RIP Clive Sinclair

[yakers]

Made my first computer, most ER types here are probably too young to remember

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021...tor-of-uks-famed-zx-spectrum-gaming-computer/

Had a mini TV of his too

 

[NW-Bound]

This reminds me that I still have my ZX-80 somewhere in my garage. I bought it, but never knew what to do with it due to its limitations.

See photo from Wikipedia:

 

[VanWinkle]

This reminds me that I still have my ZX-80 somewhere in my garage. I bought it, but never knew what to do with it due to its limitations.

See photo from Wikipedia:

That might be something the "pickers" are interested in purchasing!!

VW

 

[braumeister]

A remarkable guy. Kind of an English Steve Wozniak.

I had one of his pocket computers at one time and actually used it quite a bit.

 

[donheff]

My first computer was a Timex Sinclair. IIRC, it came with a whopping 2K RAM. Storage was on a cassette player.

 

[big-papa]

My first computer was a Timex Sinclair. IIRC, it came with a whopping 2K RAM. Storage was on a cassette player.

I had one of these as well. I was in college at the time, studying electrical engineering. One of my more nerdy classmates used it to create a PID control system, just for fun. Ah, good times.

 

[HenryD]

Saved up my Saturday job money to buy this. Started with the 16KB and saved up for the 48KB upgrade. One of my first programs solved my trigonometry homework.

Image By Bill Bertram - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5,

 

[easysurfer]

I still have an old Timex Sinclair 1000 in storage.

Was definitely a love/hate machine. Probably more on the hate side as saving a program to cassette was hit or miss. I did also buy the expandable ram packs but they weren't stable so a jiggle while pressing a key risked crashing and losing all the yet. Every time got a crash my mind would go into buyer's remorse (Maybe I should have saved up for a Vic-20 or an Atari-400 instead of this junk? ).

Yet at the same time, that was a very budget computer (thus the love).


RIP - Clive Sinclair

 

[ERD50]

Hadn't thought of that name in a long while. Never did own a Sinclair, but had considered it (can't remember why, what would you do with it?).

IIRC (I didn't), Radio Shack sold them, maybe rebranded? No, that was their own MC-10, to compete with the Sinclair

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_MC-10

I was probably thinking of the "Timex" re-branding:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_1000

-ERD50

 

[Sojourner]

Hadn't thought of that name in a long while. Never did own a Sinclair, but had considered it (can't remember why, what would you do with it?).

+1

I remember wandering through an electronics store at the mall (or maybe it was a video game store?) and looking at the Sinclair, wondering if it might be the right choice for me. Ultimately I decided against it and got a VIC-20 instead. I was about 13 or 14 years old at the time, IIRC. Ahh, the good old days. There was something so magical and mesmerizing about those early years of the (affordable) personal computer era!

 

[easysurfer]

+1

I remember wandering through an electronics store at the mall (or maybe it was a video game store?) and looking at the Sinclair, wondering if it might be the right choice for me. Ultimately I decided against it and got a VIC-20 instead. I was about 13 or 14 years old at the time, IIRC. Ahh, the good old days. There was something so magical and mesmerizing about those early years of the (affordable) personal computer era!

+1, IMO the golden age of personal computers.

I used to pour over the Popular Science and Popular Electronics magazines looking at the prices of those personal computers.

 

[Sojourner]

I used to pour over the Popular Science and Popular Electronics magazines looking at the prices of those personal computers.

Same here! My favorite mags from that era were Byte and Compute!.

 

[easysurfer]

Same here! My favorite mags from that era were Byte and Compute!.

Yes, the Byte magazine that weighed about 2lbs each issue .

 

[NW-Bound]

Some years ago, I threw all my Byte issues out, and kept only one issue of each year for nostalgia.

Even then, I have not looked at them since.


PS. Also Computer Shopper. Michael Dell grew his business by going to China to import PC boards, back in those days.

 

[Koolau]

Clive was one of the folks who drove the last nails in the coffin of the slide rule. May they both RIP.