If you read the last thrilling installment of this huge multi-part post, I’m sure you’re waiting with bated breath to see what your $295 got you back in 1983-ish. If you haven’t read the last thrilling installment of this huge multi-part post, you can. If you want. You may choose not to, BUT, if you don’t, woe betide the reader who asketh questions that were adequately coveredeth(?) in the last thrilling installment of this huge multi-part post.

Anyway, after you’ve set aside the Technical Literacy Series Computer Course from The National Education Corporation, you’ll get the first glimpse of the goodies that await.

Sorry about the reflection on the cover there. It somehow wasn’t picked up by my normally stellar quality standards.

It’s a Timex/Sinclair 1500 Personal Home Computer! Now if you grew up in the US and are moderately old, this may be a somewhat familiar sight. If you grew up in the UK, your first reaction may well be, what the f*ck is that?

Quick aside: I have many of my old computers in my cubicle at work. Quite often, someone who hasn’t visited my area before notices the objects and the response is either:

a) “Oh, I had one of those!”

or

b) “What are those? Typewriters?”

There are significantly more b’s than a’s. This is apparently an indication that I’m aging. That’s fine. It happens, but TYPEWRITERS?! Really? Where’s the paper? Do you think people would be happy typing on THAT keyboard if that’s all it did? Whippersnappers.

So, what the f*ck is that? Before we get there, I want to reassure you that this is not dead technology. Behold!

That’s right. The “Computer Program Recorder” that comes with this thing is a current year model! (If you’re reading this after 2020, imagine for a second that is 2020, and then enjoy the hearty chuckle that is guaranteed to ensue.)

Enough teasing. Here’s the complete package:

Let’s see all the bits that come in this bumper box of fun.

Treasure trove of computer program-y goodness? Check.

Strange 1950’s looking switchy thing that Americans had to use to connect their computers to their tellys? Check.

Timex Sinclair 2020 Computer Program Recorder? Check.

And finally… Tubular bells! <—————— I am this old.

Actually, it’s….

The Timex Sinclair 1500? Check! Check, and checked again!

The 1500 is an odd beast. Although it’s physically very similar to the ZX Spectrum and has pretty much an identical keyboard, that’s pretty much where the similarities end. Here’s a picture of the 1500 next to a Spectrum. The color scheme of the case is different but there’s something rather telling about the top row of keys…

On the Spectrum, above the number keys, you can see the 8 colors that the Spectrum could support. They don’t appear on the 1500. Come to think of it, the 1500 keyboard is essentially monochrome. And that’s because the 1500 was black and white only.

The bad news doesn’t end there. Sound? Nope.

In fact, this thing is much closer to the ZX81 or Timex Sinclair 1000. The improvements over the ZX81/TS1000 were the keyboard (although some people might argue that), and it had 16KB of RAM as standard. These must have been some very small KBs because the size can vary dramatically. Either that or Sinclair was shipping a very small, very underpowered TARDIS. Although if you think about it, that’s impossible because we all know that TARDISes (TARDI?) make a very distinctive sound.

We’ll take a closer look at the hardware in the next thrilling…. post.

Mar 1 Does it do this? No. How about this? Well, no. Surely it does this? Erm….

Mar 3 A look around the Timex Sinclair model 1500

Feb 29 It's all computers these days, you know.