20 Aug
2006
20 Aug
'06
4:53 p.m.
At 14:51 20/08/2006, Tim Shoppa wrote:
I did a google search and looked on Wikipedia but some
of the details
there do NOT match my memory. They say there were only 50,000 ZX80's sold
and this seems to be a ridiculously low number for a mass-market
machine sold through many different channels. They say that the Sinclair
brand was only in the UK and this does not match my experience of having
bought one in the US (or the
ads in 1980 Radio-Electronics). But this was 26 years ago, so my memory
isn't exactly sharp either!
Are you sure you are thinking of the ZX80 - flat and white with a
hump at the back - and not the ZX81 (squarer, black)?
The ZX81 (and then the ZX Spectrum) was indeed mass-market, sold here
by major high street chains and definitely under the Timex brand in
the US. My only experience of seeing the ZX80 was in a few magazine
adverts as purely a mail-order kit, but with built ones
available... The ZX81 was only a year later.
I bought and built the ZX81 kit, and only later inherited the ZX80 I
still have. I really wish I'd not got rid of the '81 now - I had
several, in the end, with loads of accessories, and I swapped it all
for something so inconsequential that I can't even remember what it was, now..
Rob