Sir Clive Sinclair

[Ferral]

I know we aren't doing the deaths thread anymore but this one is a biggie and relevant.

Sir Clive Sinclair, father of British Home Computing has died aged 81

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...r-dies-aged-81

[Apex]

Indeed; this is one of the few, small hero of mine, RIP Fella.

EOF

[Jonj1611]

I know we aren't doing the deaths thread anymore but this one is a biggie and relevant.

Sir Clive Sinclair, father of British Home Computing has died aged 81

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...r-dies-aged-81

Completely agree, was going to post about it myself.

RIP Sir Clive

[Ravens Nest]

I know we aren't doing the deaths thread anymore but this one is a biggie and relevant.

Sir Clive Sinclair, father of British Home Computing has died aged 81

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...r-dies-aged-81

Thanks so much for the rubber key Spectrum, without it I would have been a Olympic fitness instructor by now.

Actually I loved my Speccy so many great memory's with my brother and cousins playing Target renegade, a sad day just like every day now

[Zak33]

He changed things for so many of us.

ZX81 was astounding, but Spectrum blew me away as a kid. Hundreds of hours typing basic out of magazines... thousands of hours playing amazing games, loaded from cassette , watched on a TV through normal COAX

Utter genius.. and then to prove the genius still further.... Elite was squeezed into 48k

How... the... hell... was that even a thing?

Sir Clive - your are saluted by millions S!

[MrJim]

He changed things for so many of us.

ZX81 was astounding, but Spectrum blew me away as a kid. Hundreds of hours typing basic out of magazines... thousands of hours playing amazing games, loaded from cassette , watched on a TV through normal COAX

Utter genius.. and then to prove the genius still further.... Elite was squeezed into 48k

How... the... hell... was that even a thing?

Sir Clive - your are saluted by millions S!

The same for me...so many hours spent playing Chuckie Egg, Jet Pack, Jet Set Willy, Manic Miner and so many others. A huge part of my childhood

[DanceswithUnix]

Utter genius.. and then to prove the genius still further.... Elite was squeezed into 48k

How... the... hell... was that even a thing?

It is amazing what you can do with a lot of time and hand crafted assembler. People are still pulling those sorts of bare metal programming tricks now, but it seems to be mostly limited to Arduino hacks.

I might still have a ZX81 somewhere in the loft, though it was re-housed into a Lynx 48K case so it has a full moving key keyboard. They were an amazing product, the right thing at the right price introduced at the right time.

[Zak33]

I might still have a ZX81 somewhere in the loft, though it was re-housed into a Lynx 48K case so it has a full moving key keyboard. They were an amazing product, the right thing at the right price introduced at the right time.

You're spot on ... the right price and the right time....

[dannyboy75]

Yes very sad news indeed. Some of his later inventions missed the mark, but the ZX81 and Spectrum were fantastic machines. I have many happy memories of playing Horace Goes Skiing, Jet Set Willy, Sabre Wulf, Spy Hunter, Chuckie Egg, Daley Thompson's Decathlon, Dan Dare, Saboteur, Jack the Nipper and tons of others.

The BBC did an excellent dramatisation of the Spectrum's development some years back. One scene that stuck in my mind was Sir Clive launching his telephone across the room during a particularly stressful day

Well worth a watch if you can find it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Men

[Jonj1611]

Shame about the C5, probably had potential in this day and age

[dannyboy75]

Shame about the C5, probably had potential in this day and age

Yes, ahead of its time I think. A bit like the Psion Organiser.

[Ciber]

Many happy hours on the ZX81 and Spectrum myself.