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The ZX81 was the second of Sinclair's forays into the home computer market, much more successful than their previous attempt, for this small, sleek, black machine was more powerful than its predecessor, though it shared many similar traits.
Both machines had 1K of RAM, though this was expandable to 16K for the ZX81, and both featured the somewhat unique few-key entry of key words. For example, the PRINT command was a single keypress, instead of typing out the word PRINT, making it less difficult to enter incorrect or invalid code.
The ZX81 shows some of the most clever programming ever seen, to keep the code within the original 1K limit, as well as being inventive, since the machine had no real graphics capability. However, the ZX81 was still technically outclassed by those around it, for it had no graphics or sound capabilities, but like the ZX80, it was still affordable by the general people, and hence became popular.
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"Spectrum" was the name to grace several models of machine between 1982 and 1987. The original "Spectrum" released in 1982 featured much that was not built into the ZX80 or 81, including colour and limited sound capabilities, and this levelled the competition between the Sinclair machines and the BBC, for the BBC was technically superior and had an established amount of software, which the Spectrum was far more affordable.
Like its predecessors, it worked by using a 4MHz Z80-A processor, and it had 16K of RAM, expandable to 48K, the limit of the processor. 1984 saw the release of the Plus model, the same as the original Spectrum, issue 2, but with a larger, proper keyboard instead of the infamous rubber one. 1985 saw Amstrad buy out the computing division of the ailing Sinclair computers branch, and released a 128K machine.
Amstrad followed it up with the Spectrum +2, which including a built-in tape deck, purely for loading and saving of programs. In 1987, the final Spectrum was released, including a 3" disk-drive, as per Amstrad's design, though after a slight increase in sales, Sinclair never more machines.
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It has been said that Sir Clive Sinclair made the home computer industry with his systems, which would not be far from the truth.
In 1980, he released the ZX80, a machine a little less capable than some of those at the time, but at a price affordable for those who wished to get into computing. 1981 saw the release of the ZX81, a far more capable machine, but still at an affordable price, though still overshadowed by those around it, most specifically the BBC machines, which had colour and sound as standard (while the ZX81 did not).
1982 saw the advent of the Sinclair Spectrum, a machine which almost 'made' the home computer industry, for it kick-started demand within the industry, since it was about as capable as the BBC machines, but at a third of the price, which made it more popular, although the BBC had a long-established home in education in the UK. Even today, the Spectrum is still considered popular, in a sense, since it is often the machine for which emulators are the most common, and software equally so.
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The ZX80 was the first of three machines released by Sinclair Systems in the 1980s, which 'made' the home computer industry, at least in the UK.The white-cased machine was not overly capable, indeed, its list of features might be considered small, when compared to the main machines of the day, most notably the BBC, which featured colour, sound and the ability to manipulate non-integer (non-whole) numbers.
Like most of the machines of the day, the ZX80 relied on conventional cassette tapes for the saving and loading of programs, though for its 1K memory, programs would not be overly large anyway. However, the release of the ZX80 proved to Sinclair that there was a market for home computers produced by his flailing company (after the much ridiculed Sinclair C5 miniature car).
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