How much memory does ZX81 have?

1 kiB
Sometimes though there just wasn’t much choice but to live with what you could afford, so buyers of Sinclair’s budget ZX81 computer had to put up with only 1 kiB of memory. The system bytes took up (by this writer’s memory) around 300 bytes, so user programs were left with only around 700 bytes for their BASIC code.

Who designed the ZX81?

Rick Dickinson
Rick Dickinson (c. 1957 – 24 April 2018) was a British industrial designer who developed pioneering computer designs in the 1980s. Notable examples of his design work include the ZX81 case and touch-sensitive keyboard and the ZX Spectrum’s rubber keyboard.

Why did the Sinclair QL fail?

ICL had put in R&D money for the QL, but ‘Sinclair Research failed to tell the company when it decided to change the main processing chip from the good old Z80 of the Spectrum. ‘ Misguided financially-motivated shortcuts. The company decided on a less-powerful version of the 68000 chip.

What could you do with ZX81?

it attached to your TV which it used as a monitor. it could be bought from shops in the high street like WHSmith. it had it’s own semi intuitive BASIC programming language that you could actually use. programs could be written, stored and retrieved from standard audio cassettes.

What did the ZX81 do?

The Sinclair ZX81 was small, black with only 1K of memory, but 30 years ago it helped to spark a generation of programming wizards. Packing a heady 1KB of RAM, you would have needed many, many thousands of them to run Word or iTunes, but the ZX81 changed everything.

What could you do with a zx81?

it could be bought from shops in the high street like WHSmith. it had it’s own semi intuitive BASIC programming language that you could actually use. programs could be written, stored and retrieved from standard audio cassettes.

What did Sinclair invent?

Sinclair C5Clive Sinclair / Inventions

What happened Clive Sinclair?

On 16 September 2021, Sinclair died in London following an illness related to cancer that he had for over a decade. He was 81 years old.

Why did the Sinclair C5 fail?

He has had great success, but also some disasters, the most notable being the C5 electric vehicle. The reasons for this failure are examined mainly from a marketing perspective. Sinclair ignored the basic principles of marketing and new product development, and thereby made a number of fundamental errors.

Who bought Sinclair computers?

Amstrad
The future of Sinclair Research remained uncertain until 7 April 1986, when the company sold its entire computer product range, and the “Sinclair” brand name, to Amstrad for £5 million.

Why choose the ZX81?

The ZX81 production line is a miracle of efficiency; after all, one is made every 10 seconds. They go through the most amazing quality control. Also we have a far lower component count than anyone else.

Who made the ROM for the ZX81?

Clive Sinclair re-commissioned a company called Nine Tiles, which had produced the ZX80 ROM, to develop the new ROM software for the ZX81. The code was written by John Grant, the owner of Nine Tiles, and Steve Vickers, who had joined the company in January 1980.

Who made the TK85 ZX81?

The TK85, an unauthorised ZX81 clone produced by Microdigital Eletronica of Brazil. Sinclair’s licensing agreement with Timex enabled the American company to produce three clones or offshoots of Sinclair machines for the US market.

What type of keyboard does the ZX81 have?

The ZX81 uses a standard QWERTY keyboard layout. The keyboard is mechanically very simple, consisting of 40 pressure-pad switches and 8 diodes under a plastic overlay, connected in a matrix of 8 rows and 5 columns. The ZX81’s primary input/output is delivered via four sockets on the left side of the case.