Concept

ZX Spectrum

The ZX Spectrum (zɛd_ɛks) is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as the ZX81 Colour and ZX82, it was launched as the ZX Spectrum to highlight the machine's colour display, which differed from the black and white display of its predecessor, the ZX81. The Spectrum was released as six different models, ranging from the entry level with 16 KB RAM released in 1982 to the ZX Spectrum +3 with 128 KB RAM and built in floppy disk drive in 1987; altogether they sold over 5 million units worldwide (not counting unofficial clones). The Spectrum was among the first home computers in the United Kingdom aimed at a mainstream audience; thus, it had similar significance to the Commodore 64 in the US and the Thomson MO5 in France. The introduction of the ZX Spectrum led to a boom in companies producing software and hardware for the machine, the effects of which are still seen. Some credit it as the machine which launched the British information technology industry. Licensing deals and clones followed, earning Clive Sinclair a knighthood for services to British industry. The Commodore 64, Dragon 32, Oric-1, Oric Atmos, BBC Micro and later the Amstrad CPC range were rivals to the Spectrum in the UK market during the early 1980s. The machine was officially discontinued in 1992. The Spectrum is based on a Zilog Z80, a CPU running at 3.5 MHz (or NEC D780C-1 clone). The original model has 16 KB (16×1024 bytes) of ROM and either 16 KB or 48 KB of RAM. Hardware design was by Richard Altwasser of Sinclair Research, and the outward appearance was designed by Sinclair's industrial designer Rick Dickinson. Video output is through an RF modulator and was designed for use with contemporary television sets, for a simple colour graphic display. Text can be displayed using 32 columns × 24 rows of characters from the ZX Spectrum character set or from a set provided within an application, from a palette of 15 shades: seven colours at two levels of brightness each, plus black.

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Official source

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum

About this result

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Alexandre Schmid received the M.Sc. degree in microengineering and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1994 and 2000, respectively. Since 1994, he has been with the EPFL, working with the Integrated Systems Laboratory as a Research and Teaching Assistant, and with the Electronics Laboratories as a Postdoctoral Fellow. In 2002, he was a Senior Research Associate with the Microelectronic Systems Laboratory, where he has been conducting research in the fields of bioelectronic interfaces and implantable biomedical electronics, nonconventional signal processing and neuromorphic hardware, and reliability of nanoelectronic devices, and also teaches with the Microengineering and Electrical Engineering Departments of EPFL. Since 2011, he is a Maître d'Enseignement et de Recherche (MER) Faculty Member with EPFL. He is a coauthor of two books, Reliability of Nanoscale Circuits and Systems, Methodologies and Circuit Architectures, Springer, 2011, and Wireless Cortical Implantable Systems, Springer, 2013, and a coeditor of one book, as well as over 100 articles published in journals and conferences. Dr. Schmid has served as the General Chair of the Fourth International Conference on Nano-Networks in 2009 and has been serving as an Associate Editor of the Institute of Electrical, Information, and Communication Engineers Electronics Express since 2009.

Pasquale Scarlino

I obtained my master's degree in Physics at the University of Salento, Lecce (Italy) in February 2011. During 2006-2011, I have also been a student of Scuola Superiore ISUFI (SSI). SSI is one of six schools of excellence established in Italy to develop the intellectual capital in technological and social sciences. I conducted an external Master thesis project during an 8 months internship in the Quantum Transport Group at TU Delft, under the supervision of Prof. L.M.K. Vandersypen. There, I implemented the Quantum Point Contact Radio-Frequency Reflectometry technique, which allows increasing the single-shot electron spin readout bandwidth and is currently routinely used in the group.I obtained my Ph.D. degree in February 2016, in the Spin Qubits group of Prof. L.M.K. Vandersypen at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience-Qutech (TU Delft). During my Ph.D. I have been leading the Si/SiGe spin qubits project, collaborating with the M. Eriksson Group at Wisconsin University. In parallel, I have been working on other different projects, in particular with GaAs depletion quantum dots, high impedance superconducting resonators, and surface acoustic wave resonators. I have been working as a Postdoc fellow in the group of Prof. A. Wallraff (Quantum Device Lab) at ETH Zurich. My main project, in collaboration with the group of Prof. K. Ensslin and Prof. T. Ihn, consisted in integrating semiconductor and superconductor technologies. Realizing a well-controlled interface between the semiconductor and superconductor-based quantum information technologies may allow harnessing the best of both device architectures, for example by providing an interface between strongly coupled charge state and high coherence spin states. Furthermore, it enables the possibility to explore light/matter hybridization in a class of solid-state systems and regimes that are new in the context of quantum optics.From June 2019 till September 2020, I have been a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Station Q Copenhagen and at the Center for Quantum Devices in Copenhagen, focusing on developing semiconductor-superconducting hybrid hardware for topologically protected quantum computation.Since October 2020, I am a tenure track Assistant Professor of Physics in the School of Basic Sciences at the EPFL where I founded the Hybrid Quantum Circuit (HQC) laboratory.

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Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user. These computers were a distinct market segment that typically cost much less than business, scientific or engineering-oriented computers of the time such as those running CP/M or the IBM PC, and were generally less powerful in terms of memory and expandability.

Amstrad CPC

The Amstrad CPC (short for Colour Personal Computer) is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the ZX Spectrum, where it successfully established itself primarily in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and the German-speaking parts of Europe. The series spawned a total of six distinct models: The CPC464, CPC664, and CPC6128 were highly successful competitors in the European home computer market.

Sinclair QL

The Sinclair QL (for Quantum Leap) is a personal computer launched by Sinclair Research in 1984, as an upper-end counterpart to the ZX Spectrum. The QL was aimed at the serious home user and professional and executive users markets from small to medium-sized businesses and higher educational establishments, but failed to achieve commercial success. While the ZX Spectrum has an 8-bit Zilog Z80 as the CPU, the QL uses a Motorola 68008. The 68008 is a member of the Motorola 68000 family with 32-bit internal data registers, but an 8-bit external data bus.

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