"Inventor Sir Clive Sinclair, who popularised the home computer and invented the pocket calculator, has died at his London home aged 81.
His daughter Belinda Sinclair said he passed away on Thursday morning after having cancer for more than a decade.

Sir Clive's products included the ZX series of computers and his ill-fated C5 electric vehicle.

He was still working on his inventions last week "because that was what he loved doing", said Ms Sinclair.
"He was inventive and imaginative and for him it was exciting and an adventure, it was his passion," she added.

His ZX Spectrum computers brought affordable personal computing to the masses - selling in their millions across the world.

However, in a BBC interview in 2013, Sir Clive revealed he did not, at that time, use computers himself.
"I don't like distraction," he explained.
"If I had a computer, I'd start thinking I could change this and that, and I don't want to. My wife very kindly looks after that for me."

Unlike the ZX Spectrum, his attempt to launch an electric vehicle was not successful.

The C5 launched in 1985 and buyers were disappointed with its limited range, slow speed and inability to climb hills. It caused Sir Clive severe financial problems.

His daughter said: "I think sometimes he was a bit too early [with his inventions].
"He was very good at imagining things that people might like or might need, even though they didn't know they wanted them."
He was a devoted father and grandfather who will be missed by her children Samuel, Henry and Florence, Ms Sinclair said.
"They were very close to him and cared for him in the last few years," she said.

Sir Clive leaves three children, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58587521

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2 years ago*

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Good old times of computers with cassette tapes...
R.I.P.

2 years ago
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Yeah 2 minutes to even load a game.

2 years ago
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2 years ago
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True, but now you can still browse a website or something in the meantime, then you just had to really wait.

And i don''t really experience much waiting with a i8700k, 2080ti and M2 SSD, luxury thing. :p

2 years ago
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Brag: Have an overkill PC

Beat: Mom won't loan you money for a PS5

Variance: Someone died so you get to make a RIP thread

2 years ago
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You really need to leave me alone now, you becoming more then a nuisance, what's your gain?

Not that i owe you one explanation (again because i already told you this), but 2-3 years ago i had a tax refund and got a pc, 2 years later whole different situation, simple huh? Life happens. And the ps5 thread was about irony.
So difficult for you to all grasp probably.. If you got a doctors degree you must have bought it from the internet, not by your smarts.

Friday seems to be your troll day that much i learned by now.

2 years ago*
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Everything I wrote is information that you yourself posted publicly on this forum, multiple times.

2 years ago
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And? You try to make me look foolish/bad/whatever by pulling 2 completely non relevant issues together, and again i just debunked that for you. There is no other reason why you doing this sort of thing.

Also having an apparent thing against someone making rip threads.

It's friday, somehow the day you are bored, probably being weekend, maybe you drink with it even, god knows.

2 years ago
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There was a long wait but do you remember when they had those mini games for you to play whilst waiting for the main game to load. Good old space invaders and such like. They were good for warming up prior to playing the main game. Sometimes, the mini games were actually more fun than the main game :O

2 years ago
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2 minutes? Really? Your love for TS1000, which I share, seems to be altering your memories ;)

"Timex Computer Corporation produced a cartridge interface for the TS1000, the Timex Sinclair 1510 Command Cartridge Player. Only four cartridge titles were ever released:
07-9001 Supermath
07-9002 States and Capitals
07-9003 Chess
07-9004 Flight Simulator (Required the 16K RAM pack) The program took 12 minutes to load."

2 years ago
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No, i only had experience with the C64, each country had their computer that was populair, don't remember the Spectrum being that here in The Netherlands, i can remember that loading took up to 3 minutes maybe on extreme games, but it's been 30 years.

2 years ago
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In late 1982 TS1000 was $99 and C-64 was out of my reach still at $595 (but actually was my next comp in a year or so, when it went down to $199), so, yes, 3 minutes for C64 and 12 minutes for TS1000 seems to fit in ;)

2 years ago
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Yeah here the C64 was bought by my dad, and been the family computer, he spend a whole month's salary on a pc years after.
Now mostly it's the gpu that's expensive but then the whole computer and periphals were.
I got a C64 Maxi and sometimes look at the spectrum next, but unfortunately the supply is very limited on that one.

Don't think solemnly (being several factors) but Mr Sinclair surely also helped in making it all a little more affordable.
Think the Sinclair was most populair in England since it's also been an English product?

Luckily my memory hasn't been that shot then. ;) :P But yikes 12 minutes, glad i missed that. Although we had to learn to be patient then, now we are being spoiled i think.

2 years ago*
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Probably in England, idd. But it was a hit during Christmas season of 1982 in US, probably most of its sales in US coming from that period, fueled by probably the biggest till then computer advertisement campaign. As Wikipedia says:

"Timex claimed to have sold 600,000 TS1000s in the US by early 1983, and other companies imported localized versions of British software. It sold for US$99.95 in the US when it debuted, making it the cheapest home computer at the time; it was advertised as "the first computer under $100". This pricing initiated a price war with Commodore International, who quickly reduced the price of its VIC-20 to match and later announced a trade-in program offering $100 for any competing computer toward the purchase of a Commodore 64. Since the TS1000 was selling for $49 by this time, many customers bought them for the sole purpose of trading them in for a Commodore 64." (The lowering of TS1000, VIC-20 and C64 took place probably in Spring of 1983 and those "trade-in" units are most likely not included in the quoted 600k sold.)

Later on (after 1988-1990 fall of Warsaw Pact) his next computer,Spectrum, for a long time had a large market share in East European countries, competing mostly with Amiga. The big difference between TS1000/ZX81 and Spectrum is, that the first for many people become their first computer, which they loved... and dropped usually in a few months to buy a stronger machine (in US: C64, Atari or Apple II), while Spectrum was a computer, that many folks got attached to and still kept using even after the production stopped.

2 years ago*
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RIP. Lots of good moments with my Timex Computer 2048 clone.
© 1982 Sinclair Research Ltd.
LOAD ""
R Tape loading error, 0:1

2 years ago
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2 years ago
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here was what my old bike was that my brother gave to me lol

https://www.ebay.com/itm/255054066836?hash=item3b62683494:g:XlQAAOSwtVRg7K-G

2 years ago
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2 years ago
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Is the person just asking $1000 or is it really worth it?

2 years ago
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i do know a lot of Mongoose bikes are worth money as to prices ive got no clue

2 years ago
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do you remember a place called: The Woods
it was awesome

2 years ago
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We have lost one of the good ones. A pioneer, humble, and wanting to popularize affordable, life improving technology. Sadly he didn't won the race.

2 years ago
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My first computer was a ZX81 kit that I had to assemble myself. I loved it!

RIP Sir Clive!

2 years ago
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My 1st was a russian zx80-based Sinclair 48k then i bought Scorpion ZS-256.
I used it for games, writing demonstrations, music and other things...
Rest In Peace Sir Clive.

2 years ago*
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Ah yes, the spectrum. My gateway drug.
It was all downhill from there :3c

RIP

2 years ago
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