Sad news - The passing of Uncle Clive

I found out at the weekend, that Sir Clive Sinclair (age 81) had passed away on the 16th of September after fighting a long illness. This is sad and it makes me reflect back on the early '80s and the excitement of the growing home computing market.

I've already mentioned how I got into computers, and Uncle Clive (as some of the computer press affectionately called him at the time) and his team, through the release of the ZX81 started me off in my tinkerings and my path into a computer career. Sure, Clive had some strange inventions in his years but he was a genius, and well ahead of his time. 

The trick with the ZX81 was the reduction in logic components required (just four chips can be found on the ZX81 PCB as standard). Bill of materials cost was reduced through the use of an Uncommitted Logic Array (ULA), a  component taking all the discrete logic and combining it into one chip. This took care of the screen refresh, the IO from the keyboard, the signal to the UHF modulator and the audio signals for loading and saving via audio to a cassette player. Of course, the low RAM and the membrane keyboard also helped save costs.

Yes, the ZX81 was primitive, with no sound, small built-in RAM, crappy keyboard and only black and white graphics. But Clive made computing affordable and brought computing to the masses. The inadequacies of the little machine spawned a British industry in computer add-ons and software and the legacy lives on,  with many who cut their teeth on Sinclair computers and who are in the software and hardware industry today.

We have a lot to thank Clive and his vision. R.I.P. Uncle Clive, you will live on in our memories (and our memories will not wobble).


Clive Sinclair 1940 - 2021

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