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This kit is a real museum-quality collectors item in its original box, and includes the styrofoam shipping protection, ZX81 clam shell plastic case, membrane keyboard, PC Board, 1 bag ICs and IC sockets, and several other bags of components and assembly instructions.  The date codes on the 5 ICs are from 1982 and 1983 and Sinclair made these kits in 1983 or 1984.   I will ship with your choice of the US 110Volt 60HZ  ZX81 power supply, or the 220V 50HZ power supply.
 
I formed my company in February of 1983 to support Timex/Sinclair computers. I had 5 employees then and designed, manufactured and sold by mail order,  hardware add-ons for the Timex 1000, Timex 2016, and Sinclair ZX81. When the Timex/Sinclair, Atari, Commodore 64, and other early hobby computers stopped being made, we were one of the last companies supplying Timex/Sinclair Memory Modules, books, and more.  
Here's your chance to have a real collector's item.
 
In addition to the kit you will receive:
-- A MEMOPAK 16K ZX81 Memory Module 
-- 3 TIMEX Sinclair 1000 Cassette Tapes - never opened in original shrink wrap.
-- Three Books, all in pristine condition:
     1 - The INS & OUTS of the TS1000 & ZX81
     2 - Basics of Timex/Sinclair TS1500/1000 BASIC
     3 - Exploring Timex Sinclair 1500/1000 Graphics
 
Everything ships in a 14"x 12" x 6" box that weighs approximately 6 lbs.
 
Shipping in the U.S. is generally by FedEx or UPS.
I use the ebay Global Shipping Program for International sales.  
PHOTOS ABOVE
1. The kit parts laid out and labeled 
2. The front of the Sinclair ZX81 box
3. The back of the Sinclair ZX81 box
4. The two half styrofoam clamshell pieces with contents
5. A closeup of the kit parts.
6. The 110V 60HZ and 220V 50HZ Sinclair Power supplies, both output 9VDC
7. Memotech 16K RAM
8. Memotech 16K RAM as packaged with manual and
9.  Basics of Timex/Sinclair TS1500/1000 BASIC
10. The INS & OUTS of the TS1000 & ZX81 - (The wonderful, comprehensive explanation of the ZX81 hardware.)
11. Exploring Timex Sinclair 1500/1000 Graphics
12. 3 Timex Corporation Timex/Sinclair Cassettes: Flight Simulator, The Checkbook Manager, and Backgammon
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P.S.
In case anyone missed the news coverage, Sir Clive Marles Sinclair died on 16 September 2021.   His inventions, in my case the ZX81, changed my life, and I thank him very much for it. One of my favorite definitions of engineering is "design with constraints". Certainly the ZX81 fits that description. 

 

 

 

How I can still sell
35-year-old, Unassembled, New-Condition,
Sinclair ZX81 Computer Kits
in the year 2023

by Stewart Newfeld

I have a degree in Electrical Engineering and previous work experience designing test equipment for Aerospace Electro-Explosive Devices and Inertial Navigation equipment. I also designed microprocessor-base fire alarm systems for high-rise buildings, at a company ironically then located, on the 91st floor of the north World Trade Center tower.

In 1983 I became so enthusiastic about the advent of hobby computers and in particular the Times/Sinclair TS1000, that I quit a job as plant manager of a manufacturing company, and started Zebra Systems, Inc. to design, manufacture, and market products for the Timex/Sinclair market in the United States.

In those early years of my company I designed a keyboard-beeper, joystick adapter, A/D converter, and a speech-synthesizer for the TS1000, TS1500, and TS2068. I marketed by taking out advertisements in various Timex/Sinclair oriented magazines. It was a small company, and at it's peak, I had six employees: I was the hardware designer, manager/president, and chief cook and bottle washer. We had a computer programmer; two production people who assembled, soldered and tested product; and one general assistant hobby computer enthusiast extraordinaire. Nearly everyone pitched in with customer service duties, shipping clerk, etc.

I visited fall computer shows in London, England two years in a row looking for products to import, visited Memotech once, and visited the Timex factory in Portugal twice. I even imported a small quantity of floppy disk controllers and drives from Timex for the TS2068 computer.

Sinclair briefly had distribution in the United States, and I bought ZX81 kits from them which I sold to technical schools, generally in quantities of 30 to 500 at a time. Some of the schools would have students build the ZX81 kits in the classroom under an instructor's supervision, where they would go over soldering skills, parts identification, and computer theory. Other schools told me they gave the kits out to students to build at home, and they were principally interested in the students learning the importance of following instructions. Eventually, the kits stopped being available from Sinclair so I stopped selling them, even though the schools still wanted them.

When Texas Instruments started dumping their TI99 personal computer, other manufacturers shortly folded their personal computer efforts, including Timex. I learned about purchasing closeouts from discontinued product lines and purchased Timex/Sinclair books by the pallet from publishers, and lots of Timex software at clearance prices. I continued to support Timex/Sinclair computers long after Timex stopped supporting them, while I transitioned my company to supporting other personal computers from Atari, Commodore, and Radio Shack.

After some time, I was offered a lot of around 2,000 more ZX81 kits at a good price, that had been in a warehouse. I took them figuring I could sell them to the schools I had previously sold kits to.  I put the kits in a storage facility where they nearly filled two 20' x 10' rooms. 

I turned out the kits were hard to sell. When I ran out of kits, the schools had been forced to find other projects to build, and now they didn't want to temporarily switch back, just until I ran out of kits again.  And all the Timex/Sinclair support magazines had stoppped publishing, so I had no cost-effective way to sell these kits to anyone. Personal computers got more sophisticated and I changed my business to doing computer consulting and network support. I became a Novel CNE, taught Netware courses and then Microsoft Window NT courses at New York University part-time.

Sometime after the Internet became popular I happened to search on the keyword ZX81 and was amazed to find the user groups and websites supporting Timex/Sinclair computers. So I built a small website and started selling kits to individuals from my website. Then ebay was created.  I joined ebay on December 28, 1998 and have been selling kits, books, and Memotech products on ebay ever since. I also sold kits in moderate quantities to a reseller in England.

Fast forward to the 2021, and I have just a few dozen kits left, but lucky me, they have become a real collector's item and I can sell them for a lot more than I sold them for in the 1980s.  

I hope you enjoyed reading this.

Long Live the ZX81!