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Download high resolution version (2168x1593, 439 KB) Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... The Sinclair ZX81 home computer, released by Sinclair Research in 1981, was the followup to the companys ZX80. ...

In February 1982 Timex obtained a license to manufacture and market Sinclair products in the USA under the name Timex Sinclair. In April SRL launched the ZX Spectrum, priced at £125 for the 16K RAM version and £175 for the 48K version. In July Timex launched the TS 1000 (a version of the ZX81) in the US. The term Timex can refer to: Timex Corporation - a large US manufacturer of watches timex (Unix utility) - a Unix utility tool used in the measurement of duration of shell processes This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Timex Corporation, best known for the production of clocks, watches, and other timepieces, attempted to enter the fledgling home computer market of the late 1970s and early 1980s with the Sinclair line. ... The Sinclair ZX Spectrum was a small home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research. ... The Timex Sinclair 1000 (TS1000) was the result of a joint effort between British company Sinclair Research and Timex Corporation in an effort to gain an entry into the rapidly-growing early 1980s home computer market in the United States. ...

In January 1983 the Spectrum was launched at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show. In September the Sinclair flat-screen pocket TV launched.

Towards the end of the year, Timex pulled the plug on the Timex Sinclair venture, which had failed to break the US market as expected. However Timex computers continued to be produced by several years in Western countries, and by Timex branch in Portugal, which launched improved versions of the Spectrum, capable of displaying more colors, and a better circuit design: the Timex TC 2048 (48K of RAM) and TC 2068 (128K of RAM, and a game emulation cartridge). Timex Portugal even developed and launched the FDD 3000, a special Floppy disk system, that didn't ever really got much acceptance from the market.

The Sinclair QL was launched in January 1984. By May SRL had taken 13,000 orders but had delivered only a few hundred. Fully working QLs were not available until late summer; Sinclair was criticised by the Advertising Standards Authority. The Sinclair QL, QL for Quantum Leap, was a personal computer system launched by Sinclair Research in January, 1984. ...

The Spectrum+ was launched in October and appeared on WHSmith's shelves the very next day. Retailers stocked the machine in large numbers in expectation of good Christmas sales, however it did not sell in the numbers expected and, because retailers still had unsold stock, SRL's income from orders dipped alarmingly in January.

Since the Spectrum had such a simple design, several clones were produced, in Brasil (TK family), Portugal (Timex), Russia, and the midle East. Nowadays, specialy in Russia, clones are still being produced with "modern" ehancements: faster Z80 clones, IDE drives, and more advanced video cards.

Despite all their limitations (or because of them), the Sinclair family of computers were a source of inspiration, and the revolution of IT technology to many European youngsters and to Europe itself.

The Sinclair C5 electric vehicle was launched on 10 January 1985. It did not sell in anything like the numbers hoped for and, on 13 August 1985, production stopped. The C5, combined with the failures of the QL and the flat screen, caused investors to lose confidence in SRL. Launched in Britain on 10 January 1985, the Sinclair C5 was a three-wheeled personal transport electric vehicle invented by Sir Clive Sinclair. ...

The sale to Amstrad (1986)

On 28 May 1985, SRL had announced that it wanted to raise an extra 10-15 million pounds to restructure the company. Given the loss of confidence in the company, this proved hard to find. In 1986, SRL sold its entire computer product range and 'Sinclair' brand name to Amstrad. This deal did not involve the company, merely its name and products. Amstrad Consumer Electronics plc, usually known as Amstrad, is a company formed in 1968 by Sir Alan Michael Sugar in the UK, and based in Brentwood in Essex, England. ...

Sinclair Research after computers

Sinclair Research Ltd continues to exist and its founder continues to work in research, recently inventing ear-piece radios and the Zeta range of add-on electric motors for bicycles. In 2003, the Sinclair ZA20 Wheelchair Drive Unit was launched, designed and manufactured in conjunction with Hong Kong's Daka Designs - a partnership which also led to the SeaDoo Sea Scooter, an underwater propulsion unit.

Recently, Sir Clive Sinclair announced that his company is to launch the A-Bike - anticipated for a number of years - in 2005. The A-Bike is claimed to be the lightest weight folding bicycle in the world, at around 11 lb, and features a novel method of telescoping which renders it compact enough to be carried in a bag or backpack. This too is a project developed with Daka. A folding bicycle is a type of bicycle that can be compressed to a smaller size, typically via folding one or more of the bicycles components. ...

Sinclair products were in some ways typical of British engineering of the period, sometimes huge successes, and sometimes embarrassing commercial failures. Some of Sinclair's products were also underdeveloped and occasionally unreliable - the calculator watch, for example, required so much power from its meager battery that the battery would often have expired by the time the watch was purchased. The ZX series of microcomputers, although fantastic commercial successes, were also well known for their various bugs and glitches with both software and hardware.

Sinclair's early products are now often highly sought after. A ZX80, for example, can fetch up to £200 in an online auction on eBay. The range of calculators are also extremely popular with collectors, as is the 'DIY' digital watch. The Sinclair ZX80 was a home computer brought to market in 1980 by Sinclair Research. ... The title of this article begins with a capital letter, due to Wikipedia capitalizing the first letter in article titles. ...

References

• Dale, Rodney (1985). The Sinclair Story. London: Duckworth. 184 pp. ISBN 0715619012.

External links

• Sinclair Research Corporate homepage
• The Sinclair Story (extract) (mirror site) – From the book by Rodney Dale (see References)
• Planet Sinclair – the Internet's biggest Sinclair-related archive
• Sinclair Nostalgia Products – An enthusiast's website containing a diverse collection of Sinclair-related material
• 'Move over Segway, I'm planning the C6' – By Jonathan Duffy, BBC News, 5 August 2003
• Computer History Museum - Museum of home computing and gaming.