Sir Clive Sinclair has died • Hacker News Board

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#381

Post by Cthulhu_ » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 9:23 AM UTC

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…

I grew up with a PC and that already wasn't as straightforward; we were Told in no uncertain terms that we should make sure to use the 'shut down' option in the menu or else Bad Things would happen (= disk parking). And changes in the system were permanent, so I never really experimented with the computer until my mid-to-late teens when I went to school for computer stuff - my dad was the expert until then.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#382

Post by noneeeed » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 9:31 AM UTC

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…

I try to keep this in mind with my kids. I try to not worry too much about them breaking stuff, and where possible put them in situations where they can experiment and try stuff without risk of screwing something up. Although I also like to repair stuff, and I think there's something nice about them breaking it and then us fixing it.

It's why things like the RPi and the Micro-bit are so cool for education, you can experiment with them and if it all goes wrong just reset them and carry on.

However I'm also concious that I and my kids are lucky to be able to absorb any financial/time cost from them breaking something. Not everyone can.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#383

Post by noneeeed » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 9:33 AM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #381

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…

I grew up with a PC and that already wasn't as straightforward; we were Told in no uncertain terms that we should make sure to use the 'shut down' option in the menu or else Bad Things would happen (= disk parking). And changes in the system were permanent, so I never really experimented with the computer until my mid-to-late teens when I went to school for computer stuff - my dad was the expert until then.

I saw something similar with my gf in uni. She hadn't had a computer at home and she was really intimidated by the computers there. It wasn't just because she was unused to them, but she was petrified of breaking them. It wasn't until I let her use mine and got her to relax about breaking it that she really started to learn how to use them properly.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#384

Post by varjag » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 9:33 AM UTC

aix1 wrote: post #364

varjag wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very similarly mine was Santaka, another Belarusian clone of a 48K. Had that horrid Cyrillic font instead of lowercase Latin. It was built by a former military supplier plant so its heritage stuck out in unexpected details (like 8x 2Kb ceramic package gold plated ROMs). I've upgraded it over the years with memory expansion, printer port, "real" keyboard, sound chip and disk controller. It grew into quite a hairball!…

At some point in the mid to late 1980s, there was a craze in Minsk of seemingly everyone home-building ZX Spectrum clones. Probably the Ленинград design, though I'm not entirely sure. As I recall, all the components were off-the-shelf Soviet parts (K155 TTL series), so no ULA or anything fancy like that. https://spectrumforeveryone.com/technical/zx-spectrum-ula-ty...

Yes it was, however when the factories started picking up they usually didn't use Leningrad version. Mine was a from scratch design (it came with schematics), and sure all of them emulated ULA with discrete logic - but usually not as half assed as Leningrad did.

This was the huge advantage of Spectrum: the whole thing could be built from COTS components and the only imported part in USSR had to be the Z80A. None of those Sid, Frodo, Bilbo etc ASICs.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#385

Post by renaudg » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 9:49 AM UTC

GekkePrutser wrote: post #225

tcbawo wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume he meant an Atari video game system rather than an Atari personal computer.

Yeah I (or rather my parents) got an Atari 800XL and it totally got me in tech. But yeah Atari was much better known for its having consoles (5200 and 7800 I think). I was never interested in those. Especially because the Atari was very unpopular in Europe. The C64 was king. That also made it more expensive which was why I got the 800XL. But it also meant much less software around which is how I started programming.

I grew up in France and the Amstrad was king (same in Spain I believe), the C64 a very very distant second, and nobody had ever seen a Spectrum (thankfully, if I may add : the C64 was special and in spite of its terrible palette deserves all the praise it gets. The Spectrum is a mediocre and incredibly overrated machine compared to the others. It was decent and affordable in 1982, but by 1984 both the C64 and Amstrad CPC were wiping the floor with it, and there was no longer a rational reason to prefer it. A bizarre love affair the UK has had with this machine...)

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#386

Post by xfz » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 9:51 AM UTC

POKE 23609,0

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#387

Post by dghf » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 10:00 AM UTC

Zuider wrote: post #376

hellbannedguy wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not quite true. If you wished to be addressed by the title of 'Sir' or 'Dame,' you would have to be a British citizen, but a non citizen can add letters after their name, e.g. Bob Geldof, KBE, remains a citizen of the Republic of Ireland.

I believe Commonwealth citizens (at least, those from countries that share a monarch with the UK) are entitled to use 'Sir' or 'Dame' as well: though Canada, for one, seems to take a dim view of its citizens accepting British honours.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#388

Post by Sosh101 » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 10:12 AM UTC

Chris_Newton wrote: post #163

jacquesm wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Given the availability of tech like the Pi now, I wonder what it would take to build a modern, child-friendly device in the same spirit around it: something that offered a fun and instructive introduction to programming, in a box that was self-contained, safe and practically indestructible. Design a case with a sealed keyboard? Expose standard power and display connectors with robust ports? Write some child-friendly…

Something between the MicroBit and the Pi would be great.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#389

Post by Sosh101 » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 10:15 AM UTC

Angostura wrote: post #370

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self soldered my first computer ever from a ZX81 kit. They were available as bargain sellout at the time(1985). When other people already used Commodore64 or the first Amigas or Atari STs. But I've been sceptic and low on funds :-) Wasn't that difficult because there weren't much parts. And no SMD. Scale was almost like electronic breadbording. And it worked for the first time! Regarding the Handbook, compare this im…

That image of the manual gave me the same visceral jolt of excitement that it did when I first saw it in 81

I miss the fantasy/scifi art that was used at the time.

Re: Sir Clive Sinclair has died

#390

Post by f_allwein » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 10:38 AM UTC

> But he did not make personal use of his own inventions. His daughter said he never had a pocket calculator as far as she knew, instead carrying a slide-rule around with him at all times. And he told interviewers he used neither a computer nor email.

Now that is probably unique among computer pioneers…