441–450 of 455 posts
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…
A sad day indeed. A true democratising force in computing, without his work I wouldn't have ever thought someone like me could write software. Even If I was too young to write at the time, the ZX Spectrum was my first/only video game experience, small games made by one or two people that my family could afford or borrow. This led me into making indie games and software dev, it gave me the idea of 'why not me?', the Z…
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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.
I argue that if Acorn designed the hardware ready-for-localisation then this would be a non-issue.
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Genuine question: I had a 2a+ too, it crashed all the time. Really frustrating. I believe it was because amstrad bought spectrum and started building them cheaper. Did your crash all the time?
Yeah. My friend had a +2 and it was solid. Didn't crash that much, worked with the older 48k software. The +2A was junk but it definitely taught me to be patient and persistent with shitty tech. Seems like my whole career has been based on that.
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Probably because back then you could rip apart your, say C64, and replace borked components with a soldering iron or so my dad told me.
You could replace many ICs with just your fingers or a screwdriver. On the C64 the main ones like the CPU, graphics, sound and IO chips were in sockets, and that was similar on many home computers of the era. I freaked my parents out by switching chips between our C64 and the floppy drive to see what would happen (they had almost compatible CPUs and IO chips - many things kept working). Also: Repairing by touching ch…
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Not true. The BBC was based on Acorn's "Proton" computer which was intended as a successor to the Acorn Atom.
Sounds like you folks weren't around at the time! I mean the whole idea of making a computer in the UK for educational purposes wouldn't have happened. We would have had the Apple II. Acorn was founded as a result of Clive's activities. Go read the wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Computers
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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.
For those who want to very this claim: https://fjkraan.home.xs4all.nl/comp/atom/atap/
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> 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.
And while Britain allows dual citizenship, most countries do not. So in most cases you need to rescind your other citizenship in order to be come an actual knight.
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Oh wow, it turns out the QL hardware was reused in the ICL One Per Desk. We had one at home growing up (for some reason?!). Kind of funny to read that it's greatest success was in networking hundreds of bingo halls together across the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Per_Desk
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 :(
The QLs problem was more the unreliable micro-drives the use of a cut down processor and the keyboard/build quality.