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Sir Clive Sinclair has died

theguardian.com

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Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#181

Post by PapaSpaceDelta »

brulard wrote: post #160
headmelted wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My story is so similar to yours (and I’m sure many others). Santa brought my house a Spectrum 48k Lo Profile when I was a kid with a cool KnightRider style keyboard. Over the years I haven’t seen it talked about much if at all, so I always assumed it was a fairly niche model. After hearing about Sir Clive, I looked it up to find out how many sold and was surprised to learn that it never actually existed as a standalo…

I got an Atari and I'm in tech. Why should that be any different?

For a lot of us Brits Sir Clive's machines were our first glimpse of the future. If that doesn’t sound like you, then just stand aside while we mourn our hero.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#182

Post by lalabert »

As someone who started coding just before the zx80 arrived I fully appreciate the difference he made! I was reading ETI (if you don’t know what the stands for you are too young :) that had adverts for the MK14 which was the predecessor to the zx series ) when it all kicked off and I was in awe! A true innovator.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#184

Post by headmelted »

brulard wrote: post #160
headmelted wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My story is so similar to yours (and I’m sure many others). Santa brought my house a Spectrum 48k Lo Profile when I was a kid with a cool KnightRider style keyboard. Over the years I haven’t seen it talked about much if at all, so I always assumed it was a fairly niche model. After hearing about Sir Clive, I looked it up to find out how many sold and was surprised to learn that it never actually existed as a standalo…

I got an Atari and I'm in tech. Why should that be any different?

EDIT: I should clarify I meant an Atari game system.

I was just talking about my own experience, but since you ask (and I’m certain this will bore but you did ask):

I got into tech due to having access to that computer, at that time, in an environment that otherwise wouldn’t have been amenable to learning about it at all.

In my case - our family Spectrum was later replaced by a SNES and after that a PS1. After the 48k, I didn’t have access to a PC at home for another decade, and wouldn’t have seen the point of saving enough to get it if not for having the Spectrum.

If I had gotten an Atari to begin with I wouldn’t have had those experiences. I guess something else inspired you along the way - for me it was this.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#185

Post by braben »

zarkov99 wrote: post #11

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.

Same here, I owe him my whole career. One day I came to my house at nine years old and saw that metal with ruber thing and lots of colours that my father bought. Wonder and awe, as you said. One of the best times of my life was understanding and coding an assembler routine to achieve 64 columns. RIP Sir Clive Sinclair. So sad news.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#186

Post by hughrr »

vasac wrote: post #179
hughrr wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it is. The guy had a rabid cult following much like Musk does today. He had many financial victims with poorly engineered products. He made a very valuable contribution to the industry however. People have rose tinted glasses about it but the reality was products not turning up, not shipping, not working and a sour taste for many against technology. He even bought faulty RAM in which was discarded for the Spectr…

He brought faulty RAM that had errors just in a single half and then he used just the other (correct) half - nothing wrong with that. Such cost cutting made it affordable to a large number of people - had it costed a couple of time more it could be a hard sell for my Eastern European parents. Fortunately, that didn't happen and now, 40 years later, I have a nice career and I'm still enjoying dealing with computers ju…

Actually that’s not strictly true. Test methodology was “see if it worked and ship”. Many many of the computers were returned and replaced immediately. And a lot of the new ones you got were the broken ones which were sent back and the chips replaced. I’ve seen a new one which still didn’t work which had been reworked at least once and sold as new again.

My father had a nice business for a few years doing adhoc repairs and then started his own PC import business in the end with the cash he earned fixing people’s stuff. That was a world of difference.

Agree with your comments about affordability. As you say about Eastern Europe, even the clones were more expensive I understand.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#189

Post by gojomo »

jacquesm wrote: post #97
gojomo wrote: post #20

When 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 .

On the ZX80 it was done in such a way that just processing your keyboard input caused the video to blank.

That rings a bell!

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#190

Post by hughrr »

lordgroff wrote: post #168
hughrr wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shredding him. His business acumen was nil and his cost cutting nailed shut the coffin of every venture he started. I don’t get the hero worship.

And yet, the 48K is in history books, and is fondly remembered by many of us tech geeks who cut their teeth on that machine. It doesn't matter everything else didn't work out, I'd be pretty damn happy with that legacy.

Yes and no. The 48k was a bit of a disaster to start with. Lots of failures, bugs galore, a full recall due to power supply shock hazard. Not to mention the horrible keyboard.

When you look at the microscopic view of owning one computer from him that worked it does somewhat rose tint the overall view of things which was not good.

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