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35-461: The Wrist Calculator was launched in February 1977 by Sinclair Instrument, a company established in parallel to Sinclair Radionics when the latter started to encounter financial difficulties. It was only available as a mail-order kit, and cost around £11 . Despite the difficulty in assembling the kit due to the small size of the parts and their variability in specification, 10,000 were sold around

70-458: A quip on Clive Sinclair's smoking habit. The Executive weighed 2.5 ounces (71 g) and measured 56 by 138 by 9 millimetres (2.20 in × 5.43 in × 0.35 in). The case, designed by Iain Sinclair, was made of black injection-moulded polycarbonate and required flexible glue to hold the two halves together. Design Magazine described it as "at once a conversation piece,

105-619: 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

140-631: A rich man's plaything and a functional business machine ". One Executive is on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City , and the futuristic design earned it the Design Council Award for Electronics in 1973. It was the first calculator designed for aesthetic appeal, and New Scientist described it as "not so much a professional calculator – more a piece of personal jewellery". As well as four-function arithmetic,

175-737: 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

210-476: 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

245-456: 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

280-407: The capacitance of the chips to store information when there is no power, and 1.7 microseconds proved sufficient for the chip to carry out a single change of state of the electronics. Any calculation can be done in 1,000 such changes. This extended battery life to about 20 hours of continuous use with three small hearing-aid batteries, equivalent to about four months of normal usage. The screen

315-463: 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;

350-399: 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

385-597: 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

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420-466: The Executive could compute squares , reciprocals , and multiply or divide by a fixed constant. The Executive could display results to two, four, or six decimal places , or use a floating decimal point . The calculator was powered by a Texas Instruments TMC1802NC, a metal oxide semiconductor integrated circuit with 7,000 transistors . This CPU normally consumes 350 milliwatts, but by pulsing

455-410: 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

490-778: 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 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

525-872: 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

560-501: 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

595-431: The first to be mass-produced , and its introduction to the market coincided with a number of other companies entering the calculator market. The entrepreneur Clive Sinclair , reckoning that the market for " executive toys " was not especially sensitive to price , ordered components for 100,000 calculators. The Executive was highly successful, and made £1.8   million profit for his company Sinclair Radionics . It

630-610: The first to be produced by Clive Sinclair 's company Sinclair Radionics . Introduced in 1972, the calculator was produced in at least two versions with different keyboard markings; a variant called the Sinclair Executive Memory was introduced in 1973. Its small size was made possible by pulsing current to the Texas Instruments TMS1802 "calculator on a chip" integrated circuit , reducing the power consumption more than tenfold. The Executive

665-431: 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

700-522: The functions to the right above the keys. In the centre position it would enter the numbers on the keys. It used normal algebraic logic , as opposed to the reverse Polish notation employed on some Sinclair calculators. 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

735-599: 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

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770-642: 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

805-606: 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

840-457: 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,

875-628: The power this requirement was reduced to 20 milliwatts. It was discovered that an early prototype continued to work if the batteries were disconnected and then reapplied quickly enough, as the capacitors in the circuit could hold a charge for up to five seconds. Power is supplied to the chip in 1.7-microsecond pulses as determined by the storage time of a control transistor . An oscillator clock operating at 200 kilohertz during calculations and dropping to 15 kHz between each operation means shut-off time ranges from 3.3 microseconds during calculations to more than 65 microseconds between. The device relies on

910-413: The same chip to produce a longer and wider calculator that was over three times as thick and a great deal more expensive. In 1974, sales of the Executive exceeded £2.5 million , and Sinclair was producing 100,000 calculators each month, of which 55% were exported. A Sinclair Executive purchased by a Russian diplomat exploded in his breast pocket, allegedly leading to an official Soviet investigation. It

945-475: 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 . Sinclair Executive The Sinclair Executive was the world's first "slimline" pocket calculator , and

980-426: 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

1015-467: The world. 20,000 were exported to the United States , but most went unsold and were returned to Sinclair. It was described as an "utter dud" and "impossible-to-build" by the journal International Design . The design used 10 keys, with a three-position switch to select the correct function. The switch was held to the left to access the functions to the left above the keys, and to the right to get

1050-566: Was a monolithic seven-segment gallium arsenide light emitting diode display bought from a Canadian firm. The small screen reduced the power consumption and material costs, but it was revised several times in pursuit of lower power consumption, creating reliability problems. The Executive Memory was launched in November 1973, with the same dimensions as the original, but with the ability to memorise subtotals from any number of chain calculations. There were at least three versions, including

1085-527: 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

Sinclair Wrist Calculator - Misplaced Pages Continue

1120-478: Was found that it had been left on by accident, leading to a current drain on the batteries that overheated them until they burst. The calculator was significantly smaller than any of its competitors, and the first that could easily be carried in a pocket. According to a Sinclair executive quoted in the Financial Times , "one must always bear a packet of cigarettes in mind as the ideal size", possibly

1155-405: Was highly successful, making £1.8 million of profit for Sinclair and winning a Design Council Award for Electronics. The Executive was launched in September 1972 at the price of £79.95 plus VAT , equivalent to £1,330 in 2023 when adjusted for inflation. This was around half the price of comparable calculators, but still twice the average weekly wage. It was the first pocket calculator, and

1190-428: 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

1225-512: Was well received by both domestic and foreign markets, and US$ 1.5 million worth of Executives were sold in Japan in early 1974 at six times the price of Japanese models. The parts, consisting of the TMS1802 chip, 22 transistors , 50 resistors and 17 capacitors, cost close to £10 , compared with a sale price of almost £80 . The Executive impressed the engineers at Texas Instruments, who had used

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