Sinclair QL

After the success of the Spectrum, Clive Sinclair wanted to break into the professional market. The QL was unveiled on 12 January 1984, a few days before the Apple Macintosh, for £399, with a suite of Psion office programs: Quill (word processing), Abacus (spreadsheet), Archive (database) and Easel (graphics).

The launch was rushed. Orders took months to arrive, and the first units carried part of the system on a ROM board that stuck out of the back, known as the kludge.

The processor is a Motorola 68008 at 7.5 MHz, a version of the 68000 with an 8-bit data bus, cheaper but slower. It has 128 KB of RAM, expandable, and a multitasking operating system, QDOS, with SuperBASIC, a structured BASIC with procedures.

Instead of floppy disks, it uses two built-in Microdrive units, with looped-tape cartridges of about 100 KB. Two Sinclair chips, the ZX8301 and the ZX8302, handle video and connections, and an Intel 8049 microcontroller handles the keyboard, sound and serial ports.

The QL sold less than Sinclair had hoped, but it won a community that still develops hardware and software for it today. ICL used its architecture in the One Per Desk, an office terminal with a built-in telephone.