The Sinclair TV80, also known as the Flat Screen Pocket TV or FTV1, was a pocket television released by

Sinclair Research Sinclair Research Ltd is a British consumer electronics company founded by Clive Sinclair in Cambridge. It was originally incorporated in 1973 as Westminster Mail Order Ltd, renamed Sinclair Instrument Ltd, then Science of Cambridge Ltd, the ...

in September 1983. Unlike Sinclair's earlier attempts at a portable television, the TV80 used a flat CRT with a side-mounted

electron gun An electron gun (also called electron emitter) is an electrical component in some vacuum tubes that produces a narrow, collimated electron beam that has a precise kinetic energy. The largest use is in cathode-ray tubes (CRTs), used in nearly ...

instead of a conventional CRT; the picture was made to appear larger than it was by the use of a

Fresnel lens A Fresnel lens ( ; ; or ) is a type of composite compact lens developed by the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788–1827) for use in lighthouses. It has been called "the invention that saved a million ships." The design allows the c ...

. It was a commercial failure, and did not recoup the £4m it cost to develop; only 15,000 units were sold. ''

New Scientist ''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishe ...

'' warned that the technology used by the device would be short-lived, in view of the

liquid crystal display A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat panel display, flat-panel display or other Electro-optic modulator, electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liqui ...

technology being developed by

Casio is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturing corporation headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Its products include calculators, mobile phones, digital cameras, electronic musical instruments, and analogue and digital watches. It ...

. File:SinclairFTV1frontPCB4.jpg, Front side of the PCB showing the flat CRT assembly File:SinclairFTV1backPCB.jpg, Back side of the PCB showing the bottom of the CRT assembly File:SinclairFTV1frontPCB5.jpg, Front side of the PCB File:SinclairFTV1frontPCB6.jpg, Front side of the PCB

References

External links

* Television technology Sinclair Research Products introduced in 1984 {{tech-stub