Over twenty years ago a young Englishman, Clive Sinclair,left school at 17, got interested in electronic gadgets, and figured the world ready for his inventions. A hand held calculator was his first effort and it is on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. In early 1970 he marketted a do it your self digital “Black watch”.He then formed Sinclair Research with the idea of an inexpensive home computer,a flat screen TV and an electric car. Clive began selling the ZX-80, a white cased Z80 CPU,1K RAM with 4K ROM home computer for $199.95 here in the USA. As quick as it caught on, demands for improvements pushed out the ZX-81. Initially selling for $149.95, with a 8K ROM, 1K RAM and a 16K RAM for $ 99.95, the ZX-81 sold over 10000 a month. A do-it-yourself kit for the 81 sold for $99.95 . By July 1982 the prices started coming down, the 16K RAM sold for $49.95. Sinclair and TIMEX got together to sell in the USA. Up to this point the ZX80/81 had been sold thru the mail. The TS1000 which was a ZX81 with a 2K RAM sold for $99.95. The 1000 hit the market just before the 1982 Christmas season. Clive became a multi-millionaire with his world wide selling computers and he is reinvesting millions into his electric car dream.
November 16, 1982, a large group of home computer users responding to a sign up sheet at Brian Sternburg’ Unicorn Electronics, met at the Johnson City American Legion Post. I presented my ideas for the forming of a Sinclair computer user group, with no objections took the task of writing a charter and asking for volunteers to help with the task of creating a club. Jim Jones,wife Kathy, Al Henninger,Roger Pufky, Bridget Kermenec, Jerry Kendrick and Dean Kirlin meet with me several times to get a charter written, notify all of the charter meeting in December 1982. I read the charter and after some discussion, the charter was passed. I appointed officers to help me run the club until the elections set for May 1983. Dean Kirlin got out the first newsletter in January 1983. The first few months of SINCUS were plagued by a lack of volunteers,overloading a few we had and losing them to work or family commitments. We were fortunate to discover Wes Brzozowski, Dick Petrak, Dan Dodway who time and time again have given talks, written articles and added their support to the newly formed club.
The meetings started out rather formal with reports and all, but it became obvious that the people were here to learn about computers and the form and substance of the club just was time consuming. Over the next few months the meets were designed to put the computer up front and the mechanics of running the club left to Executive Committee meets.
SYNCmagazine which Ziff-Davis started as soon as the ZX80 caught on in the US was front runner as the mag of the users.SYNTAXa newsletter of first rate quality had started in
1980, the early days of ZX computing. In the spring of 1983, TIMEX-Sinclair User magazine made its debut and was off and running. Many of the articles were from its British cousin the Sinclair User.
During the first months the problem of loading programs in the 1000 was on everyone’s list. We put together a helpful hints sheet, members offered ideas on the nemsis to an otherwise simple yet complex tool in the computer age. It was not until February 1984 that Wes Brzozowski showed the problem to be in the alignment of the heads of the recorder. Uncorrected this problem will follow you into the 2068. Problems with over heating were corrected with the addition of holes, bigger and black heat sinks. Wobbling 16K RAMS were tied down with rubber bands and velcro strips. The Binghamton Library came to us for help with their new computer lending program. About 28 members signed up for a help list. As it turns out the only problems incurred are the wearing out of the user manuals and the power plug !
In April 1983 Gary Ennis joined and took over the task of running the newsletter. The newsletter went from the one or two pages I’d been trying to knock out to over 4 or 5 a month. Gary began trying to get a little advertising going for us to get even a bigger letter out.
Meanwhile in England Clive wasn’t sitting still with millions of ZX81-1000 being sold. His ZX Spectrum, a color computer, hit the English market in April 1982. With a Beep and colors and either 16K or 48K RAM the new computer could be hooked up to Micro-drives, small looped tape mini cassettes. Knighted by the Queen, Sir Clive was busy designing his business computer to take on the computer giants, the QL, Quantum Leap.
In May of 1983 the first elections were held and the results were:
Paul Hill – President
Bridget Kermenec – V President
Glenn Wilson – Treasurer
Wes Brzozowski – Rec. Secretary
Gary Cole – Financial Secretary
Richard Petrak – Trustee: Librarian
Gary Ennis – Trustee:Newsletter Editor
Our meeting locations from February to Jume were all over the map. From the American Legion in Johnson City, we traveled to the Vestal Library, to the Endicott Public Library,to the classrooms at Broome Community College, and to the ‘incubator’ at the Hooper Annex in Endwell. I hoped the membership wouldn’t get lost with all the shuffling and we made it intact but with a few bewildered users. Our membership reached a high point of 75 in May 1983. Again work loads took away some of our best workers. By the end of 1983 membership had fallen to less than 40.
The summer of 1983 at the Hooper Annex was a low point in attendance. Everyone that showed had something to demo, and we all looked at the equipment, sweated and went home. The TIMEX Corp was still coming out with the 2000 machine in the fall and the 1500 was a rumor. The future at this point looked confusing. When the 2068 was finally put on the market TIMEX didn’t seem to put its whole heart into advertising the new 2068. Still Gary Ennis and Carl Terry were first in line to get their 2068, hot off the assembly line, and they did in mid October. Our first anniverary of SINCUS saw the 2068 for the first time. It was a show that convinced several to go out and buy then and there. Many others wanted one too, but the price of $179.95 at Sears was just a bit too high. With the hisory of TIMEX machines selling for half price in less than nine months, many 1000 owners decided to wait until spring. Rumors of problems at TIMEXbe gan to surface late in 1983 and January of 1984. The rug was pulled out from under everyone in the last part of February, when the announcement came that TIMEX was no longer in the computer business. The third party support soon dried up. SYNC closed its doors, TIMEX-SINCLAIR USER never reopened after its December issue. Doom and gloom was the future. The only bright spot shining at that hour was the announcement that Sinclair was returning to the US to market the QL via mail-order.
Elections were held May 1984 and the results were:
Gary Ennis – President
Gary Cole – V. President
Glenn Wilson – Treasurer
Paul Hill – Rec. Secretary
Jerry Knickerbocker – Financial Secretary
Richard Petrak – Trustee
John Sims – Trustee
Well today is now the future of yesterday, we at SINCUS are still alive and computing. Our membership roles are up to over 65 members, 3 corresponding members and 1 subscribing user group with new members each month. The 2068 is now the main machine of SINCUS. The Tasman interface has opened up the full size printers for our use, the TASWORD 2 word processing program makes letters a joy to write. The modem for the whole series of computers for telecommunications has arrived with 2 at this writing to chose from. The 2040 printer, has been replaced by the Alphacom 32 at half the price of the TS2040. The availability of the ZX Spectrum ROM makes all the software (thousands of titles) runable on the 2068. The potential for disc use lies within reach. Already members are working on the interface for a disc drive. Our desire is not to see the use of the 1000 -1500 machines take a back seat to the 2068. What we need is the members who still use these machines to write about them, bring up your problems and use our library of 1000’s programs.
Currently the society is involved in telecommunications, a hardware project is in the works and classes in BASIC and machine code lanuages are underway. In additiom the club still has a tape library and a publication library. Sales of bulk blank tape and 2040 paper reduce the cost to members and help the treasury a little. In October the society is sponsoring a multi-user group meet for a computer to computer chess match. As of this writing, Atari, Commodore and CoCo-Radio Shack groups will be involved with us. Local area bulletin boards are opening up and local communication potential is being realized.
SINCUS is users. Users are people. The people are great. The fun and enjoyment of being with people who want to learn a new task or learn a new skill makes what might seem like work to others a lot of fun. Since we have in common a desire to learn more about the world of computing with our Sinclair machines, we also use this opporunity to network with others our expiriences good and bad in the mail-order business market in the hopes of saving others from bad programs,businesses and hardware. SINCUS swaps newsletters with a large number of very active user groups across the country. We also let a large number of businesses know that we are here and going strong. We get almost daily advertising for support for the Sinclair computer, programs, hardware and books thru our JC mail box. These ads and letters from users around the country are yours for the viewing at the monthly meets. Pen Pals with our corresponding members is encouraged.
ED NOTE-
Paul Hill was the founder, organizer, and the
President for the first two years of SINCUS