Sinclair Advert - June 1978

This is the second-earliest reference in this collection - and the first to mention an actual computer - to the company that would become Sinclair, which did so much to kick-start the UK home computer industry.

In its various corporate forms, Sinclair released revolutionary pocket calculators (the Sinclair Cambridge), the infamous LED "Black Watch", the world's smallest TV, the ZX range of computers and, er, the Sinclair C5.

This particular advert is for its MK14 microcomputer kit - a kind of early system-on-a-chip (or 15) which was originally put together largely from scavenged calculator parts - and it looks it - and which could be used to experiment with programming or be used as a hardware controller.

Although the price and specification looks the same as the advert that appeared later this year, the image of the MK14 is quite different - this is likely an artists impression of a pre-production mockup. See the later advert for more on the MK14