Sir Clive Sinclair Dies

General Discussion
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Sad to hear that Sir Clive has passed away.

The Sinclair zx81 was my first computer which sparked my interest and eventually a career in computing.

BBC News - Sir Clive Sinclair: Tireless inventor ahead of his time

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Yes, I started with the ZX81 as well.

He made some interesting things over the years. The C5 was way ahead of its time. If he had waited 20 years and launched it then, it would have been a Renault Twizzy, but back then, it was a silly 3 wheeler that ran on a washing machine engine…

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Lol yeah but I still wanted one!

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RIP Sir Clive. It was a ZX80 for me (alongside a BBC Micro, PET and Apple II in our school computer room). I remember the sore fingers from typing on the membrane keyboard.

ZX80

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Those keyboards really were rubbish weren’t they. The spectrum was a bit if a step up on the keyboard front. Good for playing jet pack or Horace goes skiing but not much else!

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I too began my computing adventures on the ZX81. I learned many hard lessons from it (such as the importance of data backup!) that have held me in good stead throughout my subsequent career.

In addition to the BBC article, The Guardian’s published a couple of good articles on Sir Clive in the past few days:

Hopefully Leo will have someone on from the UK for today’s TWiT who can speak to the importance of Sinclair’s contribution to the British computing scene …

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