A 1981 advert for W.H. Smith, extolling the virtues of the Sinclair ZX81 microcomputer, one of its top selling products that year:
From the Planet Sinclair website: The ZX81 could not have succeeded in the way that it did without the fortuitous involvement of the British newspaper chain W.H. Smith. The company was a long-established high street presence which had gone somewhat stale by the early 1980s. Seeking to reinvigorate its business, Smiths agreed to stock ZX81s in selected stores across the UK. The response was phenomenal, tapping into a previously unsuspected mass market for home computing. By February 1982, Sinclair Research was making over 40,000 ZX81s a month and still could not keep up with the demand. Within two years of release, the ZX81 had sold over a million units.
Note that most of the 'useful' functions could only be performed with the addition of a £49.95 16k RAM pack, bringing the price of the machine up to £119.95. You could have bought a half-decent used car for that much in 1981! The ZX Spectrum 48k which followed in 1982 was a far better proposition. |
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