 In addition , consumers ' attitude in the US was quite different from that in the UK . Clive Sinclair told Informatics magazine in June 1981 that " our competitors thought that consumers didn 't want to learn programming . We [ Sinclair Research ] think they failed because of this and because of price . " Timex evidently shared this belief but events proved it to be a false assumption . The TS1000 / ZX81 's price advantage was erased when its main rivals – the Texas Instruments <unk> / 4A and the Commodore VIC 20 – had their prices cut to below the all @-@ important $ 100 mark . Competitors such as Apple , Atari , Commodore and Texas Instruments promoted their machines as being for business or entertainment rather than education , highlighting the value of computers with ready @-@ made applications and more advanced features such as graphics , colour and sound . 
