yann64andClaude Opus 5.5
35ede38dde
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01YDRjtmAiNpo5mK5N3d7QwZ
32 lines
1.9 KiB
Markdown
32 lines
1.9 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: SINCLAIR MK-14
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date: '1978-07-01'
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years:
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- '1978'
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topics:
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- Hardware
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params:
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when: JULY 1978
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image: /media/history/images/timeline_0778_mk14_1.jpg
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oc_id: 37
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source:
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url: https://web.archive.org/web/20221215134357/http://www.old-computers.com/history/detail.asp?n=37
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date: '2022-12-15'
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---
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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.
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