… I dreaded this day. He was the first “computer celebrity” I knew of and looked up to.
Always expected him to make some kind of comeback in a world that sorely needs something like what the ZX Spectrum (& C64) was in its time.
Sir Clive Sinclair has died
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Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died
#72Britain's Steve Jobs.
I'd say Clive Sinclair was more like Britain's Jack Tramiel. Chris Curry or Herman Hauser would be more like Britain's Steve Jobs and Sophie Wilson as Britain's Steve Wozniak.
Wikipedia calls Acorn, Britain's Apple. Just as Apple chose its name because it was before Atari in the phone book, so Acorn chose it's name because it was before Apple.
Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died
#73My first computer was a ZX81, and his machines made a profound impression on my early days in computing (and became even more remarkable once I was able to understand the hardware design tricks involved).
Good thing we have things like the Raspberry Pi to recapture some of that magic for our kids.
Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died
#74The ZX Spectrum+ I grew up with still works (only had to replace the keyboard membrane). What an amazing piece of tech. I have fond memories of it, and I also keep my collection of Microhobby Magazine [1], which is effectively how my career started.
I had some earlier contact with a ZX81 but I don't remember much of it - really only playing 3D Monster Maze [2], a very early ancestor of 3D shooters.
The ZX Spectrum+ and the ZX81 are so meaningful to me, you could argue they're the focus of my book's dedication [3]. Would I be where I am today, would I be who I am today, if back in the day it wasn't as easy as PLOT 6,5?
Rest in peace, Sir Clive.
[1] https://microhobby.speccy.cz/mhforever/numero001.htm [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_Monster_Maze [3] https://gabrielgambetta.com/computer-graphics-from-scratch/d...
Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died
#75"Horace Goes Skiing" was written by Fred Milgrom, co-founder of Beam Software (studio) and (I think) Melbourne House (publisher). His team also did The Hobbit. The studio is based in Melbourne, Australia.
"Knight Lore" was by Ultimate Play the Game, whicn became Rare (Banjo-Kazooie, GoldenEye 007, Donkey Kong Country etc).
Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died
#76The Spectrum and ZX81 are (rightly) the computers for which Clive Sinclair is remembered. But it was his unsuccessful follow-up, the QL, which inspired a certain Linus Torvalds to write Linux: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_QL#Legacy
Funny that it was inspiring in its frustrating designs / lack of features, rather than a "positive" sort of inspiration.
Failure can be a source of inspiration, after all.
Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died
#77I think this pretty much sums it up.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts96J7HhO28
RIP sir Clive.
Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died
#78My first computer was a ZX81, and his machines made a profound impression on my early days in computing (and became even more remarkable once I was able to understand the hardware design tricks involved). Good thing we have things like the Raspberry Pi to recapture some of that magic for our kids.
Ditto. I assembled/soldered the thing my self. Went on to using it to learning assembly language and how the internals work (buses, etc).
I've retired after a great career in IT/Systems tech and it was Clive's little computer that was the gateway drug for me!
Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died
#79Ah, that's too bad, really. Pocket calculators, Electric vehicles, cheap personal computers, e-bikes and probably others that I'm not aware of. Game changers in every instance, not all of them equally successful but you really can't fault the man for trying.
Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died
#80RIP. 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.
I started with Apple 2+ but back then there were many computers to be fond of. There were Vic 20, Dragon 32, Amstrad, Thomson TO7, TRS-80, BBC. All were different, all had their capabilities. But what was fun is that everyone had access to the whole thing : hardware, software. Nothing was hidden behind layers of security. You could relate software and hardware in a very natural way. Everybody was fiddling around. Als…
Yes, and today such a perspective is almost impossible to achieve outside the embedded space. Even a Raspberry-Pi is many orders of magnitude more complex than say a Dragon 32 (Color Computer clone, by the way) or a BBC Micro.