Brand: Sinclair Radionics Ltd.
Manufacturer: Wolsey Electronics
Model: Microvision MTV1B
Made in: United Kingdom
First year of production: 1978
Price: £99.95
Electronics design: Brian Flint, Peter Mayhew
Case design: John Pemberton
Successor to the expensive multi-standard MTV1, the MTV1B Microvision was released for the European CCIR System I only, thereby cutting the price by a quarter.
(Text continues below the gallery)
The MTV1 was a Multi-standard TV and therefore needed a VHF and a UHF tuner. But for the UK it only needed a UHF tuner, so it was decided to put only one tuner in the TV1B and thus save a lot of money. For other parts of the world, the TV1C (USA) and TV1D (Europe) were developed.
The MTV1’s CRT was a 2″ AEG/Telefunken D5-100WB tube, originally designed as a oscilloscope tube with green (P1) phosphor (D5-100GH). However, Sinclair had it made with white (P4) phosphor specifically for the MTV1.
It is built on three purpose designed IC’s, while a fourth IC that does the intercarrier sound, is a standard Hitatchi part. The tuner is largely hand made and therefore delicate. The electrostatically deflected tube means that there are high voltages everywhere: the focus, line shift and frame shift controls have 2 kV on them!
Sinclair Radionics faced financial challenges, and by the summer of 1980, the National Enterprise Board (NEB) decided to split Sinclair Radionics into three parts. The manufacturing rights for the TV1B were then sold to Binatone. As a result, Sinclair Radionics ceased to exist by January 1980. Clive Sinclair left the company to set up Science of Cambridge to develop the ZX80.
