R.I.P Sir Clive Sinclair

[Peter Simpson]

Sadly today Sir Clive Sinclair passed away today,

I absolutely loved my old Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K, that rubber keyboard that was not too clever to type on though and this machine was the first new computer that I owned, I'll never forget it.

My best friend Sacha and I used to buy Spectrum computer magazines from WH Smiths in Birmingham city centre every couple of weeks, we spent hours typing in lines of codes taken from the magazines just to play the games (which didn't work a lot of the time). I also had the ZX Spectrum thermal printer that printed on a gray roll of paper, just for printing out code.

Loading games and saved programmes from cassette tapes was a chore, rewinding and adjusting the volume time and time again until the data finally loaded was a pain lol

My earliest favourite games were jet set willy, skool days, football manager, paper boy, turbo esprit, sabre wulf, manic miner just to name a few.

Anyway thanks for the memories Sir Clive, you were a real tech geek and will go down in history for creating affordable PCs for the masses

Sir Clive Sinclair: Computing pioneer dies aged 81

The inventor, entrepreneur and ZX Spectrum creator died at his London home following a long illness.

www.bbc.co.uk

Home computing pioneer Sir Clive Sinclair dies aged 81

Creator of the landmark ZX Spectrum and the less commercially successful C5 died after a long illness

www.theguardian.com

 

[cklester]

Oh, wow! I remember a friend of mine had one of these. He made a neat program to track our soccer team's stats. I think he also showed me a game once. I had the Commodore VIC-20 at some point... my introduction to computing!

 

[MrKim]

My first was a Tandy Model 100. It's what got me started in programming. Came with Micorsoft BASIC built-in.
Bought out of a classified add. Cost me $100US and included a 1 year subscription to Compuserve and a daisy wheel printer..

 

[MichalK73]

It was my first computer where I started learning to write basic programs and so I stayed at B4X. I was in the 5th grade of primary school when I went with my dad on a 200km train, winter time to Warsaw, to the only computer market in Poland. The stock market was in the so-called "Barn". I had my new ZX Spectrum, hours of loading with game tapes, and when I managed to upload it, I played with my buddies for hours to not load a new game with dozens of errors again. While playing the game "Knight Lord" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Lore) I started to wonder how it happens on the screen that after pressing a button the guy goes left or right. This is how my adventure with programming began.

All thanks to the age of Sir Clive Siclair.

 

[jerry07]

It was my first computer where I started learning to write basic programs and so I stayed at B4X. I was in the 5th grade of primary school when I went with my dad on a 200km train, winter time to Warsaw, to the only computer market in Poland.

Hi Michal,
You were one of the lucky ones that could afford computer. I could only dream of one. As computers were black market in Poland the cost of ZX Spectrum or Atari was same as new car (around 100,000.00) Amstrad 464 was top of my dreams and I think it was another 20,000.00 - 40,000.00.
Although I never owned ZX Spectrum I dreamed enough about one that I feel like it has influence me and today learning about Sir Clive Sinclar passing away my sentiment grows bigger but on another hand I feel a loss.
I hope Sir Clive Sinclar knew that he made many boys and girls lives happier.

Pozdrawiam.