A few days ago (July 1993) WAILOU, Stan Horzepa, the QST columnist, sent me two articles from his local newspaper based on interviews from ex-Timex employees who offered various reasons why Timex withdrew from the computer business. One of the reasons Stan is interested in our computers, aside from his collection of QZX issues, is that the Timex corporate headquarters occupies half of the building in which he works.(he thereby gets a fabulous discount on all Timex watches.)
These articles were the result of a recent announcement that Timex would close its plant in Dundee Scotland which made the Sinclair computers. I found it very interesting to read the quotes in the stories and to try to decide if I agreed with them. here is a list of the more thought provoking quotes.
Susie Watson, current advertising and public relations director for Timex.
“Nobody gets ahead without making mistakes. We learned from our mistakes, and so we are not still in computers.”
Tom Brown, former director of international purchasing at Timex
“It was a right idea that was before its time. People didn’t look at it as a computer. They didn’t know what to do with it. They (Timex) didn’t have the right distribution network and didn’t have the next step. They were pioneers stranded out there in the middle of the desert.”
Susan Tolhurst, former Timex manager of technical support.
“Timex was sluggish in its approach in a fast-paced market.”
The first quote indicates why Timex withdrew. The bottom line was that they did not make enough money. The article alluded to research and development expenses, and there were development expenses. The TS2068 was noticeably superior to the equivalent Spectrum model. You can be sure that if Timex were making a big profit they would not have left the computer business.
What of some of the other quotes? “It was before its time?” Nonsense. Sinclair made his reputation (and his fortune) on bringing advanced technology to the people at a reasonable price. Unfortunately to keep the price down he had to cut some corners. sometimes the cut was well placed, sometimes it wasn’t. (See table at the end of the article for some of my estimations of what was right and wrong for some of his projects.)
Well then why did the Sinclair computer line fail? The short answer is that it did not fail. With the ZX81, he hit the jackpot. It was the right product, at just the right time, and at an excellent price. It can be argued that the ZX81 was the best selling computer of all time.
The Sinclair computers did not fail; Timex failed and the clue is in some of the quotes. “Timex was sluggish in its approach They … didn’t have the next step.” As in all attempts explain to past happenings these quotes oversimplify a complicated subject, but consider your attraction to our computers.
I don’t know about you, but I know what instantly attracted my attention. It was the offer of a useful, high tech piece of equipment at a cost almost an order of magnitude (for those more arithmetically minded, a factor of 10) lower than the closest alternative.
It did not matter that it had a membrane keyboard, that it connected to a TV set, or that programs were stored on tape. (Remember the Apple and early IBM’s all had tape interfaces.) I got an excellent education in the field of personal computers from the first of my many Sinclair machines.
But why has the readership of QZX fallen off? Why do most of our readers not use their Sinclair computers as much as they formerly did? The answer to me is that the Sinclair line did not grow as fast as I did. The area where Sinclair’s cut was first felt was that of mass storage. The tape system was slow and unreliable. Sinclair (or Timex) never did come out with a disk drive and consumers have shown that they are willing to pay a price for convenience and reliability. Apple and IBM never made much use of their tape interface. Sinclair tried with his QL microdrive, but that innovation was too late. The Sinclair computer never got a good monitor or printer either until the advent of the QL. But by then the MSDOS machines had pretty well taken over. Now it is hard to get even a used Sinclair system for the price of an MSDOS machine which has access to much more sophisticated programs.
So are Sinclair machines dead? Of course not. They are ideal for building computer literacy in young people at very little cost. Some people have, over the years, built up systems which just cannot be replaced with a reasonable amount of money. They are ideal for dedicated machines around the ham shack to run packet TNC’s, for use with CW and RTTY, and to run software programs for logging, QSL’s, and satellite tracking.
I would like to hear from you. Do you have any comment on my comments? What important ideas have I left out? What is the most useful thing you do with your Sinclair? Drop me a card.
The table at the end of the page is the list of Sinclair innovations and the most important corner cuts as promised near the beginning of this article. The key quantity of every Sinclair project was cost. If he could not offer a product cheaper than anybody else, he was not interested. So the first advantage of all the products below was low cost, hence it is not listed explicitly.
Making up this table brings a further point to mind. Sinclair was concerned with size also. The list of advantages does not do justice to his efforts. The price and size of his products were often an order of magnitude less than his nearest competitor. The differences were so great as to be almost revolutionary. However he had to hit the window of opportunity just right because his competitors, especially under his prodding, improved. Unfortunately Sinclair did not always improve with them. Thus his products tended to have a short life.
| Product | Main Advantage | Main Disadvantage |
|---|---|---|
| Hi Fi systems | size | limited distribution |
| Wrist watch | LED display | |
| Trig calculator | size | slow |
| Digital multimeter | size | ate batteries alive |
| ZX81 | size | mass storage |
| QL | multitasking | mass storage |
| TV | size | picture quality |
| Z88 | size | compatibility |
| Electric car | size | low speed |