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109-598: Originally designed at Sinclair Radionics , government ownership of that company led to Clive Sinclair leaving the company and starting a new low-cost design, the ZX80 . It was considered for the BBC Micro project, but development was not complete and that was won by Acorn Computers instead. The design was then sold off by the government to recently-formed Grundy. Grundy produced the system between 1982 and 1983, with approximately 50,000 units sold during this period. The design

218-536: A CP/M 2.2-based machine, built into a 'dumb terminal' as a virtual clone of the Intertec Superbrain . Over 50,000 NewBrain units were sold to educational, scientific, industry, small business and banking sectors; as well as to home users. Scientific use was strong because of the unusually high precision of the NewBrain's floating point computations and its very high-resolution graphics. Business use

327-531: A 'Software Technical Manual'. This manual documented various routines that could be called in the ROM and the calling parameters. It was left to the NewBrain user groups to publish the details of how to access these routines through the indirect call. (A low-memory address was called with the relevant routine parameters, and this address would call the ROM-specific location of a jump table which, in turn, then called

436-420: A Hung Parliament, the party with the most seats has the opportunity to form a coalition with other parties, so their combined seat tally extends past the 326-seat majority. The House of Commons is the most powerful of the components of Parliament, particularly due to its sole right to determine taxation and the supply of money to the government. Additionally, the prime minister and leader of the government sits in

545-471: A contract to supply microcomputers to schools and training centres in the Netherlands . They created a server to which several NewBrains could use its floppy discs to load programs down the serial cable and simple switching enabled the teacher to view the screen of the students. They also demonstrated a keyboard with predictive text laid out in a non-QWERTY fashion. They were given television coverage, but

654-424: A dynamic range of 10 to 10, compared to most common machines having 6 figure accuracy and a dynamic range of 10 to 10. This was achieved by using base 256 for the floating point format, rather than the more common base 2, and using six bytes for storing numbers, rather than the more common four. Five bytes stored the basic number, with the last byte storing the sign in the first bit, and the remaining seven bits storing

763-578: A new election will be held. Parliaments can also be dissolved if two-thirds of the House of Commons votes for an early election. Formerly, the demise of the Sovereign automatically brought a Parliament to an end, the Crown being seen as the caput, principium, et finis (beginning, basis and end) of the body, but this is no longer the case. The first change was during the reign of William and Mary, when it

872-534: A presumption that a Parliament will last for five years, unless two thirds of the House of Commons votes for an early general election, or the government loses the confidence of the House. This was repealed by the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 , which restored the ability for the government to call an early election while keeping five year terms. Summary history of terms of the Parliament of

981-619: A revised model, the "Scientific Programmable", was released at £29.95. The Scientific Programmable Mark 2 was later released, reducing the price to £17.22. In 1975, Sinclair Radionics launched the Oxford range of briefcase calculators. Sinclair also attempted to capture the top-end calculator market with the Sinclair Sovereign , available in plated gold or silver. The calculator was critically acclaimed for its excellent engineering and design and enjoyed short success. Final attempts at

1090-610: A tie. Both Houses normally conduct their business in public, and there are galleries where visitors may sit. Originally there was no fixed limit on the length of a Parliament, but the Triennial Act 1694 set the maximum duration at three years. As the frequent elections were deemed inconvenient, the Septennial Act 1715 extended the maximum to seven years, but the Parliament Act 1911 reduced it to five. During

1199-737: A £480,000 loss for Sinclair. Sir Clive Sinclair was certain that the TV1B model released in 1978 would be more successful, but sales were disappointing. In July 1977, the NEB increased its stake in Radionics to 73%. By June 1978 Sinclair Radionics was working on the NewBrain microcomputer project, which was later taken over by Newbury Laboratories. In May 1979, the NEB announced that it intended to sell Radionics' calculator and TV interests; they were bought by

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1308-622: Is chosen by a single constituency by the First-Past-the-Post electoral system. There are 650 constituencies in the United Kingdom, each made up of an average of 65,925 voters. The First-Past-the-Post system means that every constituency elects one MP each (except the constituency of the Speaker, whose seat is uncontested). Each voter assigns one vote for one candidate, and the candidate with the most votes in each constituency

1417-565: Is dissolved by virtue of the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 and previously the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 . Prior to that, dissolution was effected by the Sovereign, always on the advice of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister could seek dissolution at a time politically advantageous to their party. If the Prime Minister loses the support of the House of Commons, Parliament will dissolve and

1526-403: Is elected as MP to represent their constituency. Members sit for a maximum of five years, although elections are generally called before that maximum limit is reached. A party needs to win 326 constituencies (known as "seats") to win a majority in the House of Commons. If no party achieves a majority, then a situation of no overall control occurs – commonly known as a "Hung Parliament". In case of

1635-707: Is held in the House of Lords Chamber. Before 2012, it took place in November or December, or, in a general election year, when the new Parliament first assembled. From 2012 onwards, the ceremony has taken place in May or June. Upon the signal of the Monarch, the Lord Great Chamberlain raises their wand of office to signal to Black Rod , who is charged with summoning the House of Commons and has been waiting in

1744-769: Is required for a bill to become law; however this has not been refused since 1708 and is largely formal. The House of Lords is known formally as "The Right Honourable The Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament Assembled", the Lords Spiritual being bishops of the Church of England and the Lords Temporal being Peers of the Realm . The Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal are considered separate " estates ", but they sit, debate and vote together. Since

1853-809: Is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom , and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories . It meets at the Palace of Westminster in London . Parliament possesses legislative supremacy and thereby holds ultimate power over all other political bodies in the United Kingdom and the Overseas Territories. While Parliament is bicameral , it has three parts:

1962-578: The Parliament Act 1911 ) and receive royal assent for it to become law. Executive powers (including those granted by legislation or forming part of the prerogative) are not formally exercised by Parliament. However, these powers are in practice exercised on the advice of government ministers , who much be drawn from and be accountable to the Parliament. Whilst the monarch is a constitutive element of parliament, they do not debate bills or otherwise contribute to political debate. Their royal assent

2071-690: The Anglo-Irish Treaty , the revolutionary Irish Republic was replaced by the Irish Free State , recognised by the United Kingdom as a separate state (and thus, no longer represented in the Westminster Parliament), while Northern Ireland would remain British, and in 1927, parliament was renamed the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Further reforms to the House of Lords were made in

2180-476: The Black Watch digital watch at £17.95 in kit form and £24.95 ready-built, although this wasn't available to buy until January 1976. Including a five-digit LED display, it suffered from technical flaws related to the design of the case, the chip, the battery and accuracy. Not only was the watch unreliable, Radionics was not able to fulfil the orders it had taken. As a result, Radionics made its first loss in

2289-547: The Conservative majority in the House of Lords. In the face of such a threat, the House of Lords narrowly passed the bill. The Parliament Act 1911 , as it became, prevented the Lords from blocking a money bill (a bill dealing with taxation), and allowed them to delay any other bill for a maximum of three sessions (reduced to two sessions in 1949), after which it could become law over their objections. However, regardless of

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2398-551: The English Civil War . The wars established the constitutional rights of Parliament, a concept legally established in the Glorious Revolution in 1688 and the subsequent Bill of Rights 1689 . Since then, no British monarch has entered the House of Commons when it is in session. On Black Rod's approach, the doors are slammed shut against them, symbolising the rights of parliament and its independence from

2507-456: The Executive , which was considerably smaller than its competitors' by the use of hearing-aid-sized batteries. What had made this possible was it had been discovered that there was considerable latency in the display and memory and that, with the addition of a timer, power could be withheld from these battery-draining components for much of the time, thus greatly extending battery life. During

2616-526: The House of Lords performed judicial functions through the law lords . The Parliament of the United Kingdom is one of the oldest legislatures in the world, and is characterised by the stability of its governing institutions and its capacity to absorb change. The Westminster system shaped the political systems of the nations once ruled by the British Empire , and thus has been called the " mother of parliaments ". The Parliament of Great Britain

2725-507: The Second World War , the term was temporarily extended to ten years by Acts of Parliament. Since the end of the war the maximum has remained five years. Modern Parliaments, however, rarely continued for the maximum duration; normally, they were dissolved earlier. For instance, the 52nd , which assembled in 1997, was dissolved after four years. The Septennial Act was repealed by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 , which established

2834-487: The ZX81 launched. In January 1980 the former Radionics once again renamed to become Thandar Electronics, but the 1979 Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher began selling off government-owned properties and did so in this case by selling Thandar to Thurlby Electronics, who had no interest in the computer project. The NEB then transferred the project to another NEB-owned company, Newbury Laboratories. Newbury gave it

2943-454: The first-past-the-post system . By constitutional convention , all government ministers , including the prime minister, are members of the House of Commons (MPs), or less commonly the House of Lords, and are thereby accountable to the respective branches of the legislature. Most Cabinet ministers are from the Commons, while junior ministers can be from either house. The House of Lords is

3052-487: The uncommitted logic arrays (ULAs) that provided much of the customization. The BBC's programmes, initially scheduled for Autumn 1981, were moved back to Spring 1982. By this time, Sinclair and Curry had also heard of the project, and demanded they be allowed to bid on it. Sinclair were well down the road with the ZX80, which was a much simpler machine that could not come close to meeting the original specification. Curry visited

3161-541: The upper chamber of Parliament, comprising two types of members. The most numerous are the Lords Temporal , consisting mainly of life peers appointed by the sovereign on the advice of the prime minister, plus up to 92 hereditary peers . The less numerous Lords Spiritual consist of up to 26 bishops of the Church of England . Before the establishment of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in 2009,

3270-463: The "Micro-FM" debuted as "the world's first pocket-size FM tuner-receiver", but was unsuccessful due to technical difficulties. Despite problems, illegal clones were produced in the far east. Sinclair's final 1960s radio kit was the 1967 "Micromatic", billed as "the world's smallest radio" like Sinclair's earlier radios. The "Micromatic" was a reasonable success and was sold until 1971. In May 1971 Sinclair Radionics made £85,000 profit on £563,000 turnover;

3379-399: The "Sinclair Slimline" in kit form at forty-nine shillings and sixpence (£2.47½). A year later, in 1964, Sinclair released the "X-10" amplifier, one of the first commercial Class-D amplifiers . In the same year, Sinclair released the "Micro-6", matchbox-size radio, which the company claimed was the "world's smallest radio"—it could also be worn on your wrist with the "Transrista". In 1965

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3488-427: The 20th century. The Life Peerages Act 1958 authorised the regular creation of life peerage dignities. By the 1960s, the regular creation of hereditary peerage dignities had ceased; thereafter, almost all new peers were life peers only. The House of Lords Act 1999 removed the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords, although it made an exception for 92 of them to be elected to life-terms by

3597-506: The BBC and convinced them they were ready to go with a machine that could mostly meet the specification. Acorn won the contract. As a result of the BBC's decision, Newbury no longer had a launch customer for the NewBrain. The British Technology Group, which had replaced the NEB by this time, sold the final design and production rights to Grundy. Grundy had been looking for an entrant into the personal computer business, as they were already producing

3706-608: The Church of England—archbishops, bishops, abbots and mitred priors. The Lords Temporal consists of 92 hereditary peers and all life peers appointed under the Life Peerages Act 1958 (currently numbering around 700). Two hereditary peers sit ex officio by virtue of being the Earl Marshal or the Lord Great Chamberlain . Each of the other 90 are elected for life upon a seat becoming vacant. 15 members are elected by

3815-581: The Commons lobby. Black Rod turns and, under the escort of the Door-keeper of the House of Lords and an inspector of police , approaches the doors to the Chamber of the Commons. In 1642, King Charles I stormed into the House of Commons in an unsuccessful attempt to arrest the Five Members , who included the celebrated English patriot and leading Parliamentarian John Hampden . This action sparked

3924-520: The Commons passed the " People's Budget ", which made numerous changes to the taxation system which were detrimental to wealthy landowners. The House of Lords, which consisted mostly of powerful landowners, rejected the Budget. On the basis of the Budget's popularity and the Lords' consequent unpopularity, the Liberal Party narrowly won two general elections in 1910. Using the result as a mandate,

4033-586: The Commons—or "Content!" and "Not-Content!" in the Lords—and the presiding officer declares the result. The pronouncement of either Speaker may be challenged, and a recorded vote (known as a division ) demanded. (The Speaker of the House of Commons may choose to overrule a frivolous request for a division, but the Lord Speaker does not have that power.) In each House, a division requires members to file into one of

4142-517: The Crown. After the pro forma bill is introduced, each House debates the content of the Speech from the Throne for several days. Once each House formally sends its reply to the Speech, legislative business may commence, appointing committees, electing officers, passing resolutions and considering legislation. A session of Parliament is brought to an end by a prorogation . There is a ceremony similar to

4251-597: The ESL Bristol group (as Radionic Products Ltd.) and Binatone respectively. In July Clive Sinclair resigned with a £10,000 golden handshake . In September the NEB renamed what was left of Radionics (i.e. the scientific instrument business) as Sinclair Electronics Ltd.; in January 1980 this was changed to Thandar Electronics Ltd. In 1989, Thandar Electronics Ltd merged with Thurlby Electronics Ltd, forming Thurlby Thandar Instruments Ltd. This company now does business under

4360-424: The House of Commons (MPs) were elected in an antiquated electoral system , under which constituencies of vastly different sizes existed. Thus, the borough of Old Sarum , with seven voters, could elect two members, as could the borough of Dunwich , which had almost completely disappeared into the sea due to land erosion. Many small constituencies, known as pocket or rotten boroughs , were controlled by members of

4469-569: The House of Commons, refused to take their seats in Westminster, and instead assembled in 1919 to proclaim Irish independence and form a revolutionary unicameral parliament for the independent Irish Republic, called Dáil Éireann . In 1920, in parallel to the Dáil, the Government of Ireland Act 1920 created home rule parliaments of Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland and reduced

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4578-545: The House of Lords ( peers ), who could ensure the election of their relatives or supporters. During the reforms of the 19th century, beginning with the Reform Act 1832 , the electoral system for the House of Commons was progressively regularised. No longer dependent on the Lords for their seats, MPs grew more assertive. The supremacy of the British House of Commons was reaffirmed in the early 20th century. In 1909,

4687-724: The House of Lords, the bill is called the Select Vestries Bill , while the Commons equivalent is the Outlawries Bill . The Bills are considered for the sake of form only, and do not make any actual progress. Both houses of the British Parliament are presided over by a speaker, the Speaker of the House for the Commons and the Lord Speaker in the House of Lords. For the Commons, the approval of

4796-418: The House, having acquiring this position by virtue of having the confidence of the other members. This also means that the House is also the primary location in which the government faces scrutiny, as expressed through Question Time and the work of various select committees . The State Opening of Parliament is an annual event that marks the commencement of a session of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It

4905-678: The Liberal Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith , introduced the Parliament Bill, which sought to restrict the powers of the House of Lords. (He did not reintroduce the land tax provision of the People's Budget.) When the Lords refused to pass the bill, Asquith countered with a promise extracted from the King in secret before the second general election of 1910 and requested the creation of several hundred Liberal peers, so as to erase

5014-460: The Lords to act for this purpose. This power was lost when it was transferred to the newly created Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in 2009. Many members of the general public have questioned the need for The House of Lords in today's society. They say it is stopping the political system from evolving within the UK and hampering modernisation. The Lords Spiritual of the Lords' currently consists of

5123-481: The Lords' consent. Like in the House of Commons, the House of Lords may scrutinise governments through asking questions to government ministers that sit in the Lords and through the operation of a small number of select committees . The Lords used to also exercise judicial power and acted as the UK's supreme legislative court . Appeals were not heard by the whole body, but a committee of senior judges that were appointed to

5232-492: The NEB and quit, moving to Science of Cambridge. In return, the NEB renamed Radionics to Sinclair Electronics in September and the company was dedicated to bringing the new machine to market. Meanwhile, at Science of Cambridge, Sinclair began the development of a much simpler machine with the goal of hitting a sub-£100 price point. This would emerge in early 1980 as the ZX80 . The company was renamed Sinclair Research in 1981 and

5341-410: The NEB became involved in Radionics, Sinclair encouraged Chris Curry , who had been working for Radionics since 1966, to leave and get Sinclair Instrument up and running. Sinclair Instrument developed the " Wrist Calculator " to generate cash, which soon became a commercial success selling in surprising figures. In July 1977 Sinclair Instrument Ltd was renamed to Science of Cambridge Ltd . Around about

5450-525: The NewBrain's CP/M terminal and made available on NewBrain 5.25" and 3.5" formatted diskettes. These included Z80 Assemblers and debuggers, Pro Pascal and Pro Fortran , TCL Pascal, dBase II, WordStar 3.3, Peachtree Accounting applications, the Superfile database and CP/M versions of Hisoft Pascal, Modula-2 , Z80 Assembler and text editor. Many third party software houses (e.g. IEL, MicroMart, Black Knight Computers) provided independent software for

5559-525: The NewBrain's part in this was not mentioned. Tradecom's NewBrains were supplied entirely by existing stock. A press release was made of a new factory in India to provide NewBrains for the Indian market and to supply Europe, but nothing materialised. The Dutch NewBrain user group has PDF downloads of various publications and a link to a Greek website that contains a PC-based emulator. The Dutch website has many of

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5668-660: The NewBrain, which was supplied to users such as the British Ministry of Defence, and Cambridge University. Sinclair Radionics Sinclair Radionics Ltd was a company founded by Sir Clive Sinclair in Cambridge , England which developed hi-fi products, radios, calculators and scientific instruments. After raising funds to start the business by writing articles for Practical Wireless magazine, and borrowing £50, Clive Sinclair founded Sinclair Radionics Ltd. on 25 July 1961. Sinclair initially worked alone in

5777-666: The Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949, the House of Lords has always retained the unrestricted power to veto any bill outright which attempts to extend the life of a parliament. The result of the 1918 general election in Ireland showed a landslide victory for the Irish republican party Sinn Féin , who vowed in their manifesto to establish an independent Irish Republic . Accordingly, Sinn Féin MPs, though ostensibly elected to sit in

5886-439: The ROM (e.g. maths and graphics packages) and were accessible to BASIC and any other software. All I/O was stream-based, and orthogonal: any device could be replaced by an alternative, although the manual did warn that devices had to be chosen with care. This approach did make it easy to write programs that could swap between input and output coming from a screen, keyboard or tape. The maths package had 12 figures of accuracy and

5995-569: The Series 2 ROMs to existing users. This required the existing soldered in ROMs to be removed from the circuit board and a socket soldered in. The tight fit and labour cost was high on this retrofitting, and the failure of the company in 1983 meant that users were never aware that this was being considered. The version of BASIC was an extended version of ANSI BASIC, the facilities of which were similar to those in Microsoft BASIC . The graphics package included commands that could draw dots, lines, arcs, filled-in areas and annotated axes. Grundy offered

6104-403: The Sony 3.5" became available and single and paired units were supplied to dealers in the NewBrain cream cases. The 3.5" 800 kB discs also got a more effective format allowing the files from 4x200 kB floppies to be stored on one 800 kB disc. The unexpanded NewBrain contains software provided in ROM, primarily BASIC, a full screen editor and device drivers. Other packages were also included within

6213-407: The Southern Irish seats were returned unopposed. Of these, 124 were won by Sinn Féin and four by independent Unionists representing Dublin University (Trinity College). Since only four MPs sat in the home rule Southern Irish parliament, with the remaining 124 being in the Republic's Second Dáil , the home rule parliament was adjourned sine die without ever having operated. In 1922, pursuant to

6322-404: The Sovereign is required before the election of the Speaker becomes valid, but it is, by modern convention, always granted. The Speaker's place may be taken by the Chairman of Ways and Means , the First Deputy Chairman, or the Second Deputy Chairman. (The titles of those three officials refer to the Committee of Ways and Means, a body which no longer exists.) Prior to July 2006, the House of Lords

6431-413: The Sovereign) instruct them to elect a Speaker. The Commons perform the election; on the next day, they return to the House of Lords, where the Lords Commissioners confirm the election and grant the new Speaker the royal approval in the Sovereign's name. The business of Parliament for the next few days of its session involves the taking of the oaths of allegiance . Once a majority of the members have taken

6540-415: The State Opening of Parliament proceeds directly. To avoid the delay of opening a new session in the event of an emergency during the long summer recess, Parliament is no longer prorogued beforehand, but only after the Houses have reconvened in the autumn; the State Opening follows a few days later. Each Parliament comes to an end, after a number of sessions, in anticipation of a general election. Parliament

6649-442: The State Opening, but much less well known to the general public. Normally, the Sovereign does not personally attend the prorogation ceremony in the House of Lords and is represented by Lords Commissioners. The next session of Parliament begins under the procedures described above, but it is not necessary to conduct another election of a Speaker or take the oaths of allegiance afresh at the beginning of such subsequent sessions. Instead,

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6758-403: The UK National Physical Laboratory predicted the coming (micro) computer revolution. It was a very influential documentary — so much so that questions were asked in Parliament . As a result of the questions in Parliament, the Department of Industry (DoI) became interested in the programme. BBC Engineering was instructed to attempt to draw up an objective specification for a machine that

6867-411: The United Kingdom Following a general election, a new Parliamentary session begins. Parliament is formally summoned 40 days in advance by the Sovereign, who is the source of parliamentary authority. On the day indicated by the Sovereign's proclamation, the two Houses assemble in their respective chambers. The Commons are then summoned to the House of Lords, where Lords Commissioners (representatives of

6976-419: The archbishops of Canterbury and York , the bishops of London , Durham and Winchester (who sit by right regardless of seniority) and 21 other diocesan bishops of the Church of England , ranked in order of consecration , subject to women being preferred if one is eligible from 2015 to 2025 under the Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 . Formerly, the Lords Spiritual included all of the senior clergymen of

7085-400: The coming year. The speech reflects the legislative agenda for which the Government intends to seek the agreement of both Houses of Parliament. After the monarch leaves, each Chamber proceeds to the consideration of an "Address in Reply to His Majesty's Gracious Speech." But, first, each House considers a bill pro forma to symbolise their right to deliberate independently of the monarch. In

7194-476: The complicated design the Microvision used. In April 1976, the National Enterprise Board bought a 43% stake in Sinclair Radionics for £650,000, and in October the National Research and Development Council agreed to provide £1 million for a revived portable TV project, which was finally launched in January 1977 as the Microvision TV1A and MON1A at £99.95. Supply exceeded demand, and 12,000 units were left unsold until they were sold off cheaply. This resulted in

7303-405: The evenings in a room in London (he was still a technical journalist during the day), selling radio kits by mail order. Radionics initially developed hi-fi equipment; it released its first product, the Sinclair Micro-amplifier, in December 1962. The assembly and distribution of this product were contracted out to Cambridge Consultants . In 1963 Sinclair Radionics introduced their first radio with

7412-425: The expansion chassis used bank switching to allow the NewBrain to take advantage of several 64 kB modules. The expansion module included a parallel printer port and two hardware based serial ports and an expansion bus to connect further modules such as the 8 and 16 way serial modules under development. The expansion module included Series 2 software, replacing those in the processor module as well as software for

7521-481: The exponent. For example, π was stored as 3.14159265358. Benchmarks show that even though the NewBrain performed double accuracy calculations, it was one of the fastest 8-bit computers available for several years, completing PCW Benchmark 8 in 7.0 seconds. For comparison against other contemporary machines, the Sinclair Spectrum took 25.3 seconds, the BBC Micro took 5.1 seconds, but with fewer significant digits. The 16-bit IBM PC took 3.5 seconds. The graphics screen

7630-535: The final routine.) Even screen access required this indirect use, as the screen location would change as new input and output streams were created, including high-resolution (for the time) graphic streams. Memory maps and other technical information were included in numerous technical notes which were supplied to dealers and owners free of charge. The Technical Manual had a retail price of £50. HiSoft Systems produced NewBrain versions of their Pascal compiler and editor. A number of CP/M applications were converted to using

7739-442: The financial year April 1974 – April 1975. The Black Watch fiasco had a devastating effect on Sinclair's finances, and the company would have gone bankrupt had not the Government, through the National Enterprise Board , stepped in to support it. In 1966, Sinclair Radionics developed the world's first portable television, the "Microvision", but never attempted to sell it because development costs would have been too high based on

7848-431: The following year profit increased to £97,000 on turnover of £761,000. In 1966, Sinclair Radionics re-entered the hi-fi market with the "Stereo 25", a low-cost pre-amp control system. Production was halted in 1968 due to low supply of transistors which had been purchased in 1964 as rejects from other manufacturers. In 1969 it was replaced by the "Stereo Sixty". This soon became Sinclair's most successful audio product, being

7957-429: The funds to develop it. In 1978, the NEB agreed to fund the development of such a machine at Radionics. This prompted Curry to leave Science of Cambridge, and partner with Hermann Hauser to form Acorn Computers . At Radionics, development began with Mike Wakefield as the designer and Basil Smith as the software engineer. In early 1979, the NEB sold off Radionics' calculator product lines. In July, Sinclair had enough of

8066-631: The judiciary as a whole), though the Lords remain largely self-governing. Decisions on points of order and on the disciplining of unruly members are made by the whole body, but by the Speaker alone in the Lower House. Speeches in the House of Lords are addressed to the House as a whole (using the words "My Lords"), but those in the House of Commons are addressed to the Speaker alone (using "Mr Speaker" or "Madam Speaker"). Speeches may be made to both Houses simultaneously . Both Houses may decide questions by voice vote ; members shout out "Aye!" and "No!" in

8175-599: The majority of the 1970s, Sinclair focused on building the most affordable pocket calculators with the best design. In 1972 Sinclair released the world's first slim-line pocket calculator, the Sinclair Executive , for £79.95. The calculator only included basic maths functions, and the LED display required much power. It is often credited as being the world's first attractively styled calculator that did not require mains power to be used like prior calculators. The Executive

8284-698: The mass-market for calculators, the Sinclair Enterprise and the President, did not sell well. In 1974, Radionics launched the DM1 digital multimeter. Such scientific instruments were to form a quiet backbone of Radionics business for the rest of its existence. In marked contrast to the rest of the Sinclair range, the instruments gained a reputation for reliable conventionality rather than often unreliable idiosyncrasy. In August 1975, Sinclair introduced

8393-514: The monarch, on the advice of the prime minister. Typically, these are members of the party of the prime minister, however some peers from other parties are also generally appointed. As of 2019, the House consists of 650 members; this total includes the Speaker, who by convention renounces partisan affiliation and does not take part in debates or votes, as well as three Deputy Speakers, who also do not participate in debates or votes but formally retain their party membership. Each Member of Parliament (MP)

8502-761: The monarch. They then strike, with the end of their ceremonial staff (the Black Rod), three times on the closed doors of the Commons Chamber. They are then admitted, and announce the command of the monarch for the attendance of the Commons. The monarch reads a speech, known as the Speech from the Throne , which is prepared by the Prime Minister and the Cabinet , outlining the Government's agenda for

8611-605: The name Aim and Thurlby Thandar Instruments (Aim-TTi). When it became clear that Radionics was failing, Clive Sinclair took steps to ensure that he would be able to continue to pursue his commercial goals: in February 1975, he changed the name of Ablesdeal Ltd. (an off-the-shelf company he bought in September 1973, for just such an eventuality) to Westminster Mail Order Ltd.; this was changed to Sinclair Instrument Ltd . in August 1975. Finding it inconvenient to share control after

8720-419: The name NewBrain and announced the imminent release of three models, including a battery-powered portable computer. By this time the machine was no longer as innovative as it had been when first designed; in 1980 Personal Computer World said it was "significantly in advance of anything that had been seen in the field of handheld computing", but by the end of that year with the systems still not released, and it

8829-703: The new devices. CP/M 2.2 was also available. Under CP/M 2.2 the internal BASIC ROM was paged out for the CP/M ROM but this gave only 32 kB memory to CP/M. With the expansion module fitted the three 8 kB ROMs of the processor module were paged out to give the NewBrain one of the highest available TPA (Transient Program Area — memory left after the OS demands are satisfied) to CP/M. Grundy Business Systems released two 5.25" drive formats, 40 track 200 kB single sided and 80 track 800 kB double sided. Several independent dealers provided 40 track 400 kB double sided drive. In 1983

8938-692: The oath in each House, the State Opening of Parliament may take place. The Lords take their seats in the House of Lords Chamber, the Commons appear at the Bar (at the entrance to the Chamber), and the Sovereign takes the seat on the throne. The Sovereign then reads the Speech from the Throne —the content of which is determined by the Ministers of the Crown—outlining the Government's legislative agenda for

9047-558: The other hereditary peers, with by-elections upon their death. The House of Lords is now a chamber that is subordinate to the House of Commons. Additionally, the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 led to abolition of the judicial functions of the House of Lords with the creation of the new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in October 2009. Under the UK's constitution , Parliament is the supreme legislative body of

9156-468: The passage of the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 , the legislative powers of the House of Lords have been diminished of that of the House of Commons. Whilst the Lords debates and votes on all bills (except money bills ), their refusal to pass a bill may only delay its passage for a maximum of two parliamentary sessions over a year. After this, the bill may receive royal assent and become law without

9265-457: The power level was far below 10 watts and Sinclair's main advertising channel, Wireless World magazine, was so deluged with complaints that it supposedly refused to take further advertisements from Sinclair. Sinclair Radionics launched the System 2000 amplifier, FM tuner and loudspeaker in 1968. followed by the System 3000 in 1972. In 1972, Radionics launched its first electronic calculator,

9374-454: The previous year to nationalize technology companies considered critical to the UK. Seeing his management of the company would suffer, Sinclair dusted off a company he had purchased and left unused, a shelf company , and formed Sinclair Instrument . He asked Radionics employee Christopher Curry to start it up, and in July 1977, Sinclair Instrument was renamed Science of Cambridge Ltd . Around

9483-475: The program could be tailored to, and under pressure from the DoI, they wanted to choose a UK-built system. The market provided few alternatives, so the BBC specification was closely written around the NewBrain specification with the expectation they would bid on the project. The BBC released the specification in 1981, but at this time Newbury was nowhere near ready to go into production as they were having problems with

9592-468: The programs that were available for the NewBrain, and these can be run on the emulator. Two main models were released. The model 'A' needed to display on either a TV or a monitor. The model 'AD' also included a one-line, 16-character, vacuum fluorescent (VF) display on the unit which permitted operation with or without a TV screen or monitor — the VF display responded to the cursor keys and scrolled around

9701-600: The representation of both parts at Westminster. The number of Northern Ireland seats was increased again after the introduction of direct rule in 1973. The Irish republicans responded by declaring the elections to these home rule Parliaments, held on the same day in 1921 , to be the basis of membership for a new Dáil Éireann. While the elections in Northern Ireland were both contested and won by Unionist parties, in Southern Ireland, all 128 candidates for

9810-566: The same time Ian Williamson showed Chris Curry a prototype microcomputer based around a National Semiconductor SC/MP microprocessor and some parts taken from an earlier Sinclair calculator. This was sold as the MK14 microcomputer kit. Science of Cambridge ultimately became Sinclair Research Ltd . Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

9919-535: The same time, Curry was introduced to a new small computer designed by Ian Williamson that combined a National Semiconductor SC/MP central processing unit (CPU) with parts from one of Sinclair's calculator designs. Curry put this on the market as the MK14 in June 1978, for the very low price of £40. Curry wanted to start the development of a larger machine similar to the Apple II , but the company simply didn't have

10028-451: The screen display area. One additional model was released, but this was a custom version for a pharmaceutical chain, with no screen display — only the VF display — and was not widely known. An expansion chassis was released, providing an additional 64 kB of paged memory. Since the Z80 has a 16-bit address bus , it can only address 64 kB of memory at a time. The paged memory system in

10137-537: The secession of the Irish Free State . The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was created on 1 January 1801, by the merger of the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland under the Acts of Union 1800 . The principle of ministerial responsibility to the lower house (Commons) did not develop until the 19th century—the House of Lords was superior to the House of Commons both in theory and in practice. Members of

10246-426: The second product of the "Project 60" range. The "Project 60" products sold well and were supplemented by the "Project 605" kit in 1972. It was eventually superseded by the more advanced "Project 80" kit in 1974. In May 1973 Sinclair Radionics generated £1.8 million turnover. The last Sinclair Radionics hi-fi product was the System 4000, in 1974. Another Sinclair Radionics product that was introduced in 1964 and failed

10355-534: The sovereign , the House of Lords , and the House of Commons . The three parts acting together to legislate may be described as the King-in-Parliament . The Crown normally acts on the advice of the prime minister , and the powers of the House of Lords are limited to only delaying legislation. The House of Commons is the elected lower chamber of Parliament, with elections to 650 single-member constituencies held at least every five years under

10464-419: The state. Whilst the privy council can also issue legislation through orders-in-council , this power may be limited by Parliament like all other exercises of the royal prerogative . The legislative authority, the King-in-Parliament , has three separate elements: the Monarch, the House of Lords , and the House of Commons . As a result, a bill must be passed by both houses (or just the House of Commons under

10573-450: The two lobbies alongside the Chamber; their names are recorded by clerks, and their votes are counted as they exit the lobbies to re-enter the Chamber. The Speaker of the House of Commons is expected to be non-partisan, and does not cast a vote except in the case of a tie; the Lord Speaker, however, votes along with the other Lords. Speaker Denison's rule is a convention which concerns how the Speaker should vote should he be required to break

10682-428: The upcoming year. Thereafter, each House proceeds to the transaction of legislative business. By custom, before considering the Government's legislative agenda, a bill is introduced pro forma in each House—the Select Vestries Bill in the House of Lords and the Outlawries Bill in the House of Commons. These bills do not become laws; they are ceremonial indications of the power of each House to debate independently of

10791-446: The whole House whilst the other 75 are elected by all the hereditary peers , including those not sitting in the Lords. Currently, a standing rule divides these seats between the parties with a replacement peer from one party subject to an election only by peers of that party. Formerly, all hereditary peers were members of the Lords, until the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999 limited their numbers to 92. Life peers are appointed by

10900-527: Was a phenomenal success, earning Sinclair £1.8m in profit. In 1973 the slightly larger Sinclair Cambridge was introduced at a far cheaper price of £29.95 + VAT . A cheaper Executive was also launched shortly after. In addition to expanding the Cambridge range, the Sinclair Scientific was launched in 1975. It was a scientific pocket calculator for the very competitive price of £49.95. In 1977

11009-550: Was also proportionally high due to the availability of CP/M based software. The main industrial use was within the pharmaceutical industry. The computer was widely used by the Angolan Government; the central planning of the Angolan Ministry of Commerce in 1981 - 1984 were made using this machine instead of much more expensive computers. Tradecom purchased Grundy Business Systems in 1983 in order to fulfil

11118-520: Was formed in 1707 following the ratification of the Treaty of Union by Acts of Union passed by the Parliament of England (established 1215) and the Parliament of Scotland ( c.  1235 ), both Acts of Union stating, "That the United Kingdom of Great Britain be represented by one and the same Parliament to be styled The Parliament of Great Britain." At the start of the 19th century, Parliament

11227-442: Was further enlarged by Acts of Union ratified by the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of Ireland , which abolished the latter and added 100 Irish MPs and 32 Lords to the former to create the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927 formally amended the name to the "Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", five years after

11336-529: Was not long before Your Computer noted "the endless delays in its development mean that it has now lagged behind a new generation of personal computers." In early 1980, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Further Education department conceived the idea of a computer literacy programme, principally in response to the impact of a 1979 six-part ITV documentary series, The Mighty Micro , in which Dr Christopher Evans from

11445-449: Was presided over by a Lord Chancellor (a Cabinet member), whose influence as Speaker was very limited (whilst the powers belonging to the Speaker of the House of Commons are vast). However, as part of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 , the position of Speaker of the House of Lords (as it is termed in the Act) was separated from the office of Lord Chancellor (the office which has control over

11554-523: Was seen to be inconvenient to have no Parliament at a time when succession to the Crown could be disputed, and an Act was passed that provided that a Parliament was to continue for six months after the death of a Sovereign, unless dissolved earlier. Under the Representation of the People Act 1867 Parliament can now continue for as long as it would otherwise have done in the event of the death of

11663-673: Was separate from the text screen and was opened as a new output stream that shared space with the text screen. The graphics commands were based on 'turtle' keywords and provided a flexible means of drawing. The last two generations of NewBrain ROMs included additional graphics commands — ROM 1.9 had two more commands, and ROM 2.0 some more. But to ensure compatibility little software would use these additional commands. The programmers were working on version 2.2 as well as versions for different keyboards, including Greek and Swedish as well as French and German . Grundy had been considering offering

11772-428: Was the first class D amplifier kit rated at 10 watt RMS: a class D switching amplifier that was good in theory but sadly ahead of its time and available technology. The amplifier used low-frequency germanium transistors as pulse width modulators and switches and wrongly relied on the loudspeaker's inductance to filter the class D signal into audio. Most often this would short out the output transistors. When it did work

11881-512: Was then sold to Dutch firm Tradecom to fill a contract for computers in training centres. These units came from existing stocks, and plans to open a factory in India never materialized. Through the mid-1970s, Clive Sinclair 's firm Sinclair Radionics entered a period of financial difficulties. This led to investment from the National Enterprise Board (NEB) in 1976 to ensure the company did not foreclose. The NEB had formed

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