Brand: Grundy Business Systems Ltd
Model: NewBrain Model AD
Manufacturer: Thorn-EMI Datatech (Feltham, Middlesex)
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Launch date: 1982
Price: £267.50
Total production run: approx. 50,000
Developers: Mike Wakefield, Basil Smith
A development by Sinclair Radionics that found its way to the Grundy company.
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Sinclair Radionics’ calculators were profitable, but when the Japanese started to produce cheap calculators and the Microvision TV and Black Watch failed, the British government’s National Enterprise Board (NEB) took a 43% stake in Sinclair Radionics in April 1976 and increased this to 73% by July 1977.
In June 1978, after the release of the MK14, Sinclair Radionics started working on a new microcomputer project. Clive Sinclair left Radionics in July 1979 to start up Science of Cambridge and work on the simpler thus cheaper ZX80.
Sinclair Radionics was renamed Sinclair Electronics, then Thandar Electronics and merged with Thurlby Electronics who manufactured bench power supplies and multimeters, but it had no interest in computers. The NEB moved the project to also NEB-owned Newbury Labs which made display screens, who gave it the name NewBrain. When that company lost the BBC Micro contract to the Acorn Proton, the government sold the NewBrain on to Grundy Business Systems Ltd. for a rumoured £600,000 the following year.
After Grundy having sold only 50.000 machines, the design was finally sold to Dutch firm Tradecom International B.V. to fill a contract for computers in training centres.