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Sir Clive Sinclair

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Inventor, industrialist and electronics pioneer.
Be seeing you.
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  • Got me into gaming and very basic programming on the ZX81 and Speccy, back in the early 80s.  Sad.

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  • wibblewibble Frets: 1083


    10 PRINT "RIP"
    20 GOTO 10

    My first introduction to computers was my cousin's ZX81 and then I got a Spectrum. Learnt to program BASIC and Z80 assembler on it. Plus played loads of games of course.

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  • KittyfriskKittyfrisk Frets: 18385
    Wow. He was a very British inventor, some fabulous ideas & some that were hopeless, but what a mind. RIP.
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  • VimFuegoVimFuego Frets: 15476
    wow, as said above his computers were my introduction to gaming and computers. A very British inventor, in another age maybe he'd have been an Elon Musk.

    I'm not locked in here with you, you are locked in here with me.

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  • VimFuego said:
    in another country, maybe he'd have been an Elon Musk.
    FTFY

    British venture capitalists are the bane of cutting edge businesses.
    Be seeing you.
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  • Philly_QPhilly_Q Frets: 22516
    My first calculator was a Sinclair Cambridge Scientific which was a cool thing to have, but it was so unreliable I didn't take it in to my O Levels, I used log tables and mental arithmetic instead.

    My science teacher tried to raise money to buy a ZX80 for the school, but the headmaster wouldn't let him do it because it wasn't for charity (and I guess the head thought computers were a gimmick which wouldn't catch on...).

    I played a few games on the Spectrum but my main memory is reading big chunks of code to my brother so he could type it in and get infinite lives, or something.

    RIP Sir Clive.

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  • RIP Sir Clive. He gave us affordable home computing which made it accessible to people like myself. A lot of us would be doing something completely different for a living if he hadn't done his thing. A great man.
    "A city star won’t shine too far"


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  • mrkbmrkb Frets: 6637
    He made my childhood entertainment, zx81 then the Spectrum. The world wouldn’t have had JetPac and Jet Set Willy without him.
    RIP.
    Karma......
    Ebay mark7777_1
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  • robertyroberty Frets: 10893
    Home computing - what a fantastic concept. RIP
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  • scrumhalfscrumhalf Frets: 11262
    When I got my ZX81 I thought it wouldn't be long before I was using its successor on the moon.

    A wonderfully inventive person, he virtually invented home computing with a British flavour. 
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  • hollywoodroxhollywoodrox Frets: 4085
    edited September 2021
    So sad I’ve got an original 48k speccy ,dead flesh keyboard. My first computer ever was a zx81 from WH Smith. £39.99 with a memotech 16k ram pack 1984 
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  • HAL9000HAL9000 Frets: 9551
    Died at the age of (ZX)81. RIP.
    I play guitar because I enjoy it rather than because I’m any good at it
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  • stratman3142stratman3142 Frets: 2177
    edited September 2021
    Philly_Q said:
    My first calculator was a Sinclair Cambridge Scientific which was a cool thing to have, but it was so unreliable I didn't take it in to my O Levels, I used log tables and mental arithmetic instead.

    Yes it was cool during my 1st year at Uni.  A quirky reverse polish calculator with strange 'non rounding' errors.

    But an innovator nonetheless and sad news.
    It's not a competition.
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  • equalsqlequalsql Frets: 6084
    I worked for Sinclair Research back in the mid 80s at Milton Hall in Cambridge. Clive was quite a character. I witnessed the arrival of the C5 electric vehicle. We used to use a souped up one to nip into the local shops in Milton. It went like a rocket but was very unstable. Back then all the tech that Sinclair designed had to be black and square cos that's what Clive liked. Rick Dickinson, who did all the designs (and who was pretty much the coolest guy I've ever met) had draws of beautifully designed, organic looking mockups of the designs he wanted for the computers, mini TVs etc. They were amazing and way ahead of their time, but Clive just insisted on black and square boxes. 
    Unfortunately, I joined not too long before the company started drowning in financial problem partly due to the failure of the C5. So most of my time there was witnessing the downfall. 
    There were some amazing characters working there though, most notably Ivor Catt who had patented IIRC the Wafer Scale tech that was being researched. He used to drive to work in an old 1960s Mr Whippy Ice Cream van. :)

    R.I.P Clive and thanks for the great memories.. ( and those 12 bottles of champagne)
    (pronounced: equal-sequel)   "I suffered for my art.. now it's your turn"
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  • guitars4youguitars4you Frets: 14035
    tFB Trader
    I recall my first Sat job - working in the local TV/Radio repair work shop - One of the tech's had purchased the 'build it yourself' calculator - This would be around 1973

    I suppose that is my first experience of what any form of 'modern technology' was

    Like others had mentioned, I recall log books for math's lessons at school

    I might have once owned a Sinclair calculator - Maybe ?? - But otherwise I know I never purchased any other Sinclair product , for whatever reason that maybe - But I was never into computer games etc

    A few wacky ideas maybe, but maybe he was ahead of the time as well - RIP Sir Clive
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  • FunkfingersFunkfingers Frets: 14323
    edited September 2021
    log books for math's lessons at school.
    For the benefit of younger readers, "log books" refers to Godfrey & Siddons Four-Figure Tables. (A collection of logarithmic number tables to aid Geometry students. Riveting stuff.) Not to be confused with "log books" for motor vehicles, now properly known as Form V5.


    God & Sid's was driven to extinction by the arrival of the scientific calculator.

    5138008
    Be seeing you.
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  • My father complained to the school that we were taught how to use log books when calculators existed ( he was a university lecturer in education and had a background in production engineering so he wasn't a daft man). 

    That whole early Sinclair computer thing passed me by and I only really knew of Clive as a slight figure of fun because of the C5. But yet clearly a pioneer who should probably be remembered as such. RIP.   
    Tipton is a small fishing village in the borough of Sandwell. 
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  • 5138008
     My favourite flavour of ice cream.
    Trading feedback | FS: Nothing right now
    JM build | Pedalboard plans
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  • When I was a student someone donated a huge collection of historic pocket calculators to the Whipple Museum in Cambridge, and I ended up writing my third-year dissertation about them.  

    If I remember right, early microprocessors were quite power-hungry, so although there were electronic calculators before Sinclair came along, they had to be mains powered. His innovation was realising that the microprocessor retained its memory and settings briefly after it was powered off. He realised that by strobing the power supply on a duty cycle of something like 1:10 he could reduce consumption to the level where it was feasible to make a battery-powered calculator. 

    Early calculators that replaced adding machines looked and felt like adding machines. They were big and chunky and some of them were even designed to make mechanical noises when keys were pressed. 'Scientific' calculators designed to supersede the slide rule inherited all the accidental qualities of the slide rule. They were unnecessarily complicated to use and often gave quite inaccurate results.
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