riding an X-Bike prototype in 1990 The ZX Spectrum was conceived and designed by engineers at Sinclair Research, founded by English entrepreneur and inventor
Clive Sinclair, who was well known for his eccentricity and pioneering ethic. On 25 July 1961, three years after passing his
A-levels, he founded
Sinclair Radionics to advertise his inventions and buy components. In 1972, Sinclair competed with
Texas Instruments to produce the world's first
pocket calculator, the
Sinclair Executive. By the mid 1970s, Sinclair Radionics was producing handheld electronic calculators, miniature televisions, and the ill-fated digital
Black Watch wristwatch. Due to financial losses, Sinclair sought investors from the
National Enterprise Board (NEB), who had bought a 43% interest in the company and streamlined his product line. Sinclair's relationship with the NEB had worsened, and by 1979 it opted to break up Sinclair Radionics entirely, selling off its television division to
Binatone and its calculator division to ESL Bristol. After incurring a £7 million investment loss, Sinclair was given a
golden handshake and an estimated £10,000 severance package. He had a former employee,
Christopher Curry, establish a "corporate lifeboat" company named Science of Cambridge Ltd, in July 1977, called such as they were located near the
University of Cambridge. By this time inexpensive
microprocessors had started appearing on the market, which prompted Sinclair to start producing the
MK14, a
computer teaching kit which sold well at a very low price. Encouraged by this success, Sinclair renamed his company to
Sinclair Research, and started looking to manufacture personal computers. Keeping the cost low was essential for Sinclair to avoid his products from becoming outpriced by American or Japanese equivalents as had happened to several of the previous Sinclair Radionics products. On 5 March 1981, the
ZX81 was launched worldwide to immense success with more than 1.5 million units sold, 60% of which was outside Britain. According to
Ben Rosen, by pricing the ZX81 so low, the company had "opened up a completely new market among people who had never previously considered owning a computer". After its release, computing in Britain became an activity for the general public rather than the preserve of office workers and hobbyists. The ZX81's commercial success made Sinclair Research one of Britain's leading computer manufacturers, with Sinclair himself reportedly "amused and gratified" by the attention the machine received.
Development Development of the ZX Spectrum began in September 1981, a few months after the release of the ZX81. Sinclair resolved to make his own products obsolete before his rivals developed the products that would do so. Parts of designs from the ZX80 and ZX81 were reused to ensure a speedy and cost-effective manufacturing process. The team consisted of 20 engineers housed in a small office at 6
King's Parade, Cambridge. During early production, the machine was known as the ZX81 Colour or the ZX82 to highlight the machine's colour display, which differed from the black and white of its predecessors. The addendum "Spectrum" was added later on, to emphasise its 15-colour palette. Aside from a new
crystal oscillator and extra chips to add additional
kilobytes of memory, the ZX Spectrum was intended to be, as quoted by Sinclair's marketing manager, essentially a "ZX81 with colour". Chief engineer
Richard Altwasser was responsible for the ZX Spectrum's hardware design. His main contribution was the design of the semi-custom
uncommitted logic array (ULA) integrated circuit, which integrated, on a single chip, the essential hardware functions. Altwasser designed a graphics mode that required less than 7 kilobytes of memory and implemented it on the ULA. Vickers wrote most of the ROM code. Lengthy discussions between Altwasser and Sinclair engineers resulted in a broad agreement that the ZX Spectrum must have high-resolution graphics, 16 kilobytes of memory, an improved
cassette interface, and an impressive colour palette. To achieve this, the team had to divorce the
central processing unit (CPU) away from the main display to enable it to work at full efficiency – a method which contrasted with the ZX81's integrated CPU. The inclusion of colour proved a major obstacle to the engineers. A
Teletext-like approach was briefly considered, in which each line of text would have colour-change codes inserted into it. This was deemed unsuitable for high-resolution graphs or diagrams that involved multiple colour changes. Altwasser devised the idea of allocating a colour attribute to each character position on the screen. This ultimately used eight
bits of memory for each character position; three bits to provide any one of eight foreground colours and three bits for the eight
background colours, one bit for extra brightness and one bit for flashing. Overall, the system took up slightly less than 7 kilobytes of memory, leaving an additional 9 kilobytes to write programs – a figure that pleased the team. Much of the firmware was written by computer scientist
Steve Vickers from Nine Tiles, The keyboard was still undergoing changes as late as February 1982; some sketches included a roundel-on-square key design which was later featured on the later Spectrum+ model. The need for an improved cassette interface was apparent from ZX81 users who encountered problems trying to save and load programs. To increase the data transfer speed, the team decreased the length of tones that represent binary data. Originally, the team aimed for 1000
baud, but succeeded in reaching a considerably faster 1500 baud. To increase reliability, a leading period of
constant tone was introduced, allowing the cassette recorder's
automatic gain control to settle down, eliminating hisses on the tape. A
Schmitt trigger was added inside the ULA to reduce noise of the received signal. Unlike the ZX81, the Spectrum is able to maintain its display during data transfer, allowing programs to show a
splash screen whilst loading. As with the ZX81, the ZX Spectrum was manufactured in
Dundee, Scotland, by
Timex Corporation at the
Dryburgh factory. Prior to the ZX81, Timex was an established manufacturer of mechanical watches, but had little experience in assembling electronics. Timex's director,
Fred Olsen, determined that the company would diversify into other areas and signed a contract with Sinclair.
Launch The ZX Spectrum was officially revealed before journalists by Sinclair at the
Churchill Hotel in
Marylebone, London, on 23 April 1982. Later that week, the machine was presented in a "blaze of publicity" at the
Earl's Court Computer Show in London, and the ZX Microfair in
Manchester. The ZX Spectrum was launched with two models: a 16KB 'basic' version, and an enhanced 48KB variant. The former model had an undercutting price of £125, significantly lower than its main competitor the
BBC Micro, whilst the latter model's price of £175 was comparable to a third of an
Apple II computer. Upon release, the keyboard surprised many users due to its use of rubber keys, described as offering the feel of "dead flesh". Sinclair himself remarked that the keyboard's rubber mould was "unusual", but consumers were undeterred. Despite the improvements upon its British counterpart, sales were poor and
Timex Sinclair collapsed the following year.
Success and market domination A crucial part of the company's marketing strategy was to implement regular price-cutting at strategic intervals to maintain
market share. Ian Adamson and Richard Kennedy noted that Sinclair's method was driven by securing his leading position through "panicking" the competition. While most companies at the time reduced prices of their products while their market share was dwindling, Sinclair Research discounted theirs shortly after sales had peaked, throwing the competition into "utter disarray". Sinclair Research made a profit of £14 million in 1983, compared to £8.5 million the previous year.
Turnover doubled from £27.2 million to £54.5 million, which equated to roughly £1 million for each person employed directly by the company. Clive Sinclair became a focal point during the ZX Spectrum's marketing campaign by putting a human face onto the business. Sinclair Research was portrayed in the media as a "plucky" British challenger taking on the technical and marketing might of giant American and Japanese corporations. As David O'Reilly noted in 1986, "by astute use of public relations, particularly playing up his image of a Briton taking on the world, Sinclair has become the best-known name in micros." The media latched onto Sinclair's image; his "Uncle Clive" persona is said to have been created by the gossip columnist for
Personal Computer World. The press praised Sinclair as a visionary genius, with
The Sun lauding him as "the most prodigious inventor since
Leonardo da Vinci". Adamson and Kennedy wrote that Sinclair outgrew the role of microcomputer manufacturer and "accepted the mantle of pioneering
boffin leading Britain into a technological utopia". Sinclair's contribution to the technology sector resulted in him being
knighted upon the recommendation of
Margaret Thatcher in the
Queen's 1983 Birthday Honours List. The United Kingdom was largely immunised from the effects of the
video game crash of 1983, due to the saturation of home computers such as the ZX Spectrum. The microcomputer market continued to grow and game development was unhindered despite the turbulence in the American markets. Computer games remained the dominant sector of the British home video game market up until they were surpassed by
Sega and
Nintendo consoles in 1991. By the end of 1983 there were more than 450 companies in Britain selling video games on cassette, compared to 95 the year before. An estimated 10,000 to 50,000 people, mostly young men, were developing games out of their homes based on advertisements in popular magazines. The growth of video games during this period has been compared to the
punk subculture, fuelled by young people making money from their games. By the mid 1980s, Sinclair Research's share of the British home computer market had climbed to a high of 40 per cent. leaving many companies slashing prices of their hardware to anticipate lower sales. Despite this, celebration of Sinclair's success in the computing market continued at the
Which Computer? show in
Birmingham, where the five-millionth Sinclair machine (a gold coloured QL) was issued as a prize.
Later years and company decline , to mark the conclusion of the sale to
Amstrad in 1986 The ZX Spectrum's successor, the
Sinclair QL, was officially announced on 12 January 1984, shortly before the
Macintosh 128K went on sale. Contrasting with its predecessors, the QL was aimed at more serious, professional home users. Fully operational QLs were not available until the late summer, and complaints against Sinclair concerning delays were upheld by the
Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in May of that year. Particularly serious were allegations that Sinclair was cashing cheques months before machines were shipped. By autumn 1984, Sinclair was still publicly forecasting that it would be a "million seller" and that 250,000 units would be sold by the end of the year. QL production was suspended in February 1985, and the price was halved by the end of the year. It ultimately flopped, with 139,454 units being manufactured. The ZX Spectrum+, a rebranded ZX Spectrum with identical technical specifications except for the QL-like keyboard, was introduced in October 1984 and made available in WHSmith's stores the day after its launch. Retailers stocked the device in high quantities, anticipating robust Christmas sales. It did not perform as well as projected, leading to a significant drop in Sinclair's income from orders in January, as retailers were left with surplus stock. An upgraded model, the ZX Spectrum 128, was released in Spain in September 1985, financed by the Spanish distributor Investrónica. The UK launch was postponed until January 1986 due to the substantial leftover inventory of the prior model. While the Sinclair QL was in development, Sinclair also hoped to repeat his success with the Spectrum in the fledgling electric vehicle market, which he saw as ripe for a new approach. On 10 January 1985, Sinclair unveiled the
Sinclair C5, a small one-person
battery electric recumbent tricycle. It marked the culmination of Sir Clive's long-running interest in electric vehicles. The C5 turned out to be a significant commercial failure, selling only 17,000 units and losing Sinclair £7 million. It has since been described as "one of the great marketing bombs of postwar British industry". The ASA ordered Sinclair to withdraw advertisements for the C5 after finding that the company's claims about its safety could not be justified. The combined failures of the C5 and QL caused investors to lose confidence in Sinclair's judgement. In May 1985, Sinclair Research announced their intention to raise an additional £10 to £15 million to restructure the organisation, but securing the funds proved challenging. In June 1985, business magnate
Robert Maxwell disclosed a takeover bid for Sinclair Research through Hollis Brothers, a subsidiary of his
Pergamon Press. However, the deal was terminated in August 1985. On 7 April 1986 the company sold their entire computer product range, along with the "Sinclair" brand name, to
Alan Sugar's
Amstrad for £5 million. The takeover sent ripples through the
London Stock Exchange, but Amstrad's shares soon recovered, with one stock broker affirming that "
the City appears to have taken the news in its stride". Amstrad's acquisition saw the release of three improved ZX Spectrum models throughout the late 1980s. By 1990, Sinclair Research consisted of Sinclair and two other employees down from 130 employees at its peak in 1985. The ZX Spectrum was officially discontinued in 1992, after ten years on the market. == Hardware ==