Sinclair Research

Sinclair Research Ltd was a British consumer electronics company founded by Clive Sinclair in Cambridge in the 1970s. In 1980, the company entered the home computer market with the ZX80 at £99.95 (equivalent to £429 in 2025), at that time the cheapest personal computer for sale in the United Kingdom. A year later, the ZX81 became available through retailers, introducing home computing to a generation, with more than 1.5 million sold. In 1982 the ZX Spectrum was released, becoming the UK's best selling computer, and competing aggressively against Commodore and Amstrad. A combination of the failures of the Sinclair QL computer and the TV80 pocket television led to financial difficulties in 1985, and a year later Sinclair sold the rights to its computer products and brand name to Amstrad. Sinclair Research Ltd continued to exist as a one-man company, marketing Clive Sinclair's inventions.