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Originally Posted by SiriusHardware
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Try to imagine what Rick Dickinson (designer of the ZX81 and Spectrum and Spectrum Next) would have made it look like if he had been given the job. Let's see some concept art sketches...
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Rick Dickinson also worked on the design of the Spectrum Next, and he gave a talk on how he approached that at a Sinclair/Spectrum Cambridge CfCH museum special exhibition weekend a few years ago. They may have filmed this and put it on Youtube (They did for some Acorn special weekend). Sadly, Rick Dickinson passed away not long after doing that talk.
But maybe, more in keeping with that era of early home / hobbyist computers, where it was usual to go for simplicity / keep costs to a minimum, would be a vacuum-formed style case like Jupiter ace (and ZX80?) - Rather than later mass-produced but high initial tooling cost injection-moulded ABS. It maybe possible to produce something a bit like vacuum-formed ones with a wooden etc mould and stretching a heated thin plastic sheet over it - We did this once, at School,back in the early 80's IIRC.
I seem to recall there were over-heating issues with the ZX80, probably due to heatsink being too small (I know there was a lot more room in the ZX81 than the small plate it came with).
Chris Oddy found a taller one (RS 402-951) which he used on his MK14 Replica - See photos of it, here:
http://www.theoddys.com/acorn/Replic...lica_mk14.html
It was rather tight against the 8154 PIO IC, due to replicating original layout, so I ended-up bending it away slightly. And I put a silicone rubber TO-220 washer under it on mine, as didn't want to rely on solder resist to insulate rather close tracks from it.
Probably don't want to have to add a small (often noisy as tend to run at higher-speed) fan inside!