RIP Thread

[PFVA]

Aw, I know him by the name Sinclair.

I played my first video games at one of those at my uncle's house when coming here on vacation. Good memories.

RIP

[Portland]

[gilesgoat]

... I am "impressed" .. the article on the BBC news is quite rubbish ... he's rememberd as "the one with the failed C5" ... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58587521

Compare that to this article in "La Repubblica" in Italy : https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2021/0 ... 318120001/

Where he's rememebered as "English pioneer of the home computer, ZX Spectrum, 80 , 81 and a line of calculators, also the C5 'maybe too soon for the times'" they also conclude with "His name remains one of the biggest in the personal computer field and an absolute protagonist of the 8 bits ( era ) ".

As they say "Nemo propheta in patria" ? ..

[Dio]

You can argue about how much he was involved in the technical aspects and the like, but theres no doubt - his little rubber keyed black box changed the world, or at least that part of it that currently calls itself the UK. Thank you, Uncle Clive - for the tape load waits, for the colour clash, for the BEEP, and for Jet Set F**king Willy.

Oh, he totally changed the entire world's home computers, for sure. He was easily as responsible as the VCS crash and Tramiel's price cuts for the 1983-4 shakeout, so many companies released shocking products chasing "Sinclair's POS" without understanding what a wonderfully right product the aforementioned POS was.

Of course, it was largely luck that they got it right - the number of people who were thinking properly about this stuff can be counted on the fingers of one hand of someone who's had an unfortunate incident with a land mine - but he managed to produce almost the exactly right product. His ability to succeed was I suspect inherently limited to the low end of the market. His approach to products was to eschew the convention and engineer cheap, disruptive solutions - spectacularly successful with the ZXs but that also led to Microdrives, the QL, the pocket TV and the C5, and as computing got to be bigger business, it was the guys that really understood product engineering and manufacturing (Tramiel and Sugar) who won, not by disruptive engineering but by disruptive buying and manufacturing.

But those five years from 79 through 84 he kicked the computer world's arse. Respect is due.

[rowan]

... I am "impressed" .. the article on the BBC news is quite rubbish ... he's rememberd as "the one with the failed C5" ... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58587521

Sadly, the BBC is an absolute crock of shite for many years.

What serves as an obituary for them these days is a handful of things grasped from the back of the mind of the "journalist" & maybe a couple of internet searches, interspersed with a bunch of social media posts.
The fact this doesn't even merit that suggests that whomever's on duty is clueless and has been caught on the hop.

Probably by tomorrow they've padded it out a touch but with little more evidence of quality.

[VNVObit]

Like many my first computer was a Sinclair computer (Spectrum in my case)

Guardian Obituary is more balanced (though that doesn't sound hard to do )

[Chuffmeister]

Farewell then Sir Clive. The Speccy was amazing.

[craigt]

I haven't posted on this forum for many a year, but hearing the news of Sir Clive this evening had me thinking back to this place, and the work I did on SpeccyDS way back when.

Farewell Sir Clive. Thank you for fueling a love of computers for my generation.

[KlaxonCow]

And, as Tesla happily prove today, the C5 concept of an electric vehicle wasn't wrong but he was attempting it a decade or so before it was technologically possible.

Thus, Sir Clive's electric vehicle was compromised to ruination.

Batteries of the time just couldn't deliver the performance or longevity, and so any initial ideas for a "car" became demoted to a one-person "pod" and then that had to be made small and light - which was a massive failing for the vehicle, as it was hard for other motorists to see it, to the point that later models had a flag sticking up at the back, in the hopes of being more visible - and, even then, it was still closer to a "pedal assist" e-bike.

Indeed, in hindsight, maybe Sir Clive should have realised, upon the "vision" being so massively compromised, that the better route would have been to, in fact, simply make a "pedal assist" e-bike. it wouldn't have been up to today's standards, of course, but you could have potentially cobbled together an e-bike back in the '80s. Or, well, more bike with some modest battery assistance.

When it became obvious that "car" was off the table by the battery technology of the '80s, he should perhaps have set his sights lower. Because, in the end, the C5 was really an e-bike, of sorts, but in a weird form factor - that was far too low to the ground as to be dangerous in traffic. So imagine the same thing, but in standard bike form. It's an e-bike. And it would have been an okay e-bike, considering it'd be the first commercial one out there.

Folks like to laugh at Sir Clive's C5. But he wasn't wrong, he was just too early. In the '90s, the EV-1 came and went - General Motors created a really good electric vehicle back then, but they were only doing it as a "compliance car" for California's air pollution regulations. They only leased them - never sold them - then took them all back and crushed them, when they proved too popular. But it was too late, as Tesla and Elon Musk and others had seen it already. And a decade later, Tesla turned the car industry on its head.

Every car manufacturer out there now has an EV or hybrid. Some of the old guard - Volkswagon, for example - are committed to going 100% electric. Governments are already setting deadlines - in the UK, no new internal combustion engine car can be sold from 2030 (and even hybrids banned from new sale by 2035).

Sir Clive was right. But simply way too early.

Ah, if I had the money, time, mechanical expertise then I'd love to make the C6 in tribute to Sir Clive, but actually packing one of today's EV batteries in it, so the C6 wouldn't have to make the compromises. Proper size, at least a 2 seater, no pedalling involved. To prove that he was never wrong in his "vision", just too ambitious about what was actually possible back then.

I post about electric cars sometimes in the "future of energy" thread. But it wasn't really Elon that started it all. It was Sir Clive.

[Whiteball]

Indeed. Sir clive was actually more interested in the 'electric vehicle' concept than computers.

He didn't actually want to make computers at all and it was only persuasion and constant pressure from Chris Curry that they ever did any.
Sir Clive was great in many things he achieved and is remembered for the computers mostly but he wanted nothing to do with them really and didn't use one (any) at all.

RIP.

Fond memories of watching him on Late Night Poker, playing cagey.

[Loada]

Ah, if I had the money, time, mechanical expertise then I'd love to make the C6 in tribute to Sir Clive, but actually packing one of today's EV batteries in it, so the C6 wouldn't have to make the compromises. Proper size, at least a 2 seater, no pedalling involved. To prove that he was never wrong in his "vision", just too ambitious about what was actually possible back then.

Renault have sort of done this with the Twizy - I think that's a lot closer to what Clive had in his head.
https://www.renault.co.uk/electric-vehicles/twizy.html

[k345y]

Fondest memories of gaming on my Speccy.

If the C5 was brought up to today's spec and tech level it would still be shit.
No one wants to ride around busy cities at wheel level to a big fucking bus.

[RedOktober]

Greavsie...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/58613988

[Misfit]

Greavsie...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/58613988

As a life long Spurs fan this makes me sad, it will also be compounded by the kicking we'll get a Chelsea today.

[gravy]

And, as Tesla happily prove today, the C5 concept of an electric vehicle wasn't wrong but he was attempting it a decade or so before it was technologically possible.

Thus, Sir Clive's electric vehicle was compromised to ruination.

Batteries of the time just couldn't deliver the performance or longevity, and so any initial ideas for a "car" became demoted to a one-person "pod" and then that had to be made small and light - which was a massive failing for the vehicle, as it was hard for other motorists to see it, to the point that later models had a flag sticking up at the back, in the hopes of being more visible - and, even then, it was still closer to a "pedal assist" e-bike.

Indeed, in hindsight, maybe Sir Clive should have realised, upon the "vision" being so massively compromised, that the better route would have been to, in fact, simply make a "pedal assist" e-bike. it wouldn't have been up to today's standards, of course, but you could have potentially cobbled together an e-bike back in the '80s. Or, well, more bike with some modest battery assistance.

When it became obvious that "car" was off the table by the battery technology of the '80s, he should perhaps have set his sights lower. Because, in the end, the C5 was really an e-bike, of sorts, but in a weird form factor - that was far too low to the ground as to be dangerous in traffic. So imagine the same thing, but in standard bike form. It's an e-bike. And it would have been an okay e-bike, considering it'd be the first commercial one out there.

Folks like to laugh at Sir Clive's C5. But he wasn't wrong, he was just too early. In the '90s, the EV-1 came and went - General Motors created a really good electric vehicle back then, but they were only doing it as a "compliance car" for California's air pollution regulations. They only leased them - never sold them - then took them all back and crushed them, when they proved too popular. But it was too late, as Tesla and Elon Musk and others had seen it already. And a decade later, Tesla turned the car industry on its head.

Every car manufacturer out there now has an EV or hybrid. Some of the old guard - Volkswagon, for example - are committed to going 100% electric. Governments are already setting deadlines - in the UK, no new internal combustion engine car can be sold from 2030 (and even hybrids banned from new sale by 2035).

Sir Clive was right. But simply way too early.

Anyone who’d seen a milk float might disagree. The problem with electric vehicles is battery technology. Sinclair chose to ignore it, his position was that if the C5 took off then it was the battery manufacturer’s problem to solve.

It’s crazy and a personal folly of his that played a large part in Sinclair Radionics and Sinclair Research’s failures. It’s a shame he’s remembered for the C5 but it’s also a fair reflection of where his interests mostly lay.