| american market |
Robin Bradbeer reports from the U.S. on the latest developments in the market
TIMEX, the company which manufactures the ZX-81 and Spectrum in the U.K. and which has the right to market Sinclair projects in the U.S. and Canada, announced the launch of the U.S. version of the Spectrum at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The TS2000, as it will be known, is an upgraded version of the Spectrum. Timex has taken the original Spectrum ROM and is in the process of re-writing it, taking out most of the bugs which have been identified by people like Ian Logan in the U.K.
At the same time, a number of Basic commands have been taken out of the ROM and, therefore, off the keyboard. For example, ATN, ACS and ASN have been removed, as have IN and OUT and the £ sign. A number of new functions will appear on those keys, including AUTO line number, RENUMber, line delete and a number of useful editing functions.
At the same time Timex plans to provide another port on the side of the Spectrum which will take ROM cartridges of between 4K and 32K. Those cartridges will contain games programs, business software and the like. It will allow software to be entered without needing a cassette player. Timex also announced a new printer for both the ZX-81, or TS1000 as its known in the States, and the Spectrum. The size of the printer, known as the TS2040, is slightly larger than the ZX printer. Instead of using electrically-coated paper, however, the TS2040 uses a thermal print mechanism. That is much quieter and far easier to read than the mechanism used on the ZX printer.
The prices of the 16K and 48K versions of TS2000 are $149.95 and $199.95 respectively. The ROM-based cartridges will sell for $29.95 each and the price of the TS2040 printer is $99.95.
Timex has also announced that it is reducing the price of the TS1000 which, unlike the ZX-81, has 2K of RAM as standard, to $84 for the next three months. That $15 reduction in the retail price brings down the TS1000 to approximately the same price as the ZX-81 in the U.K.
The pricing differential between the U.K. and the U.S. is much greater when the prices of the Spectrum and the TS2000 are compared. The 16K TS2000 at $149.95 is equivalent to £93.70 at the current rate of exchange and the 48K version is £124.96. As that is for an enhanced version of the Spectrum, it is possible to speculate that there may be a corresponding price reduction in the U.K. in the near future.
Timex has so far sold more than 600,000 TS1000s in the last nine months in the U.S. alone. The machine now accounts for something like 26 percent of the total number of home computers in the States. At the Consumer Electronics Show, Commodore showed, in a very flashy glass booth, its one-millionth Vic 20. The claim that it was the first computer to be produced in such quantities was disputed vigorously both by Clive Sinclair and Dan Ross, his opposite number at Timex. They claimed that more than one million ZX81/TS1000s had been sold by last November.
Sinclair Research had a separate stand at the exhibition and announced formally to the Americans the introduction of the Microdrive, Expansion Module and Prestel adapter. All those peripherals were said to be available during Spring of 1983. The company also announced, for later introduction, a proportional spacing software program which will allow for a 64-character-per-line display. That heralds the addition of word processing capability.
A number of companies have set up in the U.S. selling British software. One is Mindware, a manufacturer of peripherals and software for the Timex-Sinclair computer system, and a U.S. distributor for an extensive library of business, engineering, programming and games software titles. The titles have been republished, with new packaging and documentation appropriate for mass merchandising channels.
| 'New printer is quieter and far faster than the ZX-printer' |
Many software distributors were envious of the fact that British software could be sold in a simple plastic case with a paper or card insert. The Americans like things in bright, flashy and rather large packaging. That adds about 50 pence to the cost of the software and as it sells for the same price as in the U.K. it means less profit.
Mindware has announced an enhanced version of its MW-100 plain paper printer. The new model, the Sidewinder, is a dot matrix printer which can reproduce material up to 132 characters wide. It also prints in several other modes, including 16-character wraparound and a 32-character line-for-line printout of the Timex-Sinclair screen display. The full screen display is 32 characters wide by 22 hues deep.
The MW-100 was designed to use standard 1¾ in. adding machine paper tape and ribbon cartridges and is the only plain-paper dot-matrix printer made for the Timex/Sinclair. The MW-100 has a suggested retail price of $139.95.
Softsync is the biggest independent producer of software for the TS1000. When the ZX-81 began to be sold in the U.S., Softsync had tailor-made programs for the Timex line of software. By the time it was on the retailers' shelves it had an exciting line of software of its own.
Softsync announced new program releases at the show such as the master chess game, educational programs and new arcade-style computer games.
Another company, Orbyte, has produced a range of six new programs for the small business including Execu-Diary and Execu-Address and a telephone file called Execu-Soft.
Finally, the Far East is beginning to make Sinclair lookalikes. The Futura 8300 being distributed in the U.S. by Unisonic looks like the Spectrum but is basically a ZX-81. It runs Sinclair software, takes Sinclair peripherals, and is the same price as the Sinclair.
With its rubberised keyboard, like the Spectrum, it could be the forerunner of a series of lookalikes. Sources inside Sinclair do not take the threat lightly and any unauthorised copies such as this will be "dealt with". Apple has been hunting vigorously the 30-odd Taiwanese companies producing Apple at one-third the U.S. price and we can expect Sinclair to start doing the same.