Timex Sinclair 1000

The Timex/Sinclair 1000 was available in stores in 1981 for $99. It was one of the earliest versions of the home computer and certainly the first affordable computer. It was about the size of a large calculator and had multi-functional bubble keys. It came with a whopping 2K of RAM. An earlier version of the machine only came with 1K! Of course, like all early computers, the Timex/Sinclair used your television as a monitor and programs or data were loaded from and saved to cassette tape. Next, the folks at T/S released a 16K RAM pack that plugged into the back of the computer and a small adding machine type printer. This module was very expensive but greatly expanded the functionality of the computer.

As you can imagine or may even remember, with 1K of memory and no hard drive the computer did not come with any pre-loaded games or programs. You could buy pre-programmed cassettes that had BASIC versions of popular games like Space Invaders. These cassettes required the 16K RAM pack to run. Each cassette package had a replica of the Timex/Sinclair 1000 keyboard printed on it and cost around $15. There were also several paperback books with BASIC programs that you could type in and run.

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