Author Topic: Clive Sinclair dies aged 81  (Read 1414 times)

Offline Brissyred

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Clive Sinclair dies aged 81
« on: September 17, 2021, 02:30:08 am »

Offline TepidT2O

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Re: Clive Sinclair dies aged 81
« Reply #1 on: September 17, 2021, 06:49:04 am »
He had an enormous influence on this country.  His products that worked changed our futurudes, the ones that didn’t were years ahead of their time.

The ZX81 and the Spectrum brought computing to the masses.  Banging rubber keyboards on games, but how many programmers started off there? They were small, portable and user friendly (by the standards of the time.)

But he also developed tiny TVs and electric cars. .  Yes they were crap, but it took 30 more years for them not to be.

Too often laughed at (maybe rightly) but he left a huge mark on this country

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Offline Nobby Reserve

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Re: Clive Sinclair dies aged 81
« Reply #2 on: September 17, 2021, 11:40:42 am »
He had an enormous influence on this country.  His products that worked changed our futurudes, the ones that didn’t were years ahead of their time.

The ZX81 and the Spectrum brought computing to the masses.  Banging rubber keyboards on games, but how many programmers started off there? They were small, portable and user friendly (by the standards of the time.)

But he also developed tiny TVs and electric cars. .  Yes they were crap, but it took 30 more years for them not to be.

Too often laughed at (maybe rightly) but he left a huge mark on this country


Well said.

I had a Spectrum+ and thought it was great - although my top 3 memories are:

* Cassettes failing to load the game because they were rubbish tape-to-tape copies-of-copies-of-copies-of-copies

* Spending an entire afternoon painstakingly typing out a programme from a magazine, only for it not to work (syntax error?)

* Breaking several joysticks doing the 400m on Daley Thompson's Decathlon
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Re: Clive Sinclair dies aged 81
« Reply #3 on: September 17, 2021, 12:21:59 pm »
Gutted. Used to have a ZX81 and used a ZX80 in school.

Now still have a ZX81 and ZX Spectrum


He was an amazing fella
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Offline Nobby Reserve

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Re: Clive Sinclair dies aged 81
« Reply #4 on: September 17, 2021, 01:58:49 pm »
One of my mates asked for one for Xmas, but his mum & dad, hearing that the BBC computer was better for learning, got him one of those instead. It was really shite for playing games on. He was gutted, and it barely got used.

 ;D
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Offline duvva 💅

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Re: Clive Sinclair dies aged 81
« Reply #5 on: September 17, 2021, 04:21:04 pm »
We had a ZX81, remember spending hours creating games from the programs in magazines, was very satisfying when they actually worked!
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Offline AndyInVA

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Re: Clive Sinclair dies aged 81
« Reply #6 on: September 17, 2021, 08:43:30 pm »
He had an enormous influence on this country.  His products that worked changed our futurudes, the ones that didn’t were years ahead of their time.

The ZX81 and the Spectrum brought computing to the masses.  Banging rubber keyboards on games, but how many programmers started off there? They were small, portable and user friendly (by the standards of the time.)

But he also developed tiny TVs and electric cars. .  Yes they were crap, but it took 30 more years for them not to be.

Too often laughed at (maybe rightly) but he left a huge mark on this country



Couldn't agree more. Made learning of computing language fun and achievable that an interested kiddo could get into. Probably ramped up computer awareness in the UK purely from his invention.

LOL. I had forgotten about typing in piles of code from something like Computer and Video Game magazine and hoping it worked.

Offline TepidT2O

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Re: Clive Sinclair dies aged 81
« Reply #7 on: September 17, 2021, 08:51:53 pm »
C&VG that’s a blast from the past
“Happiness can be found in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
“Generosity always pays off. Generosity in your effort, in your work, in your kindness, in the way you look after people and take care of people. In the long run, if you are generous with a heart, and with humanity, it always pays off.”
W

Offline FiSh77

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Re: Clive Sinclair dies aged 81
« Reply #8 on: September 18, 2021, 12:09:41 pm »
10 PRINT "RIP Sir Clive ";
20 GOTO 10

Offline AndyInVA

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Re: Clive Sinclair dies aged 81
« Reply #9 on: September 19, 2021, 05:52:15 am »
C&VG that’s a blast from the past

Loved that mag

Used to bug the shit out of the newsagent asking for it every day for about three days before it turned up.



Tell that to the kids today etc….

Offline Red Beret

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Re: Clive Sinclair dies aged 81
« Reply #10 on: September 19, 2021, 10:36:29 pm »
If you don't GOSUB a program loop, you'll never get a sub routine.

RIP Sir Clive. Shame you had to sell up to that tw@t Sugar, but the technology of your day just wasn't equal to your vision.
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Offline Yosser0_0

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Re: Clive Sinclair dies aged 81
« Reply #11 on: September 20, 2021, 11:17:49 pm »
It made me quite sad reading about this news, Sir Clive was an amazing bloke, way ahead of his time and a bit of a hero of mine. I think he was treated quite badly by the British press and didn't actually get alot wrong. Obviously his big mistake was the C5 which ultimately cost him dearly, but look at the interest in electrical vehicles now!

Our first home computer was a Video Genie, which was a TRS80 clone, a little bit like the Commodor PETs in schools and most computers around that time were much of a muchness, but were good to get you into basic programming. A couple of years later I received a ZX Spectrum 48K for Christmas, wow what a machine! Incredible capability and value for money in its day.

I remember when I was studying for my OND in Electronics and having to do 6502 assembly language during the day, it was so tendious. I used to get home and write my own games on my Spectrum to cheer myself up, it was a joy to use. The best two games I wrote were a 10 pin bowling game and a Tank battle game, all with full colour graphics and sound. Then there were the commerically available games and they were amazing compared to what we'd seen before, two of my favourites were Elite and Alien 8. I remember us having to build our own interfaces from kits so that we could use joysticks and other peripherals.

They say that we the first Computer Games generation, and look at the size of the industry now and how many people it employs. When I did my Masters in Computing at Liverpool John Moores, you had the option of just studying Computer Games Technology such is the demand for those skills now.

A few years ago there was a cracking film about the technology pioneers from the 70s/80s called 'Micro Men'. Might be a nice tribute for the BBC to show it again, although I'm not sure that it shows Sinclair in the best light, but its still a good watch.   

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1459467/
« Last Edit: September 21, 2021, 07:45:48 pm by Yosser0_0 »
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Offline Joff

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Re: Clive Sinclair dies aged 81
« Reply #12 on: September 28, 2021, 06:48:14 pm »
Commodore c16 spectrum 48k amiga 600 happiest days ever
Nah.

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Re: Clive Sinclair dies aged 81
« Reply #13 on: September 30, 2021, 01:38:52 pm »
Couldn't agree more. Made learning of computing language fun and achievable that an interested kiddo could get into. Probably ramped up computer awareness in the UK purely from his invention.

LOL. I had forgotten about typing in piles of code from something like Computer and Video Game magazine and hoping it worked.

You can do it today!

C&VG is available as a PDF download from quite a few sources and you can download emulators for all sorts of machines. I've got emulators for Atari 8-bit, Atari ST,  ZX80, ZX81, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Acorn Electron, BBC Micro, Apple II, Commodore PET, Oric 1, TRS-80 (Models I, II, III), Colecovision, MZ80K and a ton of others.

I'd also recommend INPUT Magazine. I am happily putting games/demos and utilities into them for their respective machine and converting them all to Atari 8-Bit 6502 Assembler (Using a VS Code plugin plugin - atasm that builds executables that you can directly run and debug in Altirra (An Atari 8-bit Emulator) - all free and pretty easy to set up)


INPUT Magazine PDFS: https://archive.org/details/inputmagazine

C&VG: https://archive.org/details/computer-video-games-magazine
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Offline Red Beret

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Re: Clive Sinclair dies aged 81
« Reply #14 on: October 1, 2021, 12:01:48 am »
If I had one criticism of Sir Clive, it was his insistence on always doing things differently. I can understand the desire to innovate, but he always had the attitude of reinventing the wheel. Like with his heat printer, which needed a specific type of paper, rather than just going for the ol' dot matrix that everyone else was using.

I think it was this need to always do things differently that was his ultimate undoing.  That said, I remember seeing the odd C5 around as a kid, and there's one in the Glasgow transport museum. His shortcomings should never detract from his achievements - he was a true innovator. He just didn't know where to draw the line.
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Offline TepidT2O

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Re: Clive Sinclair dies aged 81
« Reply #15 on: October 1, 2021, 07:05:20 am »
Well that’s obvious.  Sell the printer cheaper because everyone has to buy your paper!

“Happiness can be found in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
“Generosity always pays off. Generosity in your effort, in your work, in your kindness, in the way you look after people and take care of people. In the long run, if you are generous with a heart, and with humanity, it always pays off.”
W

Offline Red Beret

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Re: Clive Sinclair dies aged 81
« Reply #16 on: October 2, 2021, 01:44:58 pm »
Well that’s obvious.  Sell the printer cheaper because everyone has to buy your paper!

Did you ever see a Sinclair printer? ;D

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Printer
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Re: Clive Sinclair dies aged 81
« Reply #17 on: October 2, 2021, 02:37:46 pm »
Did you ever see a Sinclair printer? ;D

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

haha, proper blast from the past that printer is.  Cheers for posting

RIP Sir Clive.  Thanks for making possible the best Christmas present I have ever received.  (48k Speccy)