The credibility of Amstrad’s deal with Sinclair has been further eroded with news that, far from having “worldwide rights to the Spectrum” as claimed by Amstrad in its announcement to the Stock Exchange on April 7, Portugal and the eastern bloc countries are excluded from the deal.
Rights to the Spectrum in these areas are held by Timex. Timex has been manufacturing its 2048 and 2068 Spectrum derivative micros in Portugal since it established a shared technology agreement with Sinclair in 1983.
Rights to the communist bloc countries passed to Timex shortly before the deal with Amstrad, as part payment for outstanding debts owed to Timex by Sinclair for manufacture of Spectrum micros and flat-screen TVs at Timex’s Dundee plant.
And now, only two months after the rights passed to Timex the firm has succeeded where Sinclair demonstrably failed and tied up the biggest ever deal to supply micros to an Iron Curtain country.
Timex has reached a £50m agreement with an unnamed Polish industrial firm — via its European agent Takis Patrikarakos of Micro Interface to supply 800,000 Timex 2068 machines and 200,000 FDD 3000 twin 3 inch floppy disc drives to the Polish government,
The 2068 is broadly a Spectrum 48 in a new case with improved keyboard, sound chip, cartridge and joystick ports, on/off switch and monitor/RGB output.
The FDD3000 is a dedicated twin 3 inch disc system for the Spectrum, adding CP/M operating system and twin RS232C ports.