Does he remember how many he imported? :D Fun fact: The Sinclair distributor in Australia also distributed Acorn Computers. Considering the fierce rivalry between Sinclair and Acorn at the time, I find that mildly amusing.
Blimey! That few? I've seen estimates of the number of ZX81s imported into Australia ranging between 10,000 and 50,000. Unfortunately this was ages ago, before I started making videos. Since then I've started making notes of my sources, as there are a lot of interesting nuggets buried in magazines and other publications of the period. Many of which have been overlooked by websites, forums and RU-vidrs. Mainly because people don't realise they're there.
77 views and only 3 thumbs up 👍... come on people!!! Look at the effort that has gone into making this lovely video!! Please don’t forget to thumbs up!!! Thanks 🙏
Of course, you missed off mentioning one of the biggest benefits of replacing the power regulator, that when you remove the heatsink then you have a much needed weight reduction for this monster of a machine! :D Just found your channel, so I'm off to watch some more of your vids.
Great vid. I went with a ZX8-CCB for my composite mod, which fits inside the modulator case. (Once you remove the electronics for the old modulator.) The one thing that made the Traco install a bit trickier is that on my TS1000 (in the US), there was a channel switch right there by the 7805. So it was a bit trickier desoldering it... Note: I followed a blog by Tynemouth Software and re-used that switch so I can flip between 50hz and 60hz for the display. Another thing for my TS1000 is that my replacement keyboard had the original UK layout. Which is almost identical, but not quite, to the TS1000 layout. They do sell, and I bought, a replacement overlay sticker that addresses that, but after I got the keyboard on there, I decided to keep it that way for now... If I ever feel like I really need to see Delete rather then Rubout, I can apply the overlay. ;-)
In the US you can literally pickup a Sinclair 1000 (our ZX81) for $20, or $40 with RAM expansion and tapes. Most of them were sold at KMart (no relation to your KMart), for $99. In 1981 in the US, TI and Commodore were just starting their price war. Since the Commodore VIC20 and TI99 4/a both got down to about the same $100 price, the Sinclair 1000 didn't stand a chance. Since retaillers could not return the Sinclair 1000s, most of them ended up (literally) as doorstops in protest. In spite of all of that, they still sold nearly a million machines. Not the 2.5 million for the TI and the VIC, but not bad.
Thanks for that. I was almost going to mention the Timex Sinclair 1000, but the video was already getting a bit too long. The TS1000 story is actually pretty interesting itself; there are some parallels between how Sinclair's computers were received in the USA and Australia, and it was that same price war (Commodore vs TI) that spilled over to Australia in late '83-early '84. I believe the Commodore/TI price war was a factor, but not the main factor, as to why the ZX Spectrum only had limited success over here (one of my future video ideas is an investigation and hypothesis as to why the Speccy was just a niche player in the Aussie market). I was also trying to drill down as to how the ZX81 was received in Australia, to try and differentiate from the dozens (hundreds?) of other ZX81 videos out there. The Australian stuff could probably provide enough material for its own separate video, but I'd need to spend hours diving into computer magazines and books from the early '80s. I've done it before, but I need to be in the mood to jump down the rabbit holes of archive.org and the National Library of Australia's Trove website. Good grief, I've written another blog post in the comments feed. lol
@@OzRetrocomp I've always assumed that the economy in Britain was so bad during that time that the cost of the ZX was the primary factor in its success. I think the American and Austrailian economy was much better, which allowed the more expensive machines to flourish.
I think that's a factor when comparing the evolution of the 8-bit era in the USA and the UK, but another factor is that the USA had something of an early mover advantage too. For example, the BBC Micro wasn't released until late 1981. Due to its architecture, usage and price point, I consider it to be the British Apple II. Another factor in the evolution of US vs UK micros is country of origin. The Brits really took to their home-grown machines, yet other than the ZX81, they didn't really get a foothold in the US market. That second factor - country of origin - had some impact on Australia as well. Microbee did well with their Australian designed and built Z80 machines. Dick Smith did a great job of taking machines from Hong Kong (notably from EACA and VTech) and marketing them as low-cost alternatives to bigger overseas brands. TBH I think these machines (VZ200/VZ300) did more to spoil the ZX Spectrum's chances down here than any other computer. As for why Commodore was huge down under... I think the real answer is a combination of marketing and distribution. Saturation advertising, availability in virtually every department store, high profile spokespeople... this all added up. That said, it's fun to make a facetious argument that Commodore had much wider brand recognition because it shared its name with one of Australia's most popular cars at the time. :) Bloody hell.. I've written another blog post!
You could have trimmed the membrane ends where it cracked....had plenty left to reuse it. When too much of it gets cracked, like at the big bend (i.e. half the membrane), you can desolderer the two connectors, adhere them near the keyboard whilst shortening the membrane so it stays perfectly straight forever. Then bridge the connector to circuit board with real ribbon cable (i.e. an IDE or floppy cable) and you can open and close your ZX81, never worrying about the keyboard again.
Removing the connectors is a good idea. I have a ZX81 with an external full sized keyboard fitted in a wooden box, and when I bent the old membrane connector that was folded up inside the machine it broke in half.
Its NOT the Aztec modulator that is defective, as its the exact same modulator that was used in many other computers of that age, however there is something wrong with the actual video signal in older versions of the ZX-81 in that it didn't generate a video back porch. Later versions added a back porch. You didn't say, but I must assume you moved the video mod PCB away from under the keyboard area where it would not fit in the case to a location farther to the back where the case has more headroom.
True. That occurred to me shortly after I finished this video, as mentioned in another comment above. I've seen enough Astec RF modulators in Acorns and other machines of the era to realise that the RF modulators themselves are perfectly fine, and that it is indeed the lack of back porch in early ZX81s that is the problem. That said, my ZX81 is an Issue 3, and therefore should have a back porch. Yet I was still having issues getting a usable signal from it via RF. So whilst Sinclair obviously improved the video signal during the ZX81's lifespan, it was improved just enough to work better with TVs of its era. I suspect if I had a 1980s TV, the signal would be just fine. The composite mod location under the keyboard probably isn't ideal, but it works. Also good luck finding somewhere else to install it without pulling out the old RF modulator, which I'm not sure I want to do, just in case I find a period correct TV at some stage and wish to use it again. Maybe inside the top of the case towards the rear, but I haven't opened the machine since I put it away, and it'd take some planning to find somewhere to install the ZX2020 board without hitting the main board. Plus I'd need longer leads from the ZX2020 to the video output. Maybe something to investigate when I (eventually) do some more mods. Thanks for watching.
you don't have to be overseas in Australia to have to wait for the keyboard membrane for months.. British Royal mail is taking its time, also for orders about 100KM away across the north sea.
I’ve had similar RF issues trying to connect older consoles to a modern TV with analog tuner. They just don’t seem to like the signal for some reason. I get the same issue across multiple consoles so it’s definitely a TV issue. Now I’m researching a composite mod for a Sega Master System II 😆
My understanding is that the analogue tuners found in older CRT TVs were more tolerant of signals that weren't quite right. The picture might have been soft, or had some minor interference on it, but it'd be usable. For whatever reason, the analogue tuners used in the last of the LCD TVs that had a combined analogue/digital TV tuner seem to be very fussy about the signal being fed into them. At the risk of turning this comment into a novel, one of my ZX Spectrums had a video issue where it'd keep going blank on my LCD TV, even after I'd composite modded the Speccy. Turns out that the TV was struggling to get a signal, and decided to blank the screen whenever it lost a signal. Thankfully I was able to turn that feature off, and now that Speccy works fine (albeit with a bit of minor interference now and then, which was enough to trigger a blank screen previously).
@@OzRetrocomp my issue was mostly audio, with an annoying regular crack/pop sound at about 1 sec intervals. On a Panasonic plasma. There could be some sort of setting somewhere, I lost interest. Honestly the Sega games were better staying in my nostalgia portion of my memory 🤣
@@OzRetrocomp Yes I have found that to be true. I have a 1981 RCA TV (actually labeled a TV/ Monitor) that does quite well with the stock configuraiton.
I suspect that late model TVs with analogue tuners suffer from the same issue that current AM/FM radios do, in that modern analogue tuning circuits rely on a DSP rather than being pure analogue. VWestlife has made several videos about the issue, such as this one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-t1thDa4zeog.html As I continued on with this video, it became obvious that I was perhaps putting too much blame on the RF modulator. Plenty of other 8-bit micros with the same brand of RF modulator (Astec) work perfectly fine with modern DSP-based analogue tuners. I think this goes back to Sinclair's extreme cost-cutting, which meant a few things were underdone (such as video performance of Sinclair's early ULAs). But it also meant that millions of people were able to get their hands on computers who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford them, so I think it was a reasonable tradeoff. Maybe these thoughts and hypotheses are best left to a future Random Access video for when I'm low on content. :)
tbh I'm cringing at that.... but I cut out an even worse joke about the TV I use. It's a Dick Smith Electronics brand and it has a 7 inch screen. You can join the dots. 😉
The ZX80 snd ZX81 had been a piece of junk at the time already. Cheaply made. The screen resolution and stability was a disaster. The keyboard was junk. The ZX80 with it's one kb RAM was just unusable. The ZX81 was also nothing to write home about. Sinclair was the worst manufacturer of all. Acorn with the BBC Micro was an entirely different class.
@@OzRetrocomp The UK stands for the best and the worst home computers. The Acorn stuff was way ahead of a C64. The ZX81 or even spectrum had been way below Commodore in quality. OK the prices of the ZX8x computers had been low but the VIC 20 was similar and still better.
