Tech Off the Shelf 7 - Timex Sinclair 1000

Tom pulls out his old Timex Sinclair 1000 (The US Version of the UK's Sinclair ZX81).

Love those ports!

[astralmarmoset]

Yay for random internet videos with Tom Merritt!

[yooper]

I have one that I got inlew of payment for some work I did for a friend. Haven't even tried to power it up. I do still have my Atari 800XL that I bought at the Air Force Exchange back in the mid 80s when I was stationed at Lowry AFB in Colorado. The Atari still works....love those old games!

[baTzilein]

Lovely. ZX81 was my first computer when i was 6 yrs old. Got the old computer from my dad when he got himself a Atari 600XL. Mine had a custom shell built by my dad and a (i think 16kb) RAM extension (soldered from 150€ worth of parts).

[DamianMehers]

Thanks Tom! This was my first computer, followed eventually by a BBC Model B. Learned to program on it (BASIC and eventually Z80 assembly).   Favorite games included 3D Monster Maze. I eventually bought the 16K Ram Pack and couldn't imagine what I'd do with all that extra memory.

Little did I know as I sat typing in programs from Sinclair User onto that membrane keyboard that it would eventually launch me into my career as a software developer (currently focused Wearables at Evernote).

[JayWestfall]

I had friend in high school who had one of these. I always wanted one. I loved the membrane keyboard. I like Tom did end up with a TI 99/4A instead.

[hylar]

Love the background on these, thanks!

[thoughts]

Awesome ! they were called the ZX 81 here in the UK.
I had the ZX Spectrum 48K, spent many an hour on it think I still have some of the games in the attic.

[AndyBeach]

I had one - my first computer! I had the port you could use to also store programs on cassette.

[RobertoBaca]

This was my first computer as well, had the 16 Kb expansion. I always kept my fingers crossed when saving to tape, could never be sure if things would actually load again.

There's a nice TS1000 emulator that I still like to play with from time to time.

[thomashynes]

Retail Cost $99.99 with 2K of memory built-in. Timex had several add ons The Timex 1015 to add 16K memory, the Timex Sinclair 2020 was a cassette system for storing and loading programs and data....the TS1000 was later upgraded to be the Timex Sinclair 1500 which had 16K memory and the Memory Module was compatible to add 32K, the Timex Sinclair 2068 was next, however, the Memory Module was NOT compatible

[KenFromchicago]

At first glance, it looks like a giant Blackberry with a more qwerty style keyboard--then I realized the giant black blank space above the keyboard was NOT a screen turned off.

[sinenominecc]

I remember it from Radio Shack. I just couldn't justify a $100 dollar expenditure for a computer that required a video input on my Hitachi CRT TV, which did not have one. And it was really slow. They had Flight simulator as a demo, and there was lag to beat the band. I figured I needed to wait until I could afford a real computer, , with a real 80 column dot-matrix printer and a real monitor. When I did get one, fourteen years later, it had Windows 95, 166 Mhz Pentium processor, an 8x CD-ROM drive, 3.6 G hard drive, and a HP Inkjet printer and a color monitor. At the time not bad. Now, not a watch.

[BenScott]

Hey Tom - remember that TRS-80 Pocket Computer I sent you from Australia? Ever... y'know... get it working?

[ctrlaltdelboy]

The US version of the ZX81, I much preferred my 48k ZX Spectrum aka the ZX82. I don't know if you got the ZX Spectrum in the US. or not but it was between the ZX Spectrum and C64 in the UK in the early 80's.

It was the Android and Apple Fanboy debates of its day.

[StrikitRich]

Didn't the higher end model allow you to use channels 3 or 4?