Sinclair ZX81

If the ZX80 cracked the door open for British home computing, the ZX81 of 1981 kicked it off its hinges. Cheaper, neater and far more successful, it became the machine that taught Britain to program. That sleek black wedge with its flat membrane keyboard is one of the true icons of the home-computer age.

The machine was designed to be small, simple and most of all inexpensive. This was achieved by using as few components as possible, and the machine used only four silicon chips, a marvel of engineering for the time. The trade-off was, of course, while it addressed several limitations of its predecessor, it was still incredibly limited. With only 1K of RAM, a monochrome display, no high-resolution graphics and a membrane keyboard, the ZX81 was very basic, but it retailed at £49.95 for a self-assemble kit or £69.95 assembled. In contrast, its closest-priced contemporary (the Acorn Atom) was £150 assembled.

The ZX81’s low price point made it one of the best-selling personal computers in the UK at the time. It laid the foundations for a generation of British computer users who were well-versed in coding, and was a key contributor to the emergence of a thriving home computing scene. Many British programmers and game developers got their start on the ZX81. Clever programmers even managed to bypass some of the machine’s limitations, for example, finding ways to display high resolution graphics. The Sinclair ZX81's role laid the groundwork for the growth of a community of tech-savvy individuals, fostering a passion for computing among young people, create thousands of software developers, and would build the foundations of the British computer industry.