---
title: SINCLAIR MK-14
date: '1978-07-01'
years:
- '1978'
topics:
- Hardware
params:
  when: JULY 1978
  image: /media/history/images/timeline_0778_mk14_1.jpg
  oc_id: 37
  source:
    url: https://web.archive.org/web/20221215134357/http://www.old-computers.com/history/detail.asp?n=37
    date: '2022-12-15'
---

![](/media/history/images/timeline_0778_mk14_1.jpg)

In 1978 was born the **MK-14**, the first computer made by the Sinclair company (called at the time **Science of Cambridge** because Sinclair name was used by another company).

The MK-14 was a training board sold in kit form costing around £40 and featuring a National Semiconductor SC/MP 8-bit processor, 256 bytes of RAM, 512 bytes of ROM holding a monitor, calculator keyboard and display, and some I/O ports.

In fact, Clive Sinclair was not very enthusiastic about a personal computer project. The MK-14 project was thus managed by **Chris Curry** and produced by National Semiconductor. As the system was five times cheaper than its closest competitor, the Compukit UK-101, about 20,000 MK-14 boards were sold in the U.K.

Chris Curry, who believed much more than Clive Sinclair in the future of such computers, left the company in 1978, founded **Acorn Computers** with Herman Hauser and built its fist computer kit, the **System 1**. A few months later, Sir Sinclair decided that computers were a good way to raise money and started a new project: a complete computer for less than £100.

Meantime, the MK-14 grew into a modular system and several additional cards allowed to expand the system: cassette interface, text and graphics video module and Eprom programmer. 128 and 256 bytes RAM expansion modules could also be added up to a total of 640 bytes, Yes...640 BYTES...

If the MK-14 had not been launched, Clive Sinclair wouldn't probably think so soon of its ZX-80 and the world personal computer scene would have been very different.

![](/media/history/images/timeline_0778_mk14_2.jpg)