#@company@# A British microelectronics developer and manufacturer. Evolving from Sinclair Radionics in 1979, Radionics produced electronic components and devices (such as calculators and pocket radios and televisions), but Sinclair Research began by producing some of the first 8-bit home Sinclair produced five microcomputers from 1980 to 1987, all 68000). The 1K kit-build ZX80, introduced in 1980, was followed by the 1K ZX81 (expandable to 16K) in 1981, the 16K (expandable to 48K) ZX Spectrum in 1982 (then superseded by two distinct 48K models and a 128K model in 1986) and the QLbanner. Of them all, the ZX Spectrum was the best known, and it went on to become the most popular microcomputer of its time in the United Kingdom and in many other territories. This was partly due to its ease of use, and also due to its enormous "mine's-better-than-yours" battles were fought (and still are who had the best machine. Sir Clive's financial problems in the mid-80s led him to sell the rights to the Sinclair brand to Amstrad in April 1986. This led to further models of the Spectrum being released from 1986 to 1988 and also an IBM PC-compatible based internally on Amstrad's own PC range. Sir Clive was not involved with the production of these computers, and no computer with the Sinclair name has been produced since. (1998-12-09)
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