Clive Sinclair
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Home computer legend Sir Clive Sinclair dies at 81
Sir Clive Sinclair, who created the pocket calculator and one of the best-known early home PCs, has died at 81.
Exploring the ZX Spectrum's glorious rebirth as a gaming keyboard
I remember it like it was yesterday. I'm sitting there, in my parent's lounge, as my dad comes down the stairs with what looks like a black box. He peels back the paper sleeve to reveal a polystyrene insert that houses a small black keyboard with stubby rubberized keys, a huge power brick and a handful of cassette tapes. I quickly learn that the keyboard is a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, an 8-bit personal home computer that relies on a cassette deck to load and save games. I played it off and on for a year, getting to grips with games like the The Hobbit and Horace Goes Skiing, but my interest waned when I finally got a Sega Master System and immersed myself in the world of Sonic and friends. The Spectrum was returned to its polystyrene home and placed back in the attic, where it remains to this day.
The ZX Spectrum has been reimagined as an all-in-one gamepad
The ZX Spectrum was a landmark computer in the 1980s that gave Britain classic video games such as Elite, R-Type and Manic Miner. Now it's coming back as the Sinclair Spectrum Vega, an all-in-one controller and console that's styled after the original, but uses modern advancements to make it sleeker and cheaper. The new model has been put together by Retro Computers, a startup backed by Sinclair Research, the company founded by ZX Spectrum inventor Sir Clive Sinclair. A working prototype has been completed and now the team is pitching on Indiegogo to get the first 1,000 consoles in production.
Sir Clive Sinclair doesn't use a computer, exceeds recommended irony levels
Clive Sinclair is a Knight Commander of the British Empire, the inventor of the slimline pocket calculator, the man behind the Sinclair ZX80 that made home computing affordable in the Queen's isles and also, by his own admittance, a dude who just can't be bothered to use a computer. Speaking to The Guardian, he glibly confesses that he has his emails read to him (by his manservant, presumably), before launching a broadside against modern computers for being "totally wasteful" with their memory, requiring time to boot up, and having altogether "appalling designs." Hit the source for the full interview and an expanded history of the man's achievements, it's well worth the read.
