Editing ZX81 (section)

== Impact and legacy ==
The ZX81 had an immediate impact on the fortunes of Sinclair Research and Clive Sinclair himself. The company's profitability rose enormously, from a pretax profit of £818,000 on a turnover of £4.6&nbsp;million in 1980–81 to £8.55&nbsp;million on a turnover of £27.17&nbsp;million in 1981–82. Clive Sinclair became one of the UK's highest-profile businessmen and a millionaire, receiving a £1&nbsp;million bonus on top of a salary of £13,000.{{sfn|Adamson|Kennedy|1986|p=119}} He received a knighthood in the [[Queen's Birthday Honours]] and the Young Businessman of the Year award in 1983.<ref>[[#BBC080803|BBC News (8 August 2003)]]</ref>

The machine also had a widespread and lasting social impact in the United Kingdom, according to Clive Sinclair, purchasers of the ZX81 came from "a reasonably broad spectrum" that ranged from readers of the upmarket ''Observer'' and ''Sunday Times'' newspapers to the more downmarket but numerous ''Sun'' readers. The largest age group was around 30 years old.<ref name="YC-Interview" /> The ''Financial Times'' reported in March 1982 that most Sinclair computers were being bought for educational purposes, both for adults and children, though the children were usually able to learn much more quickly.<ref name="FT 20 Mar 1982" /> Ian Adamson and Richard Kennedy note that the popularity of the ZX81 was "subtly different from the run-of-the-mill social fad"; although most enthusiasts were in their teens or early twenties, many were older users – often parents who had become fascinated by the ZX81s that they had bought for their children. However, the ZX81 boom was overwhelmingly male-dominated.{{sfn|Adamson|Kennedy|1986|p=121}}

One of the ZX81's key legacies was that it spurred large numbers of people to try programming for the first time. The ZX81 plays a significant part in the plot of [[William Gibson]]'s 2003 novel ''[[Pattern Recognition (novel)|Pattern Recognition]]''. One character, an artist using old ZX81s as a sculptural medium, explains the cultural and intellectual impact that the machine had on British society:

{{blockquote|Walking on, he explains to her that Sinclair, the British inventor, had a way of getting things right, but also exactly wrong. Foreseeing the market for affordable personal computers, Sinclair decided that what people would want to do with them was to learn programming. The ZX81, marketed in the United States as the Timex 1000, cost less than the equivalent of a hundred dollars, but required the user to key in programs, tapping away on that little motel keyboard-sticker. This had resulted both in the short market-life of the product and, in Voytek's opinion, twenty years on, in the relative preponderance of skilled programmers in the United Kingdom. They had their heads turned by these little boxes, he believes, and by the need to program them...

..."But if Timex sold it in the United States," she asks him, "why didn't we get the programmers?"

"You have programmers, but America is different. America wanted Nintendo. Nintendo gives you no programmers. Also, on launch of product in America, RAM-expansion unit did not ship for three months. People buy computer, take it home, discover it does almost nothing. A disaster."<ref>[[#Krotoski|Krotoski (3-11-2003)]]</ref>}}

Among those whose first experience of home computing was provided by the ZX81 are [[Terry Pratchett]] (who used it for "very primitive word processing"),<ref>[[#Mackintosh1|Mackintosh (27 January 2000)]]</ref> [[Edward de Bono]]<ref>[[#Mackintosh2|Mackintosh (23 September 1999)]]</ref> and – perhaps proving William Gibson's point – many [[video game developer]]s including [[Charles Cecil]],<ref>[[#CCecil|Joscelyne (5 November 2009)]]</ref> [[Raffaele Cecco]],<ref>[[#RCecco|Cecco (June 1988)]]</ref> [[Pete Cooke]],<ref>[[#PCooke|Eddy (July 1987)]]</ref> [[David Perry (game developer)|David Perry]]<ref>[[#Hancock|Hancock (15 September 1996)]]</ref> (whose first published game, a driving game, involved "a black blob avoiding other black blobs"<ref>[[#BBC040703|BBC News (4 July 2003)]]</ref>), [[Rhianna Pratchett]],<ref>[[#RPratchett|Reynolds (28 June 2009)]]</ref> and [[Jon Ritman]].<ref>[[#JRitman|Wallis (15 February 2007)]]</ref>

Even 30 years after launch, the ZX81 has a German user forum,<ref>[http://forum.tlienhard.com/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=2 forum.tlienhard.com]</ref> and one in English.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.rwapservices.co.uk/ZX80_ZX81/forums/ |title=Sinclair ZX80 / ZX81 Forums |access-date=12 August 2009 |archive-date=20 October 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091020132306/http://www.rwapservices.co.uk/ZX80_ZX81/forums/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

New hardware and software continue to be developed for the ZX81, including a ZX81-based [[webserver]];<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://zx81-siggi.endoftheinternet.org/index.html |title=Siggis ZX81 web server main page |access-date=8 June 2011 |archive-date=27 June 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120627081527/http://zx81-siggi.endoftheinternet.org/index.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> the ''ZXpand'', a combined [[SD card]] interface, 32K configurable memory expansion, and optional joystick port and AY sound interface;<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Sinclair ZX81 |website=RWAP Software |url=http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/zx812.html |access-date=5 March 2018}}</ref> and new games on cassette tape by [[Cronosoft]], such as ''Tut-Tut'', ''Virus'', ''One Little Ghost'', and many more,<ref>{{cite web |title=Sinclair ZX81 |website=Cronosoft |url=https://cronosoft.fwscart.com/ZX81/cat5357733_4119465.aspx}}</ref> as well as releases by Revival Studios, such as ''Avalanche'', ''Mayhem'', ''Down'', ''Stairrunner'' and more.<ref>[https://archive.today/20130615052550/http://zx81.revival-studios.com/ Revival Studios ZX81 games]</ref>