Media File: 1983
Sinclair in the News

Financial Times
January 18, 1983

Another winner for Sinclair

By Colin Inman

TO MANY people Clive Sinclair appears to be God; others, however, might prefer to call him Mud. In the first category come many of the million or more people worldwide for whom he has made the world of personal computing available at a cost which only a few years ago would have seemed inconceivable. In the second category come some of those who ordered Sinclair's new computer, the Spectrum, on its launch last year, only to suffer delivery delays of, in some cases, three months.

These delays have now been overcome, according to Sinclair Research, and the Spectrum, currently being produced at a staggering 40,000 units a month, is well on its way to enpulating the runaway success of the best-selling ZX81 computer, more than 500,000 of which are in use worldwide.

Admiration

After using a Spectrum for six months I can only express admiration for the technology packed into this little box, which measures only 233 x 144 x 30 mm. It has proved easy to program, despite a rubber membrane keyboard which tends to deter touch typists; and in spite of (or perhaps because of) its single key keyword entry system: type "p" at the beginning of a line of instruction, for instance, and the computer types 'PRINT' on on the screen; this is considered a convenience by some - me, for example - and a nuisance by others, but it saves on computer memory and certainly helps beginners to learn to program correctly.

With some 200 different functions and letters to be packed on to only 40 keys, learning the Spectrum keyboard might seem a daunting task but, as many parents will have already noticed, it only takes a bright 10-year-old a few hours to master it. The free tape that comes with the Spectrum contains an excellent keyboard trainer.

The computer comes with either 16 or 48 kilobytes of user available memory, at £125 or £175 respectively: I would recommend the larger version for its ability to hold sensible quantities of data, to play good versions of chess programs and complicated Adventure games. Its language is Basic, in a widely used implementation, while other languages will become available; its high resolution graphics are excellent, its use of colour adequate and its sound is quiet. This latter point may be an advantage to people who perfer their homes not to sound like an amusement arcade.

The Spectrum's user definable graphics allow you to design your own space invaders, for example, and save them on tape for future use. It loads and saves programs reliably, using even the cheapest of protable tape recorders.

Where the Spectrum scores most strongly over the competition, however, is in the sheer profusion - and cheapness - of both add-on hardware and software available for it.

A widespread industry has grown up to back up the Sinclair products, making games, utility and educational programs, as well as such things as sound boxes, add-on memory packs, drawing aids, joysticks for games playing, and so on. In general, these are cheaper than their equivalents for other similarly priced computers.

Also promised for the early part of this year is the ZX Microdrive - a microfloppy storage device which will allow the storage of 100k bytes of memory on a single disk and which is expected to sell for around £40.

During its two years on the market, the Sinclair ZX81 has had to face little competition so far from similarly priced machines. With the Spectrum, the situation will be different: computers costing £200 or less are already on the market or promised from Commodore (Vic models); Acorn (Electron); Oric; Dragon; Camputers (Lynx); Atari; Lowe Electronics (Colour Genie); Jupiter (Ace); Tandy; and Texas Instruments.

There seems little doubt that the Spectrum will remain well up among the leaders in this market for the next year or two but to stay ahead of the field Sinclair may well find that it needs to tighten up on reliability - some of the early. Spectrums have been suspect - and on its rather quirky sales and service arrangements. Sinclair tried to charge me twice for my Spectrum; presumably consumed with shame, they then tried to make two refunds!