1/ Thanks to all who participated in my little quiz on an old, obscure little personal computer. I’m cutting it off early because I got hundreds of guesses, some of them right (not counting copy-and-paste jobs from @Wikipedia) and many oh-so-close. Answers below in this thread. https://twitter.com/waltmossberg/status/1357912504844898306

2/ This is a Timex Sinclair 1000. (Photo with label restored is below). It launched in 1982 with 2K of RAM. It had no storage (and no display). For storage, it used an audio cassette recorder. Display was a monochrome TV. Both bought separately. (Sources: my memory & @Wikipedia.)

3/ The TS1000 sold for $99.95 and was available everywhere. I bought mine from a sale bin at a drugstore. Like many, I enhanced mine with a plug-in 16K module that cost me another $50.

4/ It was a rebranded knockoff of an early British computer, the Sinclair ZX81. According to Wikipedia, the Timex version doubled the Sinclair’s memory to 2K from 1K, added some shielding, and the proper circuitry for the American TV standard.

5/ It was my first computer and I bought it just to fool around with. Its membrane keyboard had BASIC command shortcuts stenciled onto the keys, so I learned some crude coding. I kept it about a year and then made an enormous step up to an @Apple IIe.

6/ The Timex Sinclair could do hardly anything, but it got me hooked and eventually led to a 27-year career as a tech columnist. Thanks, Clive Sinclair. /End