The inventor of the legendary ZX Spectrum computer, Sir Clive Sinclair, a pioneer in computers and pocket calculators, died yesterday at the age of 81.
The technology industry has just lost one of its best-known inventors. Sir Clive Sinclair died on September 16, 2021, at the age of 81, after a long illness. He was well known in the current 50's - 60's for his company's ZX computers, which flourished in the United Kingdom in the early 1980s.
He managed to make home computers accessible to ordinary people, at a time when most models were still very expensive. A ZX Spectrum 16K, for example, cost 125 1.298, while Apple launched the Apple II for $ XNUMX a few years earlier.
Sinclair is also widely regarded as invented the first pocket calculator, the Sinclair Executive, in 1972. Texas Instruments' first programmable calculator (the HP-65) did not arrive until 1974. It was also a pioneer in electric transportation, having developed the C5 electric tricycle in 1985.
Like many inventors, his works did not always succeed. The Sinclair computer company ran into trouble with the fatal QL in 1984 and was sold to Amstrad in 1985. And while the C5 may have been decades ahead of its time, it did not translate into sales. The Sinclairs vehicle business ran aground less than a year after the C5 debuted.
Sinclair's legacy, however, is clear. For many gamers and game developers, Sinclair computers represented an important moment. McGill University noted that Many famous creators and studios, including Peter Molyneux, David Perry and Rare, roamed the ZX Spectrums.
Pocket PCs are still useful even in the age of smartphones. And it is safe to say that EVs are here to stay, including small electric skates and bicycles. There is a real possibility that Sinclar's work has influenced technology in your life, even if you have never touched one of its products.
