The 16K / 48K Spectrums were the first of seven versions of the Spectrum to be released in Britain between 1982 and 1987.

The 16K Spectrum, which could be upgraded internally to 48K, was rapidly superseded by the more expensive version which had 48K already installed.

By modern standards, it was a primitive machine: a Z80A processor running at 3.5MHz, with a 256x192 pixel resolution and a choice of eight colours (the catch being that you could only use two colours per 8x8 square, leading to the infamous "attribute clash").

Its implementation of BASIC was pitifully slow, and the "dead flesh" rubber membrane keyboard was very strange to use.

Nonetheless, it came to dominate the 8-bit computer scene in Britain and fostered an enormous pool of programming talent - today, British firms have captured a third of the worldwide multi-billion-dollar computer games industry, a development for which Sir Clive Sinclair has been widely credited.