Sinclair Research
Sinclair Research Ltd is a British consumer electronics company founded by Sir Clive Sinclair in Cambridge. Originally incorporated in 1973 as Ablesdeal Ltd. and renamed to Westminster Mail Order Ltd and then Sinclair Instrument Ltd. in 1975, it remained dormant until 1976, when it was activated with the intension of continuing Sinclair's commercial work from his earlier company Sinclair Radionics; it adopted the name Sinclair Research in 1981.
In 1980, Clive Sinclair entered the home computer market with the ZX80 at £99.95, at the time the cheapest personal computer for sale in the UK. In 1982 the ZX Spectrum was released, later becoming Britain's best selling computer, competing aggressively against Commodore and Amstrad.
At the height of its success, and largely inspired by the Japanese Fifth Generation Computer programme, the company established the "MetaLab" research centre at Milton Hall (near Cambridge), in order to pursue artificial intelligence, wafer-scale integration, formal verification and other advanced projects. The combination of the failures of the Sinclair QL computer and the TV80 led to financial difficulties in 1985, and a year later Sinclair sold the rights to their computer products and brand name to Amstrad. Sinclair Research Ltd still exists today as a one man company, continuing to market Sir Clive Sinclair's newest inventions.
Famous quotes containing the words sinclair and/or research:
“An involuntary return to the point of departure is, without doubt, the most disturbing of all journeys.”
—Iain Sinclair (b. 1943)
“The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is “What does a woman want?””
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)