Vital Statistics

The Sinclair ZX80 is often regarded as the machine that launched the personal computer revolution. Sir Clive Sinclair introduced the ZX80 out of his then new company, Science of Cambridge (later to be renamed Sinclair Computers Ltd, and eventually Sinclair Research Ltd) on 29th January 1980.

The ZX80 came with a 4K ROM built-in which held the BASIC interpreter, and 1K RAM, expandable to 16K. Offered in kit form (£79.95) or ready-built (99.95), it was the first home computer to hit the sub-£100 price. The ZX80 came with a power supply, RF lead to plug into a standard television, two tape leads for saving/loading to an ordinary household cassette recorder, the user manual, and a test program sheet, which you could type in to see what the ZX80 could do!

Two "RAMpack"s were available for the ZX80 - initially just a white 1K-3K RAMpack was offered. Later, when the price of memory chips dropped, a black 16K RAMpack was made available.

When the ZX81 was introduced, Sinclair offered an upgrade kit for existing ZX80 users. This kit comprised a new ROM chip (8K capacity to replace the 4K ZX80 original one), and a newer keyboard overlay with fitting instructions.