I have the main unit.
type computer
country UK
year 1980
os Sinclair Basic
cpu NEC 780C-1
speed 3.25 MHz
ram 1 KB
rom 4 KB
graphic 64 x 40 dots
colors monochrome
sound none
ports Z80 bus, tape, TV/RF
The Sinclair ZX80 — The Computer That Cost Less Than £100
Released in February 1980 at £99.95 in kit form (£119.95 assembled), the Sinclair ZX80 was the world’s first personal computer to sell for less than £100 — a price breakthrough that genuinely democratised home computing in Britain and beyond. Designed by Jim Westwood under Clive Sinclair’s direction, the ZX80 achieved this remarkable price through ruthless component minimisation: the entire computer used just 21 chips (later reduced to 4 with a custom ULA), including a Z80 processor at 3.25 MHz, 1 KB of RAM, and 4 KB of ROM containing a BASIC interpreter. Over 50,000 units sold in under a year.
The Price Revolution
Before the ZX80, the cheapest personal computers cost several hundred pounds — beyond the reach of most families. Clive Sinclair’s obsession with achieving the lowest possible price through innovative engineering and aggressive cost-cutting created a machine that, while primitive, brought computing within reach of a mass audience for the first time. The ZX80’s success proved that there was enormous latent demand for affordable computers, and directly inspired the wave of budget home computers — including the ZX81 and ZX Spectrum — that would transform British computing throughout the early 1980s.
The Membrane Keyboard and Flicker
The ZX80’s most notorious characteristics were its flat membrane keyboard — which provided no tactile feedback and required awkward key-by-key pressing — and its display flickering. Because the Z80 processor handled both computation and display generation, the screen went blank whenever the computer was performing a calculation. Despite these limitations, the ZX80 delivered a genuine BASIC programming environment that taught thousands of British enthusiasts their first programming concepts. Its historical significance as the machine that broke the £100 price barrier is unquestionable.