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◈ALB Atlas

Sinclair ZX81 Dead

Sinclair ZX81
KindMachine
Introduced1981
Discontinued1984
StatusDead
ManufacturerSinclair Research
ClassHome computer
PlatformZ80, 1K RAM
Sourceen.wikipedia.org ↗

£49.95 as a kit — four chips total, a million sold. Whole careers began on a machine that displayed characters while the CPU wasn't busy, which was most of the time.

Created by Sinclair Research

The ZX81 (March 1981) cut the ZX80 to £49.95 kit — four chips total (Z80, ROM, RAM, ULA), 1K memory, and a display the CPU drew when idle. The wobble of a RAM pack was the era's shared frustration.

Over a million sold. The community's 1K software culture — chess in 672 bytes, 3D Monster Maze — proved what constraint produces; a generation of programmers traces its start to this membrane keyboard.

Sources

  1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81