RIP. Many a programming career, including mine, was started thanks to Sir Clive. There was a sense of wonder and awe around those machines that is no where to be found these days, even though we have so much power computational power. Something was lost.
Sir Clive Sinclair has died
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Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died
#12@dang - I believe that deserves a black ribbon. In some countries generations grew up learning hacking and programming with his computers (and knock-offs)
Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died
#13I sold my Sinclair Scientific calculator, from the mid-seventies, just a month ago. Got a tenner for it even though it wasn't working.
I miss those times, there was something so much more immediate, more real about computing in the 70s and 80s. It was somehow lighter and less intimidating. It's only just coming back with Arduino style kit.
RIP
Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died
#14I sold my Sinclair Scientific calculator, from the mid-seventies, just a month ago. Got a tenner for it even though it wasn't working. I miss those times, there was something so much more immediate, more real about computing in the 70s and 80s. It was somehow lighter and less intimidating. It's only just coming back with Arduino style kit. RIP
One thing the Arduino doesn't quite have is that the ZX machines, while not cutting edge, were quite novel and "high tech".
Most people who have an Arduino also have a supercomputer-phone. But a ZX81 or ZX Spectrum were, at the time, all you could afford and relatively advanced to the point of being amazing for most other people (who didn't own any computer whatsoever).
Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died
#15[deleted]
Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died
#16@dang - I believe that deserves a black ribbon. In some countries generations grew up learning hacking and programming with his computers (and knock-offs)
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Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died
#17@dang - I believe that deserves a black ribbon. In some countries generations grew up learning hacking and programming with his computers (and knock-offs)
Agreed! The Timex Sinclair 1000 (US ZX81 rebadging) was my first computer when I was 6 and as an autistic child it really helped keep me engaged and I suspect that without it I would have ended up in special education classes... Sir Clive literally changed my life
Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died
#18We had one of his op-amp home hifi kits from before his computing days. I'm not going to gloss things up here, it was shit. Noisy, bad circuit design, bad instructions.
Delivery was often fraught: he had no supply chain and always went to market before stocks built up.
Sinclair is notorious for overpromising and under delivering. The calculators were highly approximate trig functions, the Sinclair e-car was a joke.
I curse the membrane keyboard to this day.
Smart man. Crap product. A joke of the times from British TV: the Sinclair digital penis: 1 inch long and takes 28 days to come.
I understand how many people bootstrapped into computing from the spectrum btw, a friend made significant money from writing sw for it. Tiny compilers, games.
Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died
#19My first computer was a ZX81, then an QL. I still have them at home. Maybe I'll try to power them up. I've found some listings of programs I wrote in BASIC on the ZX81. They are only marginally easier to understand than machine code, maybe not :-) but they were the first step to bring me here. Thanks Sir Sinclair.
Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died
#20When I had no computer, I wanted one of those Sears.
IIRC the video output often cut out whenever a user program was running?
I'm sure I would have enjoyed having one, but was fortunate enough my parents picked up an Apple ][+ instead. Still, warm feelings towards that unit, & its series, as something that made home computing thinkable.