The Sinclair ZX80 costs only $200, yet it has the performance of units two or three times as expensive, the maker claims. A reduced number of parts and simplified construction help keep the price down, Sinclair says. One big cost cutter is a touch-sensitive keyboard. The standard alphanumeric layout provides single-stroke entry of 22 commands and statements such as RUN, INPUT, and PRINT. No shift is needed, since these key words follow a line number and are anticipated.
Aside from eliminating some tedious typing, this relieves the Random Access Memory (RAM) of that function. Thus a small, cheap 1K RAM can do the work of 4K bytes in other computers. Another advance is a single powerful Read Only Memory (ROM) containing the basic language interpreter, character set, operating system, and monitor. The Z-80 microprocessor handles the video display for the first time on a single chip. The 12-ounce ZX80 has no video console, but plugs into the antenna socket of any color or black-and-white TV for monitoring. The display is black on white for unusual clarity, and consists of 24 lines of 32 characters each.
Every statement line is entered at the bottom of the screen, where it is automatically checked for syntax, with any errors identified by a special marker so they can be corrected. Only faultless lines can be added to the program list at the top of the screen.
An ordinary cassette player stores programs. The British company has some prerecorded ones, and U.S. software is also acceptable. A printer and extra memory capacity are also available. Other languages are planned, with changeover made easy by a flexible overlay for the touch keyboard.
For more information, write to Sinclair’s U.S. office, 50 Stanford St., Boston, Mass. 02114.