Sinclair ZX81 Conclusions

Conclusions

He's done it again. Uncle Clive has come up with a lovely product which will have enormous appeal to people wanting to find out more about computers, but without it costing them an arm and a leg. The idea of producing a superior machine to the ZX80 and selling it for a lower price is absolutely wonderful. I'm full of admiration for the man. Most people would have upped the spec and held the price ('It really hurts me to do this') or even in. creased it slightly. The product is clearly aimed at the horne market and I'm sure that it will do extremely well there, far better in fact than the ZX80. And that's rapidly becoming the biggest selling micro in the world!

People who are wondering about its relevance to business or serious work at home ought to sit down and do a few calculations on just how much information they need to hold and how they wish to access it. You could hold 100 or so names and addresses or keep track of around 600 financial transactions in one load of the 16k memory. These figures allow for a fairly simple entry and enquiry program in each case. By abbreviating information you can clearly cram more in. By splitting your information across several tapes you can build a substantial file of information but each tape would have to be managed by a separate version of the program.

If you know nothing about computers and you want to enjoy finding out about them, then this machine offers a value for money way of doing just that. Children will love the ZX81, there can be no question about that, and I suspect that more than a few people who are already familiar with computers will buy one, just to have a bit of fun.