Media File: 1981
Sinclair in the News

UPI
February 19, 1981

Miniature TV unveiled

A British electronics firm has unveiled a television set the size of a paperback hailed as a breakthrough in electronic design.

The set, measuring six by four inches and an inch thick, overcomes the main obstacle in miniature television design, the cumbersome "tube" which screens the picture. Sinclair Research of Cambridge, which demonstrated a prototype Wednesday, has perfected a "flat tube" for the four by two inch screen.

The set, which will sell for about $110, also incorporates an FM radio.

The mini television was designed by Clive Sinclair, a 40-year-old electronics engineer who is a pioneer in miniaturized design. He also designed and produced a matchbox radio, a pocket calculator and a $235 microcomputer.

"Perhaps the biggest breakthrough is that it can be produced cheaply," Sinclair said.

"The set will probably mean that televisions will move from being a domestic item to a personal one, rather like the radio did with the introduction of transistors."

The set will go into production at a watch company factory in Scotland, creating 1,000 new jobs. The television is expected to be on the market in 1982. It is designed to receive transmissions almost anywhere in the world and an American retail chain wants to buy 300,000 sets in the first year.