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Sinclair PC200

So still on topic for the PC200… everything I can find suggests that the Sinclair branding was UK exclusive and it was sold as an Amstrad PC20 everywhere else. Are we absolutely sure about that? It’s been bugging me that I have what I’d swear is a real memory of seeing a machine like this for sale in a US computer store (and actually touching it) around 1988/89 or so, which specifically caught my eye because of the black case.

Maybe it’s just one of those things where a memory gets rewritten from recalling it, but yeah, for some reason I really remember seeing a black one of these at some point, which the internet says is unlikely unless someone gray-market imported some. (It wasn’t sold as a PC200 in Canada, was it? Where I lived at the time sometimes oddities would just leak across the border.)
 
Eudimorphodon said:
So still on topic for the PC200… everything I can find suggests that the Sinclair branding was UK exclusive and it was sold as an Amstrad PC20 everywhere else. Are we absolutely sure about that? It’s been bugging me that I have what I’d swear is a real memory of seeing a machine like this for sale in a US computer store (and actually touching it) around 1988/89 or so, which specifically caught my eye because of the black case.

Maybe it’s just one of those things where a memory gets rewritten from recalling it, but yeah, for some reason I really remember seeing a black one of these at some point, which the internet says is unlikely unless someone gray-market imported some. (It wasn’t sold as a PC200 in Canada, was it? Where I lived at the time sometimes oddities would just leak across the border.)
Click to expand...

It's not impossible - especially as things get closed out and sales will be taken from everywhere...

Just because there's no distributor doesn't make an item "grey market" - Unless there are distribution agreements preventing it, then it's just "white market"...

It's rather distinctive, so your memories are probably correct.
 
cj7hawk said:
Just because there's no distributor doesn't make an item "grey market" - Unless there are distribution agreements preventing it, then it's just "white market"...
Click to expand...

I was using “grey market” here as an overloaded term for “not officially on sale in this region”, but… yeah, I dunno, I really can’t get the image out of my head. (I think it might have been the same trip to a computer store where I bought my first color VGA monitor, a Packard Bell with atrocious dot pitch that soldiered on for an embarrassingly long time in various roles.) I found some threads talking about the US spec PC20’s and they supposedly all came with the TV out RF circuitry unpopulated, so if this really was a US Sinclair PC200 it probably didn’t have it either?

(This is an area where “Grey market” might actually apply, because the US FCC was *really strict* about anything with an RF modulator in it, it probably would have been at least vaguely illegal to sell a UK spec one with a working modulator without FCC approval, despite it being for a different TV standard.)

The only other possibility I can think of is maybe Amstrad was like Commodore was in the old days and sometimes ran off batches of machines using randomly different parts. (Commodore PETs came in a wide variety of variations with plastic or metal top cases, monitor cases, weird sticker variations, etc.) Like maybe they just had some black cases already on the production line when they were scheduled to run off some US machines and just went for it. All the branding is on that one long sticker…
 
Eudimorphodon said:
(This is an area where “Grey market” might actually apply, because the US FCC was *really strict* about anything with an RF modulator in it, it probably would have been at least vaguely illegal to sell a UK spec one with a working modulator without FCC approval, despite it being for a different TV standard.)
Click to expand...
Sinclair would take UK-model ZX81s and sell them in the U.S. as kits, because if you assemble it yourself, the company doesn't need FCC approval to sell it to you. The video frequency of the UK PAL RF modulator happened to coincide with one of the North America UHF channels, and the different color and sound subcarrier frequencies didn't matter because the ZX81 doesn't have color or sound. Plus, this was back when virtually every TV had a manual V-hold control, which you could tweak to compensate for the 50 Hz refresh rate of PAL.

Anyway, in this case, the Amstrad PC20 lacked an RF modulator:
G

Thread 'Amstrad PC-20 RF Output'

The Amstrad PC-20 seems to be one of, if not the rarest, of the Amstrad IBM PC compatible machines. The wedge-form factor computer was released as the Sinclair PC-200 in the U.K. but as the Amstrad PC-20 in the US and apparently other parts of the world. I have seen photographs with the machine with both ISO (vertical Enter key) and ANSI (horizontal Enter key) layouts. The Sinclair model had an RF output for CGA graphics, most unusual for the time for a PC compatible device. RMC The Cave did a video which featured the Sinclair model and showed a sample of its CGA output ...
 
vwestlife said:
Sinclair would take UK-model ZX81s and sell them in the U.S. as kits, because if you assemble it yourself, the company doesn't need FCC approval to sell it to you. The video frequency of the UK PAL RF modulator happened to coincide with one of the North America UHF channels, and the different color and sound subcarrier frequencies didn't matter because the ZX81 doesn't have color or sound. Plus, this was back when virtually every TV had a manual V-hold control, which you could tweak to compensate for the 50 Hz refresh rate of PAL.

Anyway, in this case, the Amstrad PC20 lacked an RF modulator:
G

Thread 'Amstrad PC-20 RF Output'

The Amstrad PC-20 seems to be one of, if not the rarest, of the Amstrad IBM PC compatible machines. The wedge-form factor computer was released as the Sinclair PC-200 in the U.K. but as the Amstrad PC-20 in the US and apparently other parts of the world. I have seen photographs with the machine with both ISO (vertical Enter key) and ANSI (horizontal Enter key) layouts. The Sinclair model had an RF output for CGA graphics, most unusual for the time for a PC compatible device. RMC The Cave did a video which featured the Sinclair model and showed a sample of its CGA output ...
Click to expand...
I've had emails from at least one PC20 owner who had one with the modulator fitted, and one who had one without.
 
Eudimorphodon said:
So still on topic for the PC200… everything I can find suggests that the Sinclair branding was UK exclusive and it was sold as an Amstrad PC20 everywhere else. Are we absolutely sure about that?
Click to expand...
No: it was on sale at least also on Spain as the black Sinclair PC200.
 
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