[Catfan15]

Maybe not well known of outside of England and tech circles, but he had a huge impact on early home computing.

[Red Badger]

I had a Sinclair Computer!.....................RIP, Sir Clive!............

[dirtboy]

I had a dual floppy CPM machine at home in the early eighties. Never thought I’d see the day when computers would become a standard home appliance.

[frank ballenger]

This other computer savvy fellow was well respected in his day:

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”

Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943

Someone here may have one of the five right now.

[vikingd00d]

In memoriam:

a ZX Spectrum Emulator for those wanting to revisit the old days...

http://www.zxspectrum4.net/index.php

[oh8eleven]

... the computer of choice was either the ZX Spectrum 48K or its rival, the Commodore 64.
I remember buying the Commodore 64 ... and my wife asking me,"We've got one job, two kids, a mortgage, and a car payment. What the hell are you going to to do with a computer?"
Me and my kids had a ball with the 64.
RIP ...

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I bought a Sinclair ZX-81 when it first came out and that was WAY before it was marketed as the Timex-Sinclair. I recall the black case and squishy membrane keyboard. I used a small B&W television for a monitor and a Radio Shack cassette tape player to record programs. It was a fun curiosity, but I never did anything remotely useful on it except learn BASIC.

Clive Sinclair and the ZX-81, circa 1981.

[ADemocratNoMore]

I’m the operator with my pocket calculator
I’m the operator with my pocket calculator

I am adding
And subtracting
I’m controlling
And composing

Kraftwerk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSBybJGZoCU

[rockvillem]

I had a ZX81 - hadn’t thought of it in ages! What a blast from the past.

May he RIP

[SeekAndFind]

What a great guy! His work introduced me to the world of computing when I was young.

Here is one of his gadgets: The C5 Electric Tricycle





The SINCLAIR ZIKE

[ADemocratNoMore]

>Sinclair invented the pocket calculator

Don’t forget that Issac Asimov had Hari Seldon using one in the “Foundation Trilogy” back in the early 50’s.

Of course, Asimov’s trilogy took place in the 12,000th years of the Galactic Era. Missed it by that much !

[ShadowAce]

[Rurudyne]

A nice video about Sinclair … who started from his backyard shed … and his QL computer which was a sort of last hurrah before selling to Alan Sugar (if you don’t know who Alan Sugar is you lose 5 retro nerd points).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU_VUN9VVcM

Including an ad featuring Sir Clive jumping over rival computers … or rather building sized computers. And even get a clip of the, um, “car” he tried to sell.

And if anyone likes retro computing there is a new computer, the ZX Spectrum Next, and of course here’s a video about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckYN_TwbGiQ

I’m not the guy in these videos, I’m not associated with these projects.

[fieldmarshaldj]

RIP.

[Varmint Al]

MY FIRST PC.... I got my first PC in the late 70's. It was a SOL Computer based on an Intel 8080 CPU with 8K of 8 bit memory and a cassette tape for storage. For software, I had one basic program loaded on the tape plus TREK. My boy played TREK 2 days straight, that's 48 hours! He learned all the commands by trial and error, except one about the photon torpedoes. To program in BASIC, I had to load the program plus BASIC and delete each line, then write a new program and save it back on tape. I finally got smart and saved a BASIC file with a one line program. I bought the SOL Computer as a kit for about $2000 and paid another $150 to have the kit assembled. The whole thing was about the size of a big IBM typewriter. The monitor was an 8 in. black/white. By the early 80's, I went to a computer fair over in SF and bought a 64K memory card for $599 and didn't know how I could possibly use all that much memory. I was running CP/M and finally bought a hard sectored 5-1/4 in. disk drive kit and punched extra holes in the paper jackets so I could use both sides of the disk.

Good Hunting... from Varmint Al

[Waverunner]

I still have my Timex/Sinclair 1000.
One of my earliest computers.
My HZ120 Heathkit was my first. It booted either a flavor of MS-DOS called ZDOS or CPM as an operating system. I loved it because I had fortran at home.
I even think I still have the manual for the timex/sinclair.
Back when you worried about byte usage in a program.

[MattMusson]

C: DELETE ALL

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Back in early 80s (I remember where I was living at time) I got this or something like it (maybe the tandy?)

IIRC you had a keyboard, the computer and you plugged it into a tv (black and white of course) and I think a cassette tape recorder).

I think I typed in a simple BASIC program, got it to run, then tossed the thing in the closet and never used it again lol. (I was pretty busy with other stuff).

[Revel]

Everyone can thank digital technology for giving power hungry people the ability to inflict on society, the Hell that is about to be unleashed on them.

[TChad]

I had a black Sinclair watch.

Now long gone.

[Organic Panic]

My dad gave me his old ZX 81 when he upgraded. I remember having scrounge up cassette tapes to load and save BASIC programs.