Timex

In the early 1980s, Timex Corporation — better known for watches — entered the home computer market through a partnership with Sinclair Research. Under the Timex Sinclair brand, they produced affordable, compact computers aimed at the North American market. Their first major product, the Timex Sinclair 1000 (a variant of the Sinclair ZX81), became a budget bestseller thanks to its low price and wide retail availability. It was followed by models like the improved Timex Sinclair 1500 and the more ambitious Timex Sinclair 2068, which added better graphics, sound, and expandability.

Despite initial success, Timex struggled against increasingly powerful competition from Commodore, Atari, and Apple. Compatibility issues with UK software, limited memory, and quickly rising consumer expectations caused their computer division to falter. By 1984, Timex had exited the home computer market. Nevertheless, the Timex Sinclair computers played an important role in making personal computing accessible to many first-time users in the United States, Canada, and parts of Europe.