Sinclair Research

Clearly under 21. No naked ladies for you.

If you'd like to try ZX Spectrum development, my dev container has the tools you need to get started in BASIC, assembly or C. Works in Windows, Linux and MacOS, and even works from your browser!

github.com/mcphail/spec...

A dusty ZX Spectrum computer.

Age verification question: How do you access the BEEP keyword?

No.. really? Any images of it?

New blog post - Measuring ZX81 Speed.
blog.tynemouthsoftware.co.uk/2025/08/meas...
Two very different techniques to see how much faster / slower / exactly the same the speed of ZX81 BASIC for Minstrel 4th is.

Or.. move house.

Up top, the credit "Tim Hartnell, Master Gamesman". Below, the caveat, "For most popular home computers that use basic." A green-and-yellow dragon with blue crest and pink wings curls around the title: "Creating Adventure Games On Your Computer"

Have you ever wanted to make a video game? on your OWN computer? Computer illuminary Tim Hartnell has just the book for you. (Source.)

Added some very basic interrupt code to my #zxspectrum 16k game of life implementation to cycle the border colour every 100 ticks (so 2 seconds PAL) regardless of how busy or slow the screen is, which is pretty cool #happyfriday github.com/adambient/zx...

Not sure if there will be any Sinclair goodies at the VFC in California tomorrow, but I'll keep an eye out for some!

Manually soldering a ribbon cable to the PCB on the underside of the keyboard connector. Fancy!

Last day. Don't miss out.

It's impossible to know the value of a moment until it becomes a precious memory..

‎ZX81 ‎Welcome to a taste of early 1980s home computing. This app focuses on the Sinclair ZX81 experience and is loaded with example software. Background: In 1980 the British company Science of Cambridge...

Try this:

apps.apple.com/us/app/zx81/...

Were you in the "I will continue to spend money expanding my ZX81 to add more and more features perhaps longer than I should have" camp, or the "bye bye ZX81 don't let the RAM pack hit you on the way out I've ordered a Spectrum after seeing one advert" camp?

Maplin Electronics sold this keyboard for the 81. It was bare bones and awful. Not sure what the ICs were for: some kind of data line buffering?

I had this keyboard for my #ZX81. It was $@?&.

No worries on that account...
chaos.social/@swetland/ta...

So it’s closer to the ZX80 apart from the ROM, video, keyboard, memory, character set, keyboard,.. ;-)

Nope.

You should never ignore the ZX80.

No lie.

Doing the lord’s work.

ZX History - July 1981: Hello, Currah…

READ: https://archive.org/details/your-computer-magazine-1981-08/page/n33/mode/2up #zxspectrum #retrogaming

The Feersum display at RetroFest 2025 - Z80 kit computers and a new graphics chip for 8-bit machines.

A quick picture from RetroFest 2025 - Showing off MicroBeast and VideoBeast. Going from a 24 character 14 segment LED display to a 848x480 video expansion for the ZX Spectrum.

(and, hi to the recent influx of followers - here be Z80's and unique custom hardware!)

A thin, bald white man in a business suit stands outside the University of Manchester holding a 1980s computer keyboard aloft

Genius triumphant? Sir Clive Sinclair (Daniel Thackeray) with his QL machine outside the University of Manchester, birthplace of computing. Together in Electric Dreams tour begins this Thursday! fatsoma.com/room-5064-pr...

TGIF

I think that sums it all up.

About as responsive as the real thing. And also capable of burning your fingers (that ZX81 heat sink, amirite?)

Definitely remember them!

They were 2D looking-down maze games, with more tactics and interaction than the 3D run away! run away! fear experience / game that was 3DMM.

We all had to start somewhere.. and the ZX80 was a great way to start.

It was in 16K of code. It couldn't even display that screen in 1K ;-)

It was an amazing time.