Sir Clive Sinclair

[hitmouse]

The ZX81 and the ZX Spectrum and their associated games, and culture, were major influences in my childhood.

 

[Dave]

Very few people could claim to have sharped our world or changed the way we live, and many people wouldn't have had their careers without him. I will always remember the noise of those early machines loading from audio cassette. It's like a background noise to the '80's.

However, he was 81, and one "News" report said that he inspired today's generation of gamers. Unless today's gamers are all in their 50's and 60's then they weren't even born, nor were their parents!

 

[Elckerlyc]

The ZX80 was my first computer, completed with its 3K RAM extension. The screen went black when it executed a program. It was fun but once my fascination was awakened it very soon became merely a useless toy and I bought something bigger.
Later I got myself a Sinclair QL, until everyone jumped over to using a IBM PC (or clone). I still miss my QL.

RIP Clive.

 

[CupofJoe]

Some time in the early 70s I can remember my dad bringing home a Sinclair Calculator. It had been bought as a kit and had to be soldered up. I can still remember the glowing display. You had to turn it off after almost every calculation or the battery drain in hours.
At the time it looked like something out of Star Trek.

 

[HareBrain]

This should almost be in the Tolkien section, where it should take about a minute to load each four-colour screen.

I was a Commodore kid myself, but there's no denying the huge and beneficial impact Sinclair made.

One of my abiding memories of the sixth-form was reading Private Eye (for I was in the sixth-form) and seeing a fake Sinclair C5 ad that gave his address as the village of "Beardie-on-the-Make". Unfair, but at the time (for I was in the sixth-form) hilarious.

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

I had both the ZX81 and the Spectrum. I remember spending a whole day programming in a cricket game for the ZX81 only for it not to be saved. Arrrgh.

 

[Rodders]

The ZX Spectrum was a great piece of kit and I appreciate Sir Clive bringing computing to the masses.

RIP, Sir Clive.

 

[Foxbat]

Pioneers like Sir Clive are what makes our world tick. I was another who bought a ZX81 as my very first home computer.

It’s sad to see him go but, according to his daughter, he was still inventing right up to the end so he went doing what he loved to do. I can’t think of a better way to go.

 

[hitmouse]

Nice tribute which echoes lots of aspects of my experience of the early 80s.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I got my 48K earlier than most (it came from a friend that worked for IBM) and had to learn to make my own games on it. Then we got Cookie.

When I was having my MRI at 21 - the noise of the cassettes was so similar to the noise the machine made that it made it a lot less scary and kind of cool.

 

[AlexH]

An uncle had a ZX Spectrum, and we had an Amstrad CPC, so even on the Amstrad I played a lot of games the Spectrum is famous for. It was lots of fun and the reason why I remember the Stoke City squad of the early 90s so well (regularly adding their names to football management games). The stressed-out world of today could do with patiently waiting for a tape to load up to play a game. I could be wowed by a great loading screen.

I did some home BASIC coding myself as a kid, and worked as a web developer for a few years, so who knows if my life would've taken that path if it wasn't for Sinclair?

I felt the media/UK didn't treat Clive Sinclair all that well due to the C5, and as a result its 'failure' hung over him. This was a guy who enjoyed inventing things to help people, and if no one ever failed, no one would ever get anywhere. He gave a lot of joy to a lot of people. The C5 was also ahead of its time. Look at the proliferation of electric bikes and scooters in the past few years now batteries are small enough.

In tribute to Sir Clive, I listened to "Hey Hey 16k" by MJ Hibbett & The Validators last night. Has any song ever better-encapsulated home computing, gaming and the 80s?

MJ Hibbett & The Validators: Hey Hey 16K

Clive Sinclair's genius inspired other genius in many ways!

 

[paranoid marvin]

Sir Clive was a genius and I'm really gutted that he has passed on; but what a life he led.

He was one of the last great British inventors who managed to put a computer in many kid's homes and left us with many, many fond memories.

I'd recommend watching Micro Men which is a great encapsulation of computers in Britain in the mid 1980s, and a very funny film to boot.

He was an entrepreneurial businessman who put his inventions before profit, and ultimately paid the price. But he will live on in the hearts and minds of a whole generation of kids and how can you put a price on that?

RIP Sir C.

 

[Vince W]

I cut my teeth programming on the ZX Spectrum and Commodore PET/64 systems. The Spectrum was a much better system I thought.

RIP Sir Clive.

 

[AlexH]

Sir Clive was a genius and I'm really gutted that he has passed on; but what a life he led.

He was one of the last great British inventors who managed to put a computer in many kid's homes and left us with many, many fond memories.

I'd recommend watching Micro Men which is a great encapsulation of computers in Britain in the mid 1980s, and a very funny film to boot.

He was an entrepreneurial businessman who put his inventions before profit, and ultimately paid the price. But he will live on in the hearts and minds of a whole generation of kids and how can you put a price on that?

RIP Sir C.

I wasn't aware of it before but watched Micro Men. It was odd seeing Alexander Armstrong as Clive Sinclair and the acting seemed a bit patchy to start with, but it's a good film. Sir Clive wasn't a fan of it, saying it was far from the truth.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I wasn't aware of it before but watched Micro Men. It was odd seeing Alexander Armstrong as Clive Sinclair and the acting seemed a bit patchy to start with, but it's a good film. Sir Clive wasn't a fan of it, saying it was far from the truth.

Yes , I believe so, but whilst the story has been exaggerated for comedic effect, from what I know of the man I don't think that Armstrong's portrayal of him as an uncompromising visionary was far from the truth.

Tbh I think that Sinclair's real nemesis was Alan Sugar, who had the business acumen but perhaps not the quality standards of Sir Clive. If somehow the ingenuity of one could have been paired with the business sense of the other, truly great things could have been made possible. As it was Sir Clive made all the technological advances before being bought out by Lord Sugar.