4 ms·
Right. They were really simplified, and up against US economies of scale that meant less simple machines could be made at competitive prices. I think Timex's m
by unfocussed_mike 5y ago
Right. They were really simplified, and up against US economies of scale that meant less simple machines could be made at competitive prices.
I think Timex's main projection was that the Sinclair machines would be affordable over the long term. But I guess in the USA, the competition became cheaper much faster than they expected.
Over in the UK, as well as more expensive imported Commodore machines, the native competition included the very expensive BBC Model B and its cousin the Acorn Electron, the beloved and excellent Dragon 32, the quite inexpensive Jupiter Ace (think ZX81/Spectrum but running FORTH natively!), and Tangerine's Oric-1, which was adorable, and as with the Amstrad CPC sold well in France, expanding its market size a bit.
The Spectrum 48K did well against them on price-performance, though the Oric-1 was often cheaper and is arguably the better device.
In the USA, much larger economies of scale meant that the C64 was more affordable, and for cheaper machines the Spectrum was up against the VIC-20 and Atari 400, and even Mattel wanted a chunk of the low-end in that same period of time with the Aquarius (which is similarly simple Z80 stuff).
- krallja 5y agoBTW, the Jupiter Ace and ZX81 both have excellent iOS emulators, written by Kevin Palser.
- unfocussed_mike 5y agoAhh, nice. The Jupiter Ace is one of the great "someone really made that a product?" things, lost to history. It had a flimsy shell and bad keys from what I remember reading, but it's amazing it became a product at all. There's a lot more of this stuff going on again in the microcontroller world; perhaps partly out of reminiscence.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y agoDesigned by two of the people who designed the ZX81 and Spectrum. It was a nerd-fantasy product designed by two unusually clever people to scratch their own itch, with no thought to ecosystem, culture, media support, visual design, or product-market fit. And then it ran into production difficulties. They still managed to sell a few thousand, but it was never going to be a huge success. One of those unfortunate situations where high IQ - clearly available - didn't correlate with business sense.
- unfocussed_mike 5y agoRight. Really utter madness in so many ways but a thing of its time. I am reminiscing right now about two whole volumes of the Orbis collectible magazine, The Home Computer Course. I believe I have a complete set stashed away; it has amazing photos of the insides of all of these machines, including the Jupiter Ace.
- TMWNN 5y ago>I think Timex's main projection was that the Sinclair machines would be affordable over the long term. But I guess in the USA, the competition became cheaper much faster than they expected. The competition became cheaper much faster than anyone expected. The Timex Sinclair 1000's introduction in the US in 1982 caused the US home computer industry to believe that they had to enter the sub-$100 market. Tandy introduced the MC-10 (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_MC-10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_MC-10>) as a cut-down version of its Color Computer, and TI designed the 99/2 as a cut-down version of its 99/4A. Two unexpected things happened: * Americans, more wealthy than Britons or Europeans, viewed $99 computers as toys. * Commodore's Jack Tramiel began a massive price war that drove the retail price of existing, more capable home computers down to $99. In 1983 the Commodore VIC-20 and TI 99/4A reached the $99 price point. TI thus never introduced the 99/2 despite having it ready for production. The VIC-20 and 99/4A received substantial third-party support; the Timex Sinclair 1000 and MC-10 did not, and quickly disappeared from the market.