Pictures | The Acquisition

The Acquisition

    About 4 or 5 years ago I answered a classified advertisement  in the local newspaper liting "old" computers for sale.  The gentleman told me that he had a Tandy portable computer and a Sinclair computer.  I was really only interested in the Tandy computer since I always wanted one when I was I kid.  I used to ride my bike to Radio Shack pretty frequently to look at the bargain table, but sometimes would take time to play with the little computer.  Anyway, he wanted $25 for each computer.  I went to his house to look over the Tandy, he asked if I'd like to see the Sinclair and I half heartedly said I would, but that I only had $40 on me.  He brought out this little brown box and handed it to me.  We both chuckled at how small the box was and I carefully opened the box up.  Inside was a well preserved ZX80 still in its original bubble-wrap with the TV switch, power supply, cassette recorder cables, and video cable.  The BASIC programming manual was also inside, along with a packet of information on accessories.  I guess he must not have had many calls on his ad or just wanted to be done with trying to sell these old computers when he said that he would take the $40, plus throw in the Radio Shack cassette recorder he used with the Tandy.  I had always wanted to start collecting old computers, and I figured that buying the Tandy would be a good start, but what the heck, the ZX80 would be a nice addition also.  Well, I guess I didn't realize that the ZX80 was a relatively rare piece of equipment.  I recall having a ZX81 for a short period when I was young.  I think that we took it back to the store after a few days, but I'm not sure why.  Maybe it was because we got a TI-99 4/a instead, I'm not quite sure if that is the correct timeframe or not.  I do remember that the ZX81 was dirt-cheap when we bought it.

    The system itself is in good condition.  Two of the pegs that hold it together are missing and the corner of the "lid" on the right rear is broken off (about 3/8" of plastic)  You can see this if you look at the large picture of the ZX80, it shows up as a dark spot in the right rear corner.  This really is a minor imperfection and the system is otherwise in good shape.  I have hooked the system up and written some small BASIC programs to test it out and have also saved and loaded programs to and from cassette.

    As you can see from the receipt, the original owner (whom I bought it from) lived in Arizona at the time, and it looks from the postmark as if he bought it in December of 1980.  You have to look very close at the shipping label, but I believe that the date says Dec 19 '80, indicating that it may have been a present for somebody, I didn't ask.  The label could also say Dec 1980, but I'm pretty sure there is an apostrophe there.  The system cost $199.95 with a generous $1.95 discount for ordering over the phone!  Throw in $5 for shipping and handling and you get the grand total of $203 for a 1k system!  One item that intrigues me is that 90% of the ZX80s pictured on the web have a small label above the right side of the keyboard, which my ZX80 does not.  I'd be interested in an explanation for that if anyone happens to know.