The Littlest TV

Rise of the mini-tube

Ever had an urge to cut television's Six Million Dollar Man down to size? Easy--if you can afford $395 for an unusual new product turning up in some U.S. department stores. It is a pocket television set, barely larger than a paperback book, with a 2-in. screen. The set, called the Sinclair Microvision, weighs less than 2 Ibs., functions on all frequencies in most countries and operates up to eight hours on a rechargeable battery pack.

Though Inventor Clive Sinclair, 37, is hoping to drum up demand for his set throughout Europe, he is particularly interested in the rich American market, where he has limited sales to such pricy outlets as Manhattan-based Bloomingdales, Dallas' Neiman-Marcus and Southern California's Bullocks. Even so, he insists the set "is not a toy. Its uses are endless--at sporting events, on a boat, commuting by train, for automobile passengers."

Commercial success for the minitube is also a life-or-death issue for Britain's Sinclair Radionics, which has shown itself adept at technology but unlucky at marketing. The firm was founded in 1962 to make and sell transistor radios developed by Clive Sinclair; he had soaked up a knowledge of electronics while working as a writer for a British company that specialized in technical manuals. By 1967 he had diversified into hi-fi systems. A few years later, he introduced the elegant, expensive and popular line of "Executive" calculators in Europe and the U.S. But in 1975 such electronic giants as Texas Instruments and Japan's Casio captured most of the market and drove down calculator prices. Meanwhile Sinclair had introduced the Black Watch, a digital wristwatch aimed at the British youth market. Demand was high, but the firm that supplied the integrated circuits could not produce them in sufficient numbers. Watch and calculator losses transformed a profit of $530,000 on sales of $13.3 million in fiscal 1975 to a deficit of $640,000 on sales of $10 million in 1976.

The company's troubles came at a bad time. After a dozen years of research, Sinclair was ready to make his midget television set; initial production costs alone were estimated at close to $6 million. He turned for help to Britain's National Enterprise Board, a government agency that provides investment funds for private companies. To get needed capital, Sinclair agreed to cede control of his company to the NEB until his firm makes enough profit to pay back the agency.

Much of that profit will have to come from sales of the tiny TV, and the make or break test will come during the Christmas shopping season. Sinclair remains supremely optimistic. Beginning in November, he will double production of the sets to 4,000 a month--half of them scheduled for shipment to the U.S.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.