Media File: 1983
Sinclair in the News

UPI
September 16, 1983

Sinclair unveils tiny TV to sell for under $100

Britain launched the cheapest, lightest, smallest tabletop television in the world Friday, ''a transistor radio with a picture'' that will sell for less than $100 in the United States.

The television with a 2-inch screen is smaller than a paperback book, will work in virtually any country in the world and has just two controls.

The price includes British tax. When it is launched in the United States next year it should sell for under $100, said the manufacturers, Sinclair Research. The television is the latest brainchild of Sir Clive Sinclair, a technical writer turned scientific inventor who is the whiz kid of Britain's microelectronics industry.

''It's a transistor radio with a picture,'' said Sinclair. ''I believe it and its successors, can achieve for television what the transistor did for the wireless.''

Sinclair, 43, launched the first miniature pocket calculator in Britain, collapsed financially with a digital watch project but jumped back again to become the world's largest volume manufacturer of personal computers.

He is also working on an electric car, more computer developments and the establishment of his own center for advanced technical research.

Sinclair was unperturbed that Japanese manufacturers are already selling miniature televisions in Britain. The Sinclair model is cheaper, lighter, and smaller than any of its tabletop competitors and uses around one-tenth the battery power, he said.

A Sinclair spokeswoman said a Japanese manufacturer had come out with a wristwatch television that was slightly smaller than Sinclair's tabletop model, but said the Sinclair set was more compact since it did not require the viewer to wear wires up his arm.

Learning from his failure with the digital watch when he launched a revolutionary product without the capacity for bulk manufacture, Sinclair held back on the television launch until he had a factory set up in Dundee, Scotland to keep pace with demand.

Two revolutionary features are the keynote to the set's design -- a breakthrough ''flat-screen'' cathode ray tube, coupled to a unique microelectronic chip which processes virtually every signal within the set automatically.

The only controls are a volume switch and a tuner to change channels. The microchip developed with Ferranti Ltd adjusts tone and contrast automatically. It will also adjust to different UHF frequency signals making it the first television that can be used in different countries in the world.

The television is powered by a new wafer-thin battery developed by Polaroid, giving 15 hours viewing for around $5.