RIP Sir Clive Sinclair

30th July 1940 - 16th Sept 2021

The British inventor Sir Clive Sinclair has passed away at the age of 81, following a long illness.

He is probably most well known for his ZX range of computers - the ZX80, ZX81, and ZX Spectrum - released in the early 1980s. At the time, he was widely known as 'Uncle Clive' in the press.

The ZX80 and ZX81 were available as self-assembly kits or pre-built and, along with their successor the ZX Spectrum, were the first computers of many now-prominent British software developers. Five million Spectrums were sold worldwide.

Unofficial Spectrum clones such as the Brazilian TK90X and Soviet Scorpion and Pentagon were also popular abroad.

Queen Elizabeth II made Clive Sinclair a Knight in her 1983 Birthday Honours list, for 'Services to British Industry'.

In 1985, Sinclair Vehicles released the C5 single-person electric trike. It was intended to be a step towards a fully fledged four seater electric car - the C15 - but, when the C5 failed to sell well, the C15 car failed to materialise.

Sir Clive was a master of miniaturization. Small devices that he created included 1972's slimline pocket calculator, 1983's TV80 Pocket Television, and the FM Radio LCD Wristwatch in 1984. In 1987 the Cambridge Z88 computer was released. It was A4-sized, with a monochrome LCD display, built in word processing, spreadsheet, and database applications, and was based on the same Z80A CPU as the Spectrum.

Later on, Sir Clive developed motor-assistance for manual wheelchairs, and in 2006 the A-Bike, a folding bicycle that weighs 5Kg, and can fit in a rucksack.

In 2020 the ZX Spectrum Next, a much upgraded iteration of the 'speccy', developed by enthusiasts was released. With an exterior design by Rick Dickinson - who also designed the look of the ZX81 and original iconic rubber-keyed Spectrum - the Next has 1Mb of RAM, upgradeable to 2Mb. It has a CPU which can be clocked at 3.5, 7, 14, or 28Mhz, a 256 colour palette, SD-card loading, and backwards compatibility with original 1980s Spectrum software.

The legacy continues.

Rest In Peace, Sir Clive Sinclair.

Thanks for reading.

Stephen