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Sir Clive Sinclair has died

theguardian.com

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Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#351

Post by croon »

b3lvedere wrote: post #339
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…

Dad bought a ZX Spectrum. I was very curious and wanted to play with it. Dad gave me the huge manual and told me to study that first. I didn't. Instead i tried every key and this started my huge computer adventure that will probably only end when i'm dead.

Amazing to see the amount of similar comments here. I too grew up with the ZX (and later an Atari ST), and made my first program (a game, of course). It felt very zen to write it, play it, and then being okay with not saving it when I cut the power.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#352

Post by t43562 »

nmstoker wrote: post #267
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…

It's fascinating how empowering knowing just how safe you are can be. I used nearly this exact phrase the other day with someone who appeared fearful of a dashboard tool and once they realised they could basically do no harm whatsoever it freed them up to experiment and learn.

Well, it's not strictly true at all that you are totally safe, I think, but you have to behave as if you are or you get nowhere. That's quite a metaphor for life in general.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#353

Post by jeswin »

onion2k wrote: post #344
marttt wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "You cannot harm the computer in this way. Be bold." What an empathetic, caring, tactful way to teach tech to kids. The whole instruction is like that, a really well composed message. No hypes or overpowering, just guiding children to quiet explorations.

It's also an important message to parents, telling them that it's OK to let their kids play with an expensive piece of tech without the danger of them breaking it.

Also, the expensive pieces of tech from the 80s and 90s had excellent repairability.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#355

Post by mkl »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #320
mkl wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That seems to be a US rule [1], not a condition imposed by the knighting jurisdiction. Maybe some other countries have similar no-titles rules, but I couldn't find any (might be searching for the wrong terms).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Emoluments_Clause

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#358

Post by Wildgoose »

123pie123 wrote: post #134
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #37

The 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

Whilst my first programs was on the acorn atom, Zx80 and zx81 the zx spectrum hold a special place in my memory because the manual was fantasic - I learnt almost everything from it. and then progressed on to typing the monterous (using the aweful rubber keys) blocks of programs from magazines - THEN I learnt how to debug and rewrite the games that I'd just typed in from the magazines, because they never worked first…

I still have my Acorn Atom from Christmas 1980.

The user manual "Atomic Theory and Practise" was an amazingly good introduction to computers, and is still on the shelf above my desk.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#359

Post by 123pie123 »

FearNotDaniel wrote: post #323
firecall wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who remembers waking into a store on the high street in Britain and seeing rows of different computer systems! Sinclair Spectrums, BBC Model B and so on! It was glorious! It was so exciting as a kid! Going to each of them and writing 3 lines of basic to print my name infinitely! A truely golden age of discovery!

Remember this well. Though my three line programs were a little more mischievous. When Boots the Chemist weirdly started selling computers I thought it was fun to go in on a Saturday afternoon and type: 10 PRINT "Boots is rubbish, shop at Dixons."; 20 GOTO 10 I thought I was a genius. Probably should have got a slimy career in adtech after that, but thankfully I didn't.

the WHSmiths shops had some of their computers sound amplified through the cassette players

a mischeivious program of

  10 pause (big number)
  20 beep
  30 goto 20
it would sit there for ages until a key was pressed, then beep very loud when a person - who's very first touch of a computers keyboard, would seemly set an alarm off.

the faces of the customers thinking they've broke the computer is still etched in my mind

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#360

Post by Wildgoose »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #277
RantyDave wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The QL failed because (amongst other things) they had outsourced the basic interpreter to another company for the ZX series and decided to bring it in house for the QL :(

I attribute the decline of the UK’s domestic computer industry (including Acorn) to the scene as-a-whole being either uninterested or unwilling to embrace PC-compatibility. Had they done that, I think they could have secured better distribution deals, especially in education, but eve more-so overseas. What if Sinclair, Amstrad, and Acorn were able to establish themselves as a third-way (like Amiga and Be almost did)…

Acorn attempted this but suffered from various US "regulations" that seemed designed to keep non-US companies out of the USA, or at least make it difficult for them to operate.

One example is the RF rules that hampered the Acorn Archimedes.

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