yann64andClaude Opus 5.5
cf3a03350c
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01YDRjtmAiNpo5mK5N3d7QwZ
22 lines
2.1 KiB
HTML
22 lines
2.1 KiB
HTML
{
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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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],
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"topics": [
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"Hardware"
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],
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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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}
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}
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<img src="/media/history/images/timeline_0778_mk14_1.jpg"/> <br/><br/> <p> In 1978 was born the <b>MK-14</b>, the first computer made by the Sinclair company (called at the time <b>Science of Cambridge</b> because Sinclair name was used by another company). <br/><br/> 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. <br/><br/> In fact, Clive Sinclair was not very enthusiastic about a personal computer project. The MK-14 project was thus managed by <b>Chris Curry</b> 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. <br/><br/> Chris Curry, who believed much more than Clive Sinclair in the future of such computers, left the company in 1978, founded <b>Acorn Computers</b> with Herman Hauser and built its fist computer kit, the <b>System 1</b>. 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. <br/><br/> 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... <br/><br/> 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. <br/><br/></p><img src="/media/history/images/timeline_0778_mk14_2.jpg"/>
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