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Sir Clive Sinclair has died

theguardian.com

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Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#311

Post by kindall »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #242
dvirsky wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, but it also reminds me, the first programming lesson in school (not on a Spectrum but on an IBM PC), our teacher told us "there's nothing you can do with code that will harm the computer in any way" (these computers did not have a hard drive so you could not wipe anything). This immediately set us on a quest to find ways to prove him wrong - the basis of hacker thinking. Not that we did find anything with…

There was a way you could burn out a chip in the C64 with a poke command IIRC. And you could break the tape advance relay in the MSX by switching it on and off rapidly. Edit: Oops it wasn't the 64 but the PET: https://dfarq.homeip.net/the-killer-poke-for-the-commodore-p... Also, everyone here will know the phenomenon of bricking. You can damage hardware with software. Luckily it's very rare.

the tape relay was one of the TRS-80s IIRC. You could toggle it back and forth fast enough to overheat it and get it stuck.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#312

Post by Dylan16807 »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #144
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.

Dude, he's just died. There's definitely a time for robust debate about his legacy and potential flaws, but that time and place should not be this thread.

This isn't the time and place for polite shallow mutterings either. We're not at the funeral here, or barging in on the bereaved. If we're going to have a discussion thread about his legacy, it should be a fair one.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#313

Post by stevekemp »

billti wrote: post #121
epx wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Started with a ZX-81 clone. The factor I liked most was the attention with the manuals, they really cared to teach the basics of programming, even low-level things, to the layman.

I memorized the ZX81 (and Spectrum) manuals back to front. Around age 11 I used to write out assembly long-hand and "poke" the OpCodes into memory to write programs and drivers. I really credit what has now been a long and happy career in software development to the affordable computers Sir Clive developed. (My family was pretty poor growing up, but I convinced my Dad to spring the 80 pounds or so for one after I bor…

Same here - writing code in assembly, on paper, then looking up the opcodes in the back of the orange manual.

Having to write out the bytes and using DATA to store them, and POKE to put them in-memory. Calculating the JMP offsets by hand, and taking the time to SAVE to cassette before running it for the first time.

I didn't write much assembly, but I spent a hell of a long time removing protection from Spectrum games, and patching the code to give me infinite lives/time.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#314

Post by stevekemp »

chx wrote: post #105

Oh dear. My parents smuggled (!) a ZX Spectrum in 1985 into Hungary and they knew they will do it and while they were on their tour to Western Germany I was at a summer daytime camp at the nearby community center where we learned BASIC on them. And , of course , played games , mostly Horace And The Spiders :) I was ten. Fast forward two decades and I was contributing to Drupal core (first core commit 17 years ago was…

Horace and the Spiders, as well as Horace Goes Skiing are very much part of my early memories of computers.

I guess Dizzy comes close, but Horace was the first "character" I played, and looked out for.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#315

Post by daverol »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #169
timbit42 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I worked at Acorn in the early 80's. I once arm wrestled Chris Curry in a bar. Neither one of them was really a Steve Jobs figure. I doubt many BBC Micro owners at the time would even have heard of them, unlike Sinclair who was in the press all the time. Curry was more of a drunken playboy, and Hermann more business man than marketeer or face of the company. It was a dream job for a geek!

Was the arm wrestling in 'The Mitre' or 'The Baron of Beef'?

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#316

Post by dang »

phaemon wrote: post #260
hughrr wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a fair amount of experience with Sinclair products both from ownership and repair perspective. We should speak the truth of the dead and not lie to ourselves.

Sure. You're a useless cunt and when you die it will massively improve the life of everyone you know. Welcome to the truth my friend.

We've banned this account, not just for this egregious violation of the site rules, but because you've been doing it repeatedly for a long time and have ignored our requests to stop. Seriously not cool.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#317

Post by cable2600 »

nanis wrote: post #191
ghoul2 wrote: post #101

RIP Sir. I was gifted the 48K when I was 6 yrs old - it changed my life. I am here because Sir Sinclair built a machine whose setup instructions said: Now that you have set up the computer, you will want to use it. The rest of this booklet tells you how to do that; but in your impatience you will probably already have started pressing the keys on the keyboard, and discovered that this removes the copyright message. T…

Mine was smuggled into the country due to currency crises and import/export controls. I owe thanks to my mother for arranging that so that I could graduate from writing programs using paper and pencil to using an actual computer. Thank you Psion's Horizons cassette for teaching me about computer architecture. Thank you Toni Baker for teaching me Z80 assembly so I could program x86 with no problem. But, thank you Sir…

I still write programs on paper and pencil to see if I can do it as accurately as the machine can.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#318

Post by cable2600 »

adfm wrote: post #307
srcmap wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first compute was ~1984 Timex_Sinclair_1000 $99 and with 2K RAM. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_1000 It definitively the gateway drug that hook me into computer. Bought $6 book on how to program Sinclair computer and copy the Basic Code from the book into that computer and record that program into audio cassette tape and output to analog TV. Now I working daily with systems that have 128 cores, 256 t…

My first computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000, too. That keyboard was too much, but you kept at it! And if you even looked at that memory module funny, it would short out and you'd have to stay up all night and re-key everything back in by hand. We got more use out of the TRS-80s at school, but having a machine to ourselves at home was influential.

I had a Timex/Sinclar 1000 with the 64K memory module that sort of worked half the time. Zot, there it goes again and I have to type everything in again because I didn't save it to tape.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#319

Post by zubairq »

To my best recollection, I remember getting into computers when I first saw an advert for the ZX81 flight simulator in a computer magazine amd being totally amazed and inspired. Thanks Clive!

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#320

Post by hellbannedguy »

mkl wrote: post #270
ghoul2 wrote: post #101

RIP Sir. I was gifted the 48K when I was 6 yrs old - it changed my life. I am here because Sir Sinclair built a machine whose setup instructions said: Now that you have set up the computer, you will want to use it. The rest of this booklet tells you how to do that; but in your impatience you will probably already have started pressing the keys on the keyboard, and discovered that this removes the copyright message. T…

> Sir Sinclair FYI since I've seen this mistake a few times in this discussion: Sir Clive or Sir Clive Sinclair. "Sir" and "Dame" are attached to the given name, never the surname. I don't know why it's different from other titles, and Wikipedia doesn't seem to explain, just states the rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir

What I didn't know is if you are knighted, you have to give up your birth citizenship.
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