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SPECTRUM HISTORY PART 2

A STORY OF SURVIVAL Part 2

Originally published in Crash 79 - August 1990

Creator of our fave home computer, Sir Clive Sinclair is fifty this year. Last month we looked at how he started the ZX range of computers and now we complete the story: from the launch of the ZX Spectrum in 1983 up until the present day.

CHEAP AND POWERFUL SPECTRUM

The Spectrum hardware was designed by Richard Altwasser, and the software was adapted from the ZX-81`s by Stephen Vickers. The Spectrum had a new custom chip which could keep a colour display up yet hardly slow the processor at all - but a last-minute bodge was needed to make the keyboard work properly. This was the "dead cockroach" modification: a chip soldered on its back with its legs in the air!

At £125 for 16k, or £175 for 48k, the Spectrum was very cheap and powerful for its day. The 48k model seemed such a good deal that it sold eight times as well as the 16k model from the start, so a new version was produced - the issue 2 - which could hold 48k on one board. The issue 2 had blue keys rather than grey ones, to make the lettering on them easier to read under electric light.

Meanwhile Altwasser and Vickers left Sinclair to set up their own firm, Jupiter Cantab, selling a small fast computer that was a cross between a Spectrum and a ZX-80. Their Jupiter Ace flopped.

Sinclair refined the Spectrum again in 1983, making BEEP slightly louder, using a cooler logic array, and adding a minor tweak which unfortunately stopped lots of sloppily written games recognising the keyboard. This Spectrum was the infamous Issue 3.

Meanwhile in the USA...Timex was bemused by the success of the TMS-1000 and tried to follow it with a 16k variation, the TMS-1500. It flopped, so Timex came out with the TMS-2068 - a super Spectrum with graphics much like the SAM Coupe, sound like a Spectrum 128K. That flopped too, mainly because of competition in the US Market and poor software compatibility. Timex gave up in February 1984.

The rubbery Spectrum keyboard was universally hated, so Sinclair tried to develop something better looking. The result was the Spectrum Plus. Brilliantly, with the plus, Sinclair preserved total compatibility by using exactly the same circuits as in an old Spectrum, in a new box. And the Plus sold well for a while, though the routines to read the keys still insisted you pressed them one at a time - fine for rubber keys, but now frustrating.

THINGS GO WRONG

Sinclair had been putting off plans for a superSpectrum since 1982. He spent most of 1983 designing a portable business computer, but at the last moment a near-random collection of design features merged into the Sinclair QL. The QL was launched, designed, manufactured and made-to-work in that order.

In 1985 Sinclair`s main distributor, Prism, collapsed. The QL price was slashed in half. Sinclair, now a knight, was bust advertising electric tricycles. Robert Maxwell stepped, sniffed the air, and stepped out again. And by now the Spectrum was not considered sophisticated, even with the new keyboard. People began to demand more memory, interfaces and better sound. A mixture of new and TMS-2068 features were cobbled together to make the Spectrum Plus 128K. The money for the 128 came from Spain, so that's where it was launched.

In January 1986 the Spectrum Plus 128K was launched in the UK, in a desperate bid by Sinclair to look busy as debts piled up. But by March the bank had closed Sinclair`s accounts and the company staff were paid on the firms behalf by a large retailer who took stock in return.

OVER TO AMSTRAD

On April 7 1986, Amstrad bought the rights to make Spectrums, and to kill the QL, for just 5 million and also paid 11 million for the remaining stocks. Unconfirmed reports suggets that about 4 million standard Spectrums were produced by Sinclair research. And there must be about 500,000 128s in circulation, with the bulk of those being first-edition Amstrad Plus.

A few Sinclair staff moved to Amstrad and produced the Plus 2: a 128 in a new box with a cassette drive `glued on` as Amstrad boss Alan Sugar put it. A year later came the first true Amstrad Spectrum - the Plus 3, minus Sinclair chips and plus the disk system from Amstrads CPC range. The Plus-3 was a new design, not very compatible with the old Spectrum and its wealth of 48K hardware and software.

Sir Clive Sinclair went on to sell a portable computer called the Z88, designed by Jim Westwood and using the same Z80 processor as the ZX range. Latest reports indicate plans for a C-15 electric car...!

At the 1988 PC Show, Amstrad launched its own machine - the Sinclair Professional PC 200. The machine found many critics - mainly because no-one understood who it was aimed at - it wasn`t a good games machine (it features only four colours and, at basic starting price of around 350, is wildly expensive) and not powerful enough for a serious PC alternative. Not really Sinclair stuff at all.

THE SPECTRUM CLONED

Christmas 1989 saw the launch of the machine everyone was really waiting for - the Miles Gordon Technology SAM Coupe. 256K RAM, four colour modes, fast operating speed and compatibility with the majority of 48K Spectrum games. Initially the ROM chip was bugged, but in April, MGT delivered new ROM chips for users to fit themselves. By May 1990 the first signs of real software support were showing - Enigma Variations specially created SAM Coupe Defenders of the Earth was just a week or so off release. Things were really looking up, and hardware sales appeared to be good.


THE COMPLETE STORY

1983

JUPITER ACE
£80; spin off; 8K ROM, 3K RAM; Forth. Spectrum Keys/tape/display.

3,000,000 Plus Spectrum Issue 3s sold: new low power ULA, louder BEEP, runs cooler, no colour tweaks, key port incompatibility. Prices cut to £100/£130 (16K/48K).

TIMEX TMS-1500
$80; 8K ROM, 16K RAM; ZX-81 with better keyboard - a flop.

TIMEX TMS-2068
$150/$200; 24K ROM, 16K/48K RAM; paged in 8K lumps up to 256K. Improved BASIC sound and much better display, but very incompatible. UK PAL TV version never marketed.

1984

SPECTRUM PLUS
180; issue 3 circuits (with minor revisions) and extra RESET button; new box and keys.

1985

Spectrum Plus price cut to £130; 16K and rubber-key versions discontinued.

SPECTRUM 128K
£180; 32K ROM and 128K RAM, in 16K pages; RGB; old box and chunky heat sink; no key-words; three channel sound, clumsy screen editor; MIDI/serial port; funded by Investronica.

1986

SPECTRUM PLUS 2
£140; the old 128 in a new box, with better keyboard and cassette unit `glued on`; 250,000 sold in first year; the first Amstrad Spectrum.

1987

SPECTRUM PLUS 3
£249; 3-inch disk; AMSDOS in 64K ROM; first radical re-design since 1982. Earlier 128s were more compatible with existing hardware and software than the Plus-3 - they had extra features just bolted on rather than built in. Spectrum Plus 3 price cut to £199 - some stores discount further to £180.

1988

SPECTRUM PLUS 2 (revised)
64K ROM, 128K RAM; outwardly as older Plus 2s but less compatible inside.

SINCLAIR PROFESSIONAL PC 200
16-bit processor 8Mhz 8086, 512K RAM, One 3.5 inch 720K disk drive. Medium resolution CGA graphics 320x200 pixels in four colours. Never hit big-time.

1989

SAM COUPE
MGT launches the SAM Coupe. The new British computer offering compatibility with the majority of Spectrum software.

1990

Amstrad hold a secret conference in France, with major announcements expected

To be continued....?


[Contents] [Part 6] [Part 8]