Help identifying this home-brewed Computer

[Seatown]

Have you ever seen something like this?

It looks like someone with an original idea created this prototype. Nothing about it says I'm a kit.

The first clue is the keyboard. As you can see, the command keys are hand written.

 

[acollins22]

Hi Seatown,

I think it's a Sinclair ZX81 that's been fitted into a keyboard from an earlier terminal. Photo 3 shows the Astec modulator and photo 4 really look ZX81ish to me.
I think they went to the USA under the Timex brand IIRC.


Cheers,

Andy.

 

[Seatown]

Hi Andy,

It is indeed a Sinclair ZX81 board. Good eye!!



However, this tells me only half of the story.

 

[Old Thrashbarg]

I doubt there's very much 'story' to be found in it. They probably got a ZX81 kit, decided (rightly, IMO) that the little plastic case and membrane keyboard were incredibly lame, and instead went to the surplus shop, picked up something nicer and re-wired it to work. That sort of thing was (relatively speaking) pretty common practice back then.

You may be able to find a manufacturer name or part number or something on the PCB and/or plastic panels, that could shed some light on what it originally came out of...

 

[barythrin]

Pretty cool. Wonder if it works.

 

[vwestlife]

Looks like it was made using old parts from an electronics hobbyist's junk drawer. I see selenium rectifiers in the power supply, and those have not been widely used since the 1960s.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Selenium rectifiers are okay if you're careful to hold your nose when they decide to fail. I can never wipe that peculiar stink from my memory. Even in the 1960s, IR was offering replacement silicon rectifier cartridge kits for TV selenium replacement.

 

[Old Thrashbarg]

I'm not sure where you're seeing selenium rectifiers... are you talking about the big black things? Because those look like regular heatsinks to me... or actually, I suspect it might be one heatsink, in this sort of fashion.