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Sir Clive Sinclair has died

theguardian.com

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Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#201

Post by k__ »

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…

Haha, that's really wholesome.

I remember how I destroyed my first PC on the first day by flipping a switch on the PSU before turning it on. Good times.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#202

Post by midnightclubbed »

RantyDave wrote: post #192
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had no idea. This is amazing.

I'm another who had exactly the same experience. That one sentence did the entire country a massive favour (and is, sadly, no longer true) The quality of the documentation with these early computers was also truly exceptional. I learned basic in a weekend.

To elaborate your point every ZX Spectrum came with a detailed manual from which you could learn Basic.

And in the back it had a ascii table with all the Z80 instruction codes - so once you had basic down you could try assembly!

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#203

Post by meelford »

headmelted wrote: post #150
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…

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…

The top keys have 7 (incl colours) functions per key. So cool!!

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#205

Post by detritus »

k__ wrote: post #201
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…

Haha, that's really wholesome. I remember how I destroyed my first PC on the first day by flipping a switch on the PSU before turning it on. Good times.

I did the same with my very first PC. For shame! I'd been used to simpler 16bit and 8bit machines, including a spectrum...

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#206

Post by timthorn »

midnightclubbed wrote: post #202
RantyDave wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm another who had exactly the same experience. That one sentence did the entire country a massive favour (and is, sadly, no longer true) The quality of the documentation with these early computers was also truly exceptional. I learned basic in a weekend.

To elaborate your point every ZX Spectrum came with a detailed manual from which you could learn Basic. And in the back it had a ascii table with all the Z80 instruction codes - so once you had basic down you could try assembly!

The keyboard itself was almost the Spectrum's own manual, listing all the BASIC keywords - because to enter one of the keywords, you just typed the key with that label. That made programming possible for a preschooler.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#207

Post by midnightclubbed »

hughrr wrote: post #128
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't tell - are you praising Sinclair, or shredding him? (I'm on the wrong side of the pond to have any real knowledge of him.)

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.

Hero worship because he brought computers to the masses. The cost cutting was the point - there were already computers that cost the same as a nice TV, this was a computer a kid could get for Christmas. For many of us that oppertunity was the start of a lifelong passion.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#208

Post by jacquesm »

gojomo wrote: post #189
jacquesm wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

The scary thing: this all seems like yesterday to me. For years I thought we were counting up to when we die, but now I realize we are actually counting down.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#209

Post by ComodoHacker »

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…

In my country, there weren't any originals, even smuggled. Clones were built and sold by local engineers, using smuggled schematics and photocopies of circuit board layouts.

The one I first get my hands on as a kid was built by my elder brother, an electronics engineer. I was so fascinated, I remember secretly sneaking into his house when he was at work to play the games.

He taught me electronics and encouraged me to understand the schematics and build one for myself. And I eventually did, but I got something wrong, and it worked unstable. I never got patience to find the cause and get it right.

But I definitely got charmed by electronics and programming because of this. Thank you, Sir Sinclair. And thank you, my brother.

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