1983 Winter Consumer Electronics Show

With the more-or-less permanent $15 rebate, the Timex Sinclair 1000 is still the low priced leader (suggested list $100 less $15 rebate equals $85). Common street price in the New York area is closer to $70 after the rebate.

If you’ve been reading Creative Computing faithtully, you saw our in-depth review of the Sinclair Spectrum introduced in England about a year ago. Now, Timex has brought it to the U.S. as the Timex 2000. It carries a list price of $149 for the 16K model and $199 for the 48K one.

The 2000 is an outstanding computer with 40 real keys, eight-color high resolution display (256 x 192 pixels), ten-octave sound channel (one of us can’t hear that much!), upper and lower case, and 16 graphics characters. Our only disappointment is that it does not have a space bar and thus, like the Aquarius, cannot be used for touch typing.

Timex also announced the 2040 printer, a 32-column thermal unit that uses white paper (not the silver stuff of the previous Sinclair printer). It works on both the 1000 and 2000 and costs $99.

Three manufacturers tried to lay claim to this award before we even announced it. Commodore, having just produced their 1,000,000th Vic 20 claimed to be Number 1. TI pooh-poohed that and claimed that the 99/4A had made them Number 1. Clive Sinclair was having none of it and claimed that he had been Number 1 for ages. Who is really Number 1?

In terms of sheer number of units, Sinclair is if you add together those sold under both the Sinclair and Timex names (which we think is reasonable to do). If you insist on just one brand, then the Commodore Vic 20 is the leader. By next year, who can say? Maybe TI will claim the Number 1 spot.

Back to Sinclair printers and peripherals. Mindware introduced one of the strangest devices at the show, the Sidewinder, a sideways printer for Sinclair computers. It is also available for the Vic 20, TI 99/4A, Atari and any computer with an RS-232 serial interface. Sidewinder uses 1-3/4″ adding machine paper with a dot matrix print mechanism that allows reproducing material wider than the computer display by generating a 12-line printout that runs lengthwise on the paper. Price of the MW-100 is just $139.95.

Data-assette showed several new add- ons and software packages for Timex/Sinclair computers (read all about them in the big SYNC directory issue). Also at their booth was the Jupiter Ace computer. While outwardly it resembles a Sinclair with real keys, inside it speaks Forth rather than Basic. Forth aficionados will tell you, usually with no prompting, that Forth is 10 times as fast as Basic, much more compact, and much more powerful. So it makes sense in a small computer like this one (3K).