Sir Clive Sinclair has died
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. This is good; _you cannot harm the computer in this way._ Be bold. Experiment. If you get stuck, remember that you can always reset the computer to the original picture with the copyright message by taking out the '9V DC IN' plug and putting it back again. This should be the last resort because you lose all the information in the computer.
"You cannot harm the computer in this way."
That single sentence started a life long journey. I doubt I would have been bold enough at that age to mess around with one of our most valuable possessions.
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:
The excellent Micro Men docudrama (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Men) has somehow been on Youtube since 2013:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXBxV6-zamM (1h24m)
Micro Men, working title Syntax Era, is a 2009 one-off BBC drama television programme set in the late 1970s and the early-mid 1980s, about the rise of the British home computer market. It focuses on the rivalry between Sir Clive Sinclair (played by Alexander Armstrong), who developed the ZX Spectrum, and Chris Curry (played by Martin Freeman), the man behind the BBC Micro.
(Sinclair didn't exactly like it though.)
Very sad. For American readers it may be difficult to explain quite how much Sir Clive and his products shaped tech and a large number of British engineers. So many of us found a love of programming from Sir Clive's computers.
The beautiful thing about Sir Clive's products (particularly the ZX Spectrum) was that they were cheap. Basically a Zilog Z80, a ROM, RAM, membrane keyboard, and a single asic. No sound chip, no video chip, no disk drive, bring your own tape deck (connected directly to Z80 IO pins).
By designing for cost Sinclair Research were able to make a home computer that working class families could afford. Rather than being an enthusiast purchase, kids could bug their parents for one - and millions did. Thousands of these kids turned their programming experiments into businesses and careers.
RIP. Many a programming career, including mine, was started thanks to Sir Clive. There was a sense of wonder and awe around those machines that is no where to be found these days, even though we have so much power computational power. Something was lost.
Sir Clive Sinclair was a hero of mine for realizing that computing could be for children of poorer families. The Apple II is lauded for the classroom, but it was way too expensive for my family. Without people like Sir Sinclair, I and many other would have never been able to enter this profession we so love.
Apple gets the credit, but it was Sir Sinclair, Commodore, Atari, and TI that raised a generation in computing.
Rest well great man.
Our first computer was ĐĐĐĚТ - Belarussian clone of ZX Spectrum. It was mid to late 90s and it was already super obsolete at the time, but every time we took it out and connected to TV it filled me with a sense of wonder and unknown that started my fascination with electronics and programming. What an amazing impact Sir Clive had on so many lives.
Even my nickname on this very website comes from my favourite game I played on Spectrum when I was a kid. Now I'm a game developer myself.
The ZX Spectrum was my first computer. So many good moments with it... It's hard to describe it for the current generation - if you were there, you know what I mean.
Sir Clive Sinclair had an enormous impact on my life and career. Today is a sad day for me :(
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 https://i.imgur.com/ZGemjVc.png although Dries forgot to credit me, boo :) ) and another five years later I was working on a Top 100 website.
Thanks Sir Sinclair.
One of the legacies from Sinclair's era is the profound understanding of the power of young hobbyists working on cheap computers, and how that leads to a workforce trained in STEM. This idea directly inspired the development of the Raspberry Pi which has been beyond wildly successful and may be the most popular line of British computers in history.
I also owe a lot to Sir Clive. At 13 years old in 1981, My friends father bought a ZX80 for him. Some days after, I was at his home and he explained, what he had figured out about it. The same evening at home, I wrote my first program on paper (a Russian roulette game, I think). I couldn't wait until the next day, when I came home to him again, to see if my program would work. After some work we got it working :-) and I was hooked. I began buying the magazines "Your Computer" and "Byte", and even though English was a foreign language, I managed to understand some of it. A few months later, on my birthday I got my own ZX81, and after that an Acorn Atom, and then an Acorn Electron, and then a PC clone, and then... Still working with programming, now in data science :-)
ZX81 manual - coolest cover ever https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/content/media/13/...
Uh oh. Soviet ZX spectrum clone was my first computer, and the first I ever wrote a program on using a built-in basic at an age of 10. This was a magnificent device that brought me a lot of joy. Rest In Peace, Sir Clive.
Now, I'll go play some Manic Miner or Nether Earth in your honor.
I owe him a career, I suspect a lot of others do as well.
We had one of his op-amp home hifi kits from before his computing days. I'm not going to gloss things up here, it was shit. Noisy, bad circuit design, bad instructions.
Delivery was often fraught: he had no supply chain and always went to market before stocks built up.
Sinclair is notorious for overpromising and under delivering. The calculators were highly approximate trig functions, the Sinclair e-car was a joke.
I curse the membrane keyboard to this day.
Smart man. Crap product. A joke of the times from British TV: the Sinclair digital penis: 1 inch long and takes 28 days to come.
I understand how many people bootstrapped into computing from the spectrum btw, a friend made significant money from writing sw for it. Tiny compilers, games.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81 or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_1000
Those were wild little toys; and people stretched them beyond all reason.
The ZX Spectrum+ I grew up with still works (only had to replace the keyboard membrane). What an amazing piece of tech. I have fond memories of it, and I also keep my collection of Microhobby Magazine [1], which is effectively how my career started.
I had some earlier contact with a ZX81 but I don't remember much of it - really only playing 3D Monster Maze [2], a very early ancestor of 3D shooters.
The ZX Spectrum+ and the ZX81 are so meaningful to me, you could argue they're the focus of my book's dedication [3]. Would I be where I am today, would I be who I am today, if back in the day it wasn't as easy as PLOT 6,5?
Rest in peace, Sir Clive.
[1] https://microhobby.speccy.cz/mhforever/numero001.htm [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_Monster_Maze [3] https://gabrielgambetta.com/computer-graphics-from-scratch/d...
For its time and price vs. performance, the Spectrum might have been the best personal computer ever made. It was my first machine, and I loved it so much.
Grew up in a house surrounded by many wonderful machines, but by far the most beautiful and alluring were the Spectrums. My dad wrote some reasonably popular books on these things in the 80s which pretty much set me on my way:
https://worldofspectrum.org/archive/books/working-sinclair-q...
https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2000420/Book/The_Worki...
I suspect a lot of people on this website wouldn't be here were it not for him (perhaps me included).
The sense of wonder I got as a kid by playing games and learning how to program on his machines made for amazing life-shaping experiences.
I learned to program on the 48k when I was about 8. Couldnât figure out how to save my code to tape so I just left the machine switched on for weeks whilst I wrote games and then let them go when I had to turn the power off. I learned more sat alone with that machine than anywhere else in my life. Rest in peace Sir Clive Sinclair.
Yes, I well remember the Sinclairs I played with. They never made the 'Apple leap', and slowly faded, but he had a lot of good ideas. With a Silicon Valley milieu in the UK, he would have done better. I was a Silicon Valley parts rat in the late 70's. Went there 2-3 times a year. Mike Quinn, Space Age metal products, Advanced Computer Products(Freeman Brothers), Bill Godbout and so on. They all had surplus warehouses. The tax law in the USA allowed old parts to be written off - but if you wrote them off, you could not keep them. If you kept them = not written off. This led to huge surplus warehouse entrepreneurs who bid on the scrapped parts and then resold them. This is the way it should be. In the UK/Canada companies wrote them off and KEPT them - sitting unused = no good to man or beast. I think that is why it was unique - US tax law.
RIP.
I, like many others here, started on a ZX Spectrum 48k. It was a wonderful time where one could experiment and "learn by doing". I spent days copying program code from a magazine into the REPL, and after debugging it for a while, i marvelled at the space invaders game i had "made myself".
It was also a time where local radio stations would dedicate a couple of hours every friday night to broadcast user made programs. Yes, that's right, 2 hours of "brrzzzziiiiwwwwwhhzzz". Before each program was broadcast, the radio host would give a small intro to what was being broadcast, and the computer needed to run it.
We had classes with no set agenda, where "nerds" could meet up, and we could code whatever we wanted.
The whole "world" was different back then, and looking back i can easily see how a generation of skilled engineers came to be.
The Guardian article claims "Sinclair invented the pocket calculator", but other calculators were on the market before his:
http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/history_of_electronic...
[edit] More details on his calculators, which were quite cool, especially his trick to decrease power consumption and the super-slim Sinclair Sovereign:
http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/sinclair_-_the_pocket...
I will never forget characteristic screen loading method. A 256x192 resolution, 16384 - beginning of video memory, 6144 bytes of B&W pixel data in 3 blocks and 768 bytes for 8*2 color palette. Those visuals and numbers are imprinted in my memory...
Two people who changed my life forever - Sir Clive Sinclair and my Father who'd been bold enough to invest in Timex 2048 despite price and difficulties of life behind an iron curtain.
Thank you. Both of you.
ZX81 was my first computer, putting the kit (!) together with my dad. Didnât work so sent it back and got a pre made one, found out later that at least 1/3rd of the kits didnât work.
That, going through 101 Basic Computer Games, and typing in the esoteric Beagle Bros commands in their ads are fond memories.
I was a (small) part of the Spectrum hackers clique in Warsaw. Most of us had "Masterface" which was a hardware extension that had a switch to replace the ZX ROM with a custom-baked one and used NMI to do things like snapshotting the state of the machine to tape or loading a custom debugger.
The first one was used for pirating games (but pirating by snapshotting was considered cheap) but the debugger was the real deal. It fit in the screen memory (so as to mess as little as possible with the game memory) and let us discover "pokes" for infinite lives. I think it was called Fox Mon or Foxmon?
Cool times.
Ah, that's too bad, really. Pocket calculators, Electric vehicles, cheap personal computers, e-bikes and probably others that I'm not aware of. Game changers in every instance, not all of them equally successful but you really can't fault the man for trying.
I didn't grow up with the ZX Spectrum, but I managed to buy one (actually a few) a number of years ago, and had a lot of fun playing around in BASIC and then writing programs in assembly. The computer's design is so very simple, it was a nice introduction to low-level computing and I now do that for a career. It's no surprise to me hearing about how many careers started on that system, I somehow think that -- in the age of CodeAcademy and endless free JavaScript courses -- computing is somehow so much less approachable.
Sad news, rest in peace Sir Clive.
In Brazil we had only clones, as the military dictatorship wanted to bootstrap a local industry. The only exception I remember was HP-85, which was classified as a scientific instrument or something other than a personal computer.
The first computer I had at home was a CP-200, a ZX-81 clone with an inverted video signal (white on black) and calculator keys made by Prologica (who also cloned the ZX-80, the Intertec Superbrain, the TRS-80 model 3, CoCo and, later, PCs). Didn't last long - we returned it to get a much more practical Apple II+ (a clone, again). The damage to my brain, though, was done: I discovered the thrill of writing programs.
The ZX Spectrum was the only other Sinclair cloned in Brazil, by a different company, Microdigital.
I really like the elegant, minimalistic electronics design (even though it did hurt performance to task the Z80, which is no speed demon itself, with putting up pixels to the screen) of the ZX-81.
My first computer was a ZX81, then an QL. I still have them at home. Maybe I'll try to power them up. I've found some listings of programs I wrote in BASIC on the ZX81. They are only marginally easier to understand than machine code, maybe not :-) but they were the first step to bring me here. Thanks Sir Sinclair.
Cheers Clive. Sorry to see you go. Your inventions were an incredible influence in my formative years and I wouldn't be here without you.
10 PRINT "RIP Clive Sinclair"
20 GOTO 10
> "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."
"Horace Goes Skiing" was written by Fred Milgrom, co-founder of Beam Software (studio) and (I think) Melbourne House (publisher). His team also did The Hobbit. The studio is based in Melbourne, Australia.
"Knight Lore" was by Ultimate Play the Game, whicn became Rare (Banjo-Kazooie, GoldenEye 007, Donkey Kong Country etc).
I learned to program in 1982 when my mom bought me a Timex Sinclair 1000 (2K RAM!) and had to type in all the games from source listings in books and magazines. At some point later, I bought a 16K memory expansion pack which was awesome until you jiggled the computer a little bit and it would reset all memory.
The very first bug I had to figure out was when I was typing in an expression like "A <> B", and not realizing that "<>" was a single character on the keyboard, and not "<" followed by ">".
My first computer was a ZX81, and his machines made a profound impression on my early days in computing (and became even more remarkable once I was able to understand the hardware design tricks involved).
Good thing we have things like the Raspberry Pi to recapture some of that magic for our kids.
When I had no computer, I wanted one of those <USD$200 ZX81s so badly â just from seeing it magazines, & maybe pressing some of its keys at the electronics counter of someplace like maybe a Sears.
IIRC the video output often cut out whenever a user program was running?
I'm sure I would have enjoyed having one, but was fortunate enough my parents picked up an Apple ][+ instead. Still, warm feelings towards that unit, & its series, as something that made home computing thinkable.
As much as the hardware fuelled my interest in computing, and ultimately forged my career. Something that I think isn't appreciated enough was the beautiful design language Sinclair employed. I've always viewed Sinclair as proto Apple.
My career as a games programmer was very much started by this magnificent machine.
I think âHey Hey 16kâ says it all.
RIP good sir.
A clone of Sinclair ZX81 was the first computer that I touched and coded when I was a kid. My color homage to Sinclair ZX Spectrum in less than 140 characters of Javascript: https://www.dwitter.net/d/23871
I started with a Brazilian ZX81 clone, the Prologica CP200. It changed my life. Thank you, Sir Clive Sinclair.
I was always an Acorn kid (now ARM and taking over the world). I still have my Acorn Atom; 12Kb of memory (with the expansion pack) that somehow included a BASIC interpreter, assembler, and left 10Kb of usable program/graphics memory.
I was jealous of the Spectrum kids with the sheer number of games made for the Spectrum. I'd go round to my mate's house who had a Spectrum but wasn't into games, and bug him for hours until he'd load something up and we could play it. I'd then try and make bad clones of those games on my Atom.
I think there's a whole generation of British techies like me, raised in the 80's, who owe Sir Clive (and his peers) our entire careers. If there's a Tech Valhalla, he'll be seated on the high table.
In late '80s an italian advertisement company sent to almost all italian families a book where you could buy almost everything using Post Offices. A kind of amazon's father :-). If any italian will read this post he will remember "Postal Market". In the last pages of that book there were all tech stuffs to buy including ZX Spectrum, commodore 64, etc. I was 7-8 years old and I was fascinated about those things. I didn't have enough money to buy a computer. When I reached the right amount (my savings) to buyone, Postal market hasn't sold any computer anymore. I started in 1991 with a "12 Mhz 80286 Vegas Communications".
I still rimember the feeling when I was browsing those pages
Ah, the Timex Sinclair 1000! I would fantasize about having one while looking at magazines ads. You could buy the kit, build it and learn so much about computing, all for $99.95 US! Sure, the 1K of RAM was a bit limiting, but you could save up and buy a 16K RAM pack.
I learned to program on a ZX81. What else is there to say?
Like so many I learned to code on a ZX80 and basically never stopped. I'm here 40+ years later, typing this on a HoloLens and marveling at the impact that little computer had on me and the world. RIP Sir Clive
Certainly deserving of a black banner.
First computer I ever typed a program into was zx80 that belonged to a friend of my dad. He (a journalist) didnât like the membrane keyboard so he attached a teletype keyboard.
Growing up we first had a Sinclair Cambridge calculator, then a ZX81 (complete with a 16K RAM expansion pack!), then a Spectrum that we upgraded to a Spectrum+ by sending off for the upgrade kit. We even had a Sinclair thermal printer...
So many happy memories of weekends spent entering game code from the back of magazines and then venturing into writing our own. Genuinely don't think I'd be in the software industry today if it hadn't been for his creations.
Several things Sinclair was made fun of back in the day are now "the work of geniuses". Among them is wafer scale electronics. Sinclair's:
http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/3043/Anamartic-Wafer-...
Currently:
I was thinking this morning about how the Raspberry Pi never really quite got it right in bringing the legacy of the early 80's computers into the 21st century.
The Pi Foundation bring out new models, but I think this just complicates things. They are evolving more towards PCs. I think this is unfortunate. The question they should be asking is: what if we crossed a RP2040 with a Pi Zero? Perhaps with a very simple "DOS".
Sad to hear this. I got a ZX in the mid-eighties. It was the 16k-model but my father upgraded it to 48k, I think it even involved some soldering.
One of my best friends also had one and we tinkered a lot, all by ourselves. To get stuff to load from copied cassettes on whatever tape deck or boom-box you had available was sometimes a very frustrating experience. We cleaned the tape heads with q-tips and alcohol, set the five-band eq to some previous good setting (marked with a pencil), then loaded, adjusted and retried. Typing in long listings from computer magazines, often failing and having to double check and re-type parts was quite common too.
We also learned the value of RTFM. The first game my friend had on a cassette had a fold in leaflet. We spent one evening not being able to load it using the instructions. The next evening a brilliant move was made, remove the leaflet from the cassette and read the remaining part on the hidden side :) Success!
These experiences definitely help remove any fear of tinkering with respect to computers and other digital equipment that I later on have noticed in others.
RIP Sir Clive.
My parents were having a clear out and found my old (2nd hand when I got it!) Speccy, just last week. It's been in a box but I feel compelled to see if it's in working order still (no leaky caps please or dodgy joints, at least there's no old PSU to worry about)
For us North Americans not very familiar with Sir Clive's machine, there's a pretty good summary of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jr7Q1yJOUM
Apparently it, or a follow-up model, WAS available in the US, branded by Timex of all companies.
As an 8yo, I thought ZX was a German computer, because like every other home computer of the time it came from a shop in Munichâs Schillerstrasse. Somehow it found its way into Eastern Europe that wasnât too keen on importing computers.
An old joke says it was passing through customs as a âwashing machine programmer, not a computer, see, its all rubberyâ
My first actually owned was a Timex 2068, although I do remember seeing those ZX 81 maker kits on electronic stores on sale.
I was quite envious from my pals that eventually got +2A and 3 models, specially with the 3 one, having floppies and CP/M version available.
Pity that QL did not work out, nor the Sam CoupĂŠ, although the later wasn't related to Sir Clive.
Very sad news. Like many commenting here, I cut my teeth on a Spectrum; a +3, when I was about 6 or 7. I remember my dad painstakingly inputting the code for an analogue clock program from a book. It took him hours but once I saw the result I was hooked and wrote all kinds of silly little programs, slowly learning what I could create.
I sold my Sinclair Scientific calculator, from the mid-seventies, just a month ago. Got a tenner for it even though it wasn't working.
I miss those times, there was something so much more immediate, more real about computing in the 70s and 80s. It was somehow lighter and less intimidating. It's only just coming back with Arduino style kit.
RIP
I'm actually really sad about it. My first experience programming was with his machine. Rest in peace :(
When I was 8 years old I had a teacher who let me explore the spectrum zx every midday break. I spend so many hours loading tapes with games and programs. It was for sure the spark for me to start my life with programming and computers in general. Rest in piece. A legend!!!
RIP
My first computer was Spectrum. With broken cassette recorder. There was no other way to play games but writing them down from a recipe book. And picking up programming along the way. Discovering the new world, the world of the electron and the switch and then the beauty of the baud.
Thank you Sir!
We had the âtimex Sinclair ZX 1000â a gadget loving aunt gave us. I think Thatâs the US version of that computer. I remember searching for the space bar⌠it was a button on the lower right of the membrane keyboard. Each key had like 4 things on it. Letters/ characters/symbols and basic commands. Entering basic programs was interesting but I learned a lot.
And 2k of Ram (we got the 16kb expansion). And some games on tape that were oddly good.
While i graduated to the schools apple computers a year after getting the machine, Iâm still fond of it and because itâs really small, I still have itâŚ( now where is the wall adapter). Quite a great machine from an era where the machines where more easy to understand.
A better obituary and better journalism in general here:
As a 14 year old in 1981, I bought a Timex Sinclair from Sears with money that I had been saving up for a over a year. Best. Purchase. Ever. What I learned on that $99 machine would change the course of my life.
Thank you, Sir Clive, for helping me to find my calling.
My first computer was a Sinclair clone hooked up to the only TV we had at home. So was the case for so many people in my country in the 80s who couldn't afford the disproportionately more expensive machines. Kudos to this genius for bringing inexpensive computer access to the layman. He could have patented the shit out of his company's systems, charge whatever he wanted for them, and spend a ton of money on an army of lawyers defending his patents and making him a shit ton more. Instead he gave so many of us early access to the tools we would use to make our living, so we weren't in a huge disadvantage any more. I couldn't be more grateful.
That pocket TV is ridiculously cool and he knows it.
Very late to the thread here, but I also got my start on a Timex/Sinclair 1000. I'm not sure what possessed my dad to buy one. I think I'm the only one in my family who touched it more than once. Being able to save programs on a regular cassette tape was awesome! I'll never forget typing in games from Compute! magazine, and then figuring out how to make them better. It's amazing what you could do in 2k of ram!
I was very disappointed when I came back from college once and decided to fire it up for old times sake, only for it to be dead for some reason. I still wonder how it went bad, sitting on my desk.
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 ZX Spectrum might not have been the door, but is sure was the key into a much wider world for me.
It also led me to recreate my favorite thing about the ZX Spectrum, the loading sounds as a musical instrument. The ZX Plectrum.
My dad had a ZX Spectrum. The music to Spy Hunter is seared into my brain. Such early exposure to tech (and to some extent dealing with its crappiness) started me on the path to becoming the software engineer I am today. RIP Sir Clive.
I've still got my Sinclair in a shoebox upstairs, complete with the 16KB RAM expansion pack, a program or two on cassette tape, and the cord for plugging it into my TV (which would probably need a whole chain of adapters today).
Sadness. I got started in the 80s on a Sinclair ZX81. It changed my life.
Somewhat amazingly, my mother-in-law was Sir Clive's financial controller at Sinclair Radionics. His financial rigour was somewhat less developed than his entrepreneurial skills, apparently.
My first computer was a home-built ZX81 (manufactured in my hometown of Dundee) given to me by a capable and nerdy family friend, which was quickly replaced by a ZX Spectrum Plus 2 (it had colour and built-in tape deck) that Christmas - a move which has shaped my life ever since.
I have fond (ish!) memories of typing in hex codes and BASIC from computing magazines to create games and demos, and having the ability to see and edit that code almost certainly give me the start of the career I have now.
RIP Sir Clive.
I had a ZX81 and then a 48k ZX Spectrum. He revolutionised the computer industry in this country, so many of us got into the industry because of what he did. A true visionary.
Really sad. I never owned any of his products. But he was a gifted engineer and inventor and his focus on bringing tech to the masses was admirable.
The C5 still looks modern today!
Letâs not forget that without Sir Clive we would probably never have seen Acorn and then Arm start in Cambridge. The computing world would have been very different without him.
RIP.
Ouch.
I'm here because of Sir Clive. Like many I started with a 1k ZX81.
My love of computing began with my Spectrum.
I was bought a ZX Spectrum +3 when I was 10, the one with a floppy drive. My parents were persuaded by the salesman that floppy drives were the future and that it was worth paying more for the +3 rather than the +2 with it's tape drive. Correct, but hardly any games were available on disk which left me a bit miffed at the time.
Britain's Steve Jobs.
Like many here I started programming on the origin ZX Spectrum, typing out code and hitting record on a cassette tape machine. The pure joy of buying a magazine and copying the code inside to create your own game. Tinkering with it to make it your own and passing on your recorded creation on to friends at school.
As someone who started coding just before the zx80 arrived I fully appreciate the difference he made! I was reading ETI (if you donât know what the stands for you are too young :) that had adverts for the MK14 which was the predecessor to the zx series ) when it all kicked off and I was in awe! A true innovator.
Even as a Commodore person who's never really owned a Sinclair computer, it can't be underestimated what an impact Sir Clive had on early home computing.
He truly showed that affordable computing is possible and in my mind also inspired the large home computer "cottage industry" in the UK.
Kudos and may you long be remembered.
RIP. Like many others in here, the ZX Spectrum was my first computer and I still have fond memories of that time.
Anybody noticed, the inventor of the ZX81 of course died at the age of 81. So, he predicted this decades ago?
> 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 pioneersâŚ
I will never forget those 8 colours.
I hope that he realized how much joy and positive change he brought to many people like me.
Rest in peace.
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Imagine if he had never existed. We'd probably all be accountants or something. What a talented man.
Have you tried turning him off and on again?
In a less facetious tone, the Spectrum plus was my first computer, and I rather like the way the BASIC was based on single keypresses, with every built in function there to see on the keyboard. It was spectacularly well designed to be learned.
I owe my career to this golden generation of micros (an Amstrad CPC in my case). Much respect to the man who undoubtedly kickstarted this revolution in Britain.
Now, at the risk of sounding blasphemous : the ZX Spectrum is also the most annoyingly overrated, overhyped system in UK retro computing circles, bar none.
While it might technically be able to display 8 (garish) colours (some of which are shades of others) it can't even do it without weird limitations ("colour clash"). For all intents and purposes, its software feels monochrome. You might get a couple of different background colours on screen, but sprites are nearly always monochrome with heavy use of dithering. They leave a lot to the imagination, that's for sure (check out the monochrome rainbows in Rainbow Islands :) )
The keyboard is rubbish, the machine doesn't come with a tape player, it doesn't do standard joysticks. Its BASIC is cryptic and underpowered compared to the Amstrad's (tbh, the C64's isn't great either, maybe the Amstrad just shines here)
All of that was probably fair game for a cheap entry level machine in 1982, but by 1984 the Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC were both affordable and running circles around the poor Spectrum (each with their own strengths). Most other European countries had caught wind of this and chose a side (C64 in Germany / Nordics, Amstrad in France / Spain) and yet, Britain kept this bizarre and very unique love affair with the Speccy going strong, well into the early 90s.
Today, the reality distortion field its fans live in would put Apple's to shame. The term "nostalgia goggles" must have been invented for ZX Spectrum Youtubers, seriously : they will do comparison videos between 8-bit conversions of arcade games where any outside observer would find the Spectrum port to be embarrassingly, almost comically inferior to the other two, but they'll still award it the top spot for reasons like "it plays well", or "it looks great despite the good old Speccy's limitations"
On forums, you will show them side by side Amstrad/Spectrum game screenshot comparisons (like this one : https://imgur.com/a/D7Ocd) and they'll still insist the games on the right hand side look better. The publisher of the excellent "visual compendium" series of retrogaming books has one about the Spectrum, refuses to do one with the Amstrad. Go figure...
In the end of course, it's all good fun to be reenacting what is really schoolyard squabble, but the inability of the British to recognise the one homegrown computer they should be proud of never ceases to amaze me ;)
When i hear the term "Manic Miner" i think of endless weekend sleepovers at my pal's place trying to solve those goddamn levels .. we would take it in turns on that crazy rubber keyboard of his Spectrum .. what a machine of the times .. awesome :)
RIP Sir Clive Sinclair.
His Sinclair ZX81 got me into my love for computing.
I wouldn't be where I am without that exposure.
I went without a Christmas present because my dad got me a zx spectrum for my birthday.
I'm glad he did.
In Czechoslovakia we had licensed clones of ZX Spectrum called Didaktik Gama. It didnât look nearly as cool, but it was affordable and thus the very first personal computer for a whole generation. Thank you Sir Sinclair!
RIP Sir Sinclair.
Sir Clive was so far ahead of his time and brought color into so many lives. RIP.
⌠I dreaded this day. He was the first âcomputer celebrityâ I knew of and looked up to.
Always expected him to make some kind of comeback in a world that sorely needs something like what the ZX Spectrum (& C64) was in its time.
I think this pretty much sums it up.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts96J7HhO28 RIP sir Clive.
I'd grew up with a Commodore 16, then Amstrad. Never owned a 'speccy' but it was the machine everyone else around me had. Definitely part of a thankful generation with fond memories.
Probably the saddest day in my IT career, this man started it all for me.
RIP As Charlie Brooker put it, "the ginger bearded midwife to the computer revolution."
I still want a Spectrum, remember when I bought them, and flicking through the cassettes at the village newsagents.
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!
RIP
I had a hand-me-down spectrum although I don't remember learning to program on it, just the games. Was probably too young at the time.
So I guess I can credit it for starting my life long love for computer games :)
Although I was in the Acorn camp, my first home exposure was to a friends ZX81. The keyboard!
In highschool, my physics teacher had a C5, which he could not get 'road legal' in The Netherlands.
Great times. RIP.
Tip of the hat from one C64 childhood user here.
A friend owned a ZX Spectrum while I had the C64, and while I liked the games from my C64 more, the ZX was oddly appealing as well.
Except for the chiclet keyboard! :P
RIP Sir Clive Sinclair!
I grew up on a Soviet clone of the ZX Spectrum 48, the Hobbit! Many hours spent. Many games written. Used to write BASIC on graph paper before entering it in.
RIP Sir Clive. Like so many here, my introduction to computers and the career I carved out was the ZX81. I think perhaps Clive left his own dent in the universe.
I'm going to take a small tour with my A-Bike tomorrow.
So sad to hear this. The ZX Spectrum was my introduction to both computers and programming and still has a special place in my heart. RIP Uncle Clive
My first computer was also a Spectrum (Spectrum+ 48k). Incredible machine, it taught me lots of things, including ... patience!
What a journey has been since then.
Thank you, Sir.
I had the ZX81. It's amazing what you could do with 1KB (not 1MB or 1GB) of memory.
That said, the 16KB RAM pack was necessary to do anything useful.
RIP Sir.
I'm too young to have experienced the computers many speak of on this thread. They seem to spark a surprising amount of nostalgia, though.
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Thank you Sir. My ZX81 is where it all started.
The is a kind of ridiculous expression âyou never forget your first oneâ. Well mine was a ZX81. I will never forget her.
Thanks sir Clive!
Grew up with Thomson computers and C64, Amiga so I never had the pleasure to use a Spectrum computer. But RIP sir.
They don't make them like that no more. What would it take for technology to feel again just... white magic.
Nevermind microsoft or apple. Sinclair is the real company that first saw the market of computer for the masses.
I talked to him on the phone once, many years ago. Even though I was a kid I knew who he was. Very sad. RIP.
My first computer ever has been a zx spectrum. RIP sir. You changed at least one life for the better.
What is the modern alternative to ZX? Something which encourages tinkering and reasonably priced.
Rest in peace, the âactorâ behind Q in Spycat: An Interactive Expose of MI4.5.
RIP.
His Sinclair C5 vehicle was being laughed at in his time. Nowadays electric bikes are a thing.
So the creator of the zx81 dies at 81, my first computer, very sad.
Wasn't he the last Sir who was not an actor or a singer?
Thank you Sir Clive.
I will wear my clashing outfits for the next 8 days.
RIP Sir Clive and thanks for the ZX81!
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LD HL,(16396)
POKE 23609,0
Titans are falling
RIP
@dang - I believe that deserves a black ribbon. In some countries generations grew up learning hacking and programming with his computers (and knock-offs)
Never heard of her
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Who?
RIP.
With all due respect, Meta comment here: I imagine computing has become sufficiently ubiquitous such that in ~50 yrs time the HN bar will always be black because we will have > 365 important folks pass away each year.
But will there be a HN then?
