RIP Sir Clive Sinclair

[Syt]

https://www.pcgamer.com/sir-clive-sinclair-the-father-of-the-zx-spectrum-has-died/

Sir Clive Sinclair, the father of the ZX Spectrum, has died

The groundbreaking inventor and entrepreneur was 81.

Sir Clive Sinclair, the inventor of the world's first slimline pocket calculator and founder of the groundbreaking consumer electronics company Sinclair Research, has died. A report in The Guardian says Sinclair's death occurred at home, following a long illness.

Sinclair Research was founded in 1973 but didn't come to prominence until 1980 with the release of the ZX80 home computer, which was available in a ready-to-use version and, for a slightly lower price, as a built-it-yourself kit. (This was 1980, remember.) It was a very popular machine, due to both its capabilities and its price—it was the first home computer in the UK to be available for under £100.

Even bigger success followed a year later with the ZX81, and then the ZX Spectrum in 1982, which became the best-selling personal computer in the UK. Various official and unofficial clones and spinoffs followed over the years, and Sinclair was granted a knighthood in 1983 for his contributions to British industry.

Subsequent ideas, including the Sinclair C5 electric trike and the TV80 pocket television, did not catch on, but their basic concepts underlying them—battery-powered vehicles, tiny entertainment screens—ultimately did.

"It was the ideas, the challenge, that he found exciting," his daughter Belinda told The Guardian. "He'd come up with an idea and say, 'There's no point in asking if someone wants it, because they can't imagine it.'"

Ironically, Sinclair apparently didn't make use of the technology he helped create: His daughter said he carried a slide rule with him rather than a calculator, and he claimed in multiple interviews that he didn't use the internet or email—not because he didn't know how, he said in 2010, but because "I find them annoying."

The ZX Spectrum was resurrected in 2015 as the Vega miniature game console; a Vega+ handheld followed, although that deal ultimately fell apart.

The Speccy wasn't big on the mainland which was firmly C64 territory (in Germany, anyways) and I always found the Spectrum graphics jarring which were not monochrome anymore, but still a ways from what we consider the 8bit aesthetic these days (mainly cultivated by NES and C64). I believe it worked by coloring fixed blocks of the screen? I'm sure some people here will know better.

[Duque de Bragança]

Amstrad CPC (Schneider in Germany) was bigger in France than both C64 and ZX Spectrum anyways.

Spectrum was older than both others but still mentioned regularly in ads, magazines or game instruction booklets common for several platforms e.g soon available on C64, Spectrum and Amstrad. Totally 8-bit aesthetic though. The NES really came late in Europe with intra-regional coding, poor conversions from NTSC, no real Scart RGB improvement, unlike 8-bit computers which PAL/Secam as more than an afterthought. Sure, the problem was still there with the SNES, but the 16-bit factor compensated it.

So still a significant step.
RIP Clive Sinclair.

PS: I recognize Chase HQ, coin-up adaptation, which I played a bit back then, but not on ZX Spectrum.

[The Brain]

Played a little on the Spectrum back in the day. Rubber keys rule.

RIP dude.

[Josquius]

I am fascinated by that early era of a thousand different mutually incompatible computer systems.
If only things had gone this way or that way we'd be using sinclairs instead of apples.
Alas the great inventor with terrible business sense and no pizzazz lost out. RIP.

[The Larch]

A Spectrum was my first computer of any kind when I was 11 or so, those tapes...

[Duque de Bragança]

A Spectrum was my first computer of any kind when I was 11 or so, those tapes...

Some (failed) nerd at Nintendo could not believe me when I told me there were once videogames on tape or VHS tapes with subtitled versions for that matter.

[Syt]

I recall a German computer TV show used to "broadcast" programs as audio that you could record on audio tape and then load the programs.

Of course I also remember computer mags coming with listings to enter yourself.

[Duque de Bragança]

Abandonware sites sometimes include scans of these magazines, just in case you feel like typing. 

French site
https://www.abandonware-magazines.org/index.php

[Caliga]

What's the game in the third screenshot down?  I had that for my C-64.

[Agelastus]

I wonder if the Spectrums I still have in a drawer work?

RIP Sir Clive.

[Sheilbh]

Wonderful and wholesome story from PopBitch:

>> Grand theft <<
How Dundee got the edge

Clive Sinclair was credited with revolutionising home computing in the UK and kick-starting the British video games industry with the ZX Spectrum in the 1980s. But his influence was especially pronounced in Dundee, where Sinclair sub-contracted the Spectrum's manufacture to the city's watchmaking factory, Timex.

At its peak, Timex was producing a new computer every four seconds – but not all of them made it to market. Some happened to find their way into the hands of light-fingered staff, who then moved them on cheap to their pals. This meant that, even with rampant unemployment elsewhere in the city, Dundee homes were still awash with Spectrums.

With nothing much else to do during the dole-dependent early 80s, coding games really caught on and the city consequently became a massive video game development hub. One that would later give the world a multi-billion dollar crime-flavoured franchise in the form of... Grand Theft Auto.