Z80 @ 3.25Mhz - 4KB ROM - 1KB RAM (Upgradable with 1,2,3 & 16KB RAM Packs) 

The ZX80 marked the beginning of the home computer market. Produced in 1980 (hence the ZX"80") from a project started in 1979 from Science of Cambridge.

Designed by Rick Dickinson, some feel the look of the ZX80 pretty much carries on throughout the whole Sinclair Spectrum series. Rick, who owns his own design company now, has won awards for the design of the ZX80 & ZX81 and also owns the two patents for their design (ZX80 here and ZX81 here .)

The ZX80 was an important leap into the home market, with previous computers only really available to the very rich, or the business customer. Now, truly with a machine that cost under £100 (and under £80 if obtained in kit form) it was within the reach of almost everyone. The compromise for this cost was the keyboard & hardware.

The ZX80 came equipped with a Z80 CPU, running at 3.25Mhz, 1K of RAM and the ability to plug it into your TV set. The computer could only produce black and white graphics, which were very blocky, and also had no sound capability. The ZX80 would also be unable to to update the screen if it was doing anything else. So even if you typed a key, a "flicker" would be noticable. This was to be known as "Fast" mode in the ZX81 - which provided a solution to this problem. That all being said, the ZX80 still put the power of computing within everyone's grasp - and was also the first time the Spectrum BASIC programming language was introduced. This version of BASIC used "Keywords" which were on the keys themselves to type various commands. Whilst in Keyword mode, for instance, the letter "L" would produce the BASIC keyword "LET". Confusing to start with, this shorthand way of programming would stick with the series, right up until the ZX Spectrum+ 128 - and even then a faithful 48K mode complete with "Keywords" could be selected.

The ZX80 ceased production in 1981, ready for it's slightly more grown up brother, the ZX81. Reports indicate that Sinclair had sold more than 100,000 units of the ZX80, both home and abroad.

Image sources: Public Domain & Planet Sinclair