It’s 1982. The ZX81 is a huge success and the ZX Spectrum is about to be. Britain is producing more home micros than Japan. Kickstarted into action by this success, men armed with soldering irons take to their sheds to build peripherals for their Sinclair machines.
Sound a little bit far fetched? Well, we have all heard of the ‘bedroom coders’ but back in 1982 it wasn’t just software that was being produced from peoples homes. It was also the time of the electronics hobbyist; and many of the products that they came up with ended up bring sold through small adverts in magazines like Your Computer, ZX Computing, Sinclair Projects, Sinclair Programs and Sinclair User. Well known brands such as dk’tronics were all originally just one man (David Heelas) selling electronics produced at home. Others such as Memotech started making RAM packs for the ZX81 but then went on to release their own computer range (the MTX), albeit unsuccessfully.
Below you will find adverts for ZX81 peripherals taken from a range of magazines printed throughout 1982 while many of these companies were in their infancy and also showing some of the home based manufacturers and their products that never made it big.
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