Obituaries

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Sir Clive Marles Sinclair (30 July 1940 – 16 September 2021) was an English entrepreneur and inventor, most commonly known as being a pioneer in the computing industry, and as the founder of several companies that developed consumer electronics models from the early 1970s through to the early 1980s.
After spending several years as assistant editor of Instrument Practice, Sinclair founded Sinclair Radionics Ltd. in 1961, where he produced the first slimline electronic pocket calculator, the Sinclair Executive, in 1972. Sinclair subsequently moved into the production of home computers in 1980 producing the Sinclair ZX80 (the UK's first mass-market home computer for less than £100), and, in the early 1980s, the ZX81 and ZX Spectrum with Sinclair Research Ltd.. The latter is widely recognised by consumers and programmers for its importance in the early days of the British and wider European home computer industry, as well as helping to give birth to the British video game industry.

Amongst other honours, Sinclair was knighted in 1983 for his contributions to the personal computer industry in the UK.

Sinclair was also recognized for several commercial failures, including the Sinclair Radionics Black Watch wristwatch, the Sinclair Vehicles C5 battery electric vehicle, and the Sinclair Research TV80 flatscreen CRT handheld television set. The failure of the C5 along with a weakened computer market forced Sinclair to sell most of his companies by 1986. Through 2010, Sinclair concentrated on personal transport, including the A-bike, a folding bicycle for commuters, and the Sinclair X-1, a revised version of the C5 electric vehicle but which never made it to market.

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While Sinclair was dealing with the NEB and had seen problems developing, he had a former employee, Christopher Curry, establish a "lifeboat" company, called Science of Cambridge Ltd, in July 1977, called such as they were located near University of Cambridge and planned for Curry to develop technology from ideas from the school.[15][16] An early product out of Science of Cambridge was a wrist calculator kit which helped to keep the company afloat. By the time that Sinclair had left Radionics and joined Curry at Science of Cambridge, inexpensive microprocessors had started appearing on the market. Sinclair came up with the idea of selling a microprocessor teaching kit, and in June 1978, Science of Cambridge launched the MK14 kit, based on the National SC/MP chip, in June 1978.[16] As Sinclair began postulating on the followup to the MK14, Curry got into discussions with Hermann Hauser and opted to leave Science of Cambridge to co-found Acorn Computers with Hauser in 1978. Acorn became a direct competitor to Sinclair's products, with the Acorn System 75 as its answer to the MK14, effectively an MK14 chip with a keyboard.[16]


To follow up on the MK14, Sinclair starting looking to build a personal computer. At around that time (1979), premade systems such as the Commodore PET cost about £700, and Sinclair believed he could get the price of a system to under £100.[17] Keeping the cost low was also essential for Sinclair to avoid his products from becoming outpriced by American or Japanese equivalents as had happened to several of the Sinclair Radionics products.[13] In May 1979, Jim Westwood, a former Sinclair Radionics employee Sinclair hired for this new company, started the ZX80 project at Science of Cambridge; it was launched in February 1980 at £79.95 in kit form and £99.95 ready-built.[17] The ZX80 was immediately successful, and besides sales in the UK, Sinclair also sought to introduce the computer into the United States.[17] Science of Cambridge was subsequently renamed Sinclair Computers Ltd, and then again to Sinclair Research Ltd.[18][19]

On hearing that the BBC was preparing to run a television series to teach viewers about computing and programming, both Sinclair and Curry pressured the BBC to choose computers from their respective companies to use as the primary tool. This pushed the development of the Sinclair ZX81 ahead as Sinclair's standard for the BBC. The ZX81 was launched at £49.95 in kit form and £69.95 ready-built, by mail order. Ultimately, the BBC chose Acorn and standardized on a successor to the Acorn Atom—originally named Acorn Proton, but ultimately branded as the BBC Micro.[17] Despite losing out to the BBC, Sinclair's push had established the ZX80 and ZX81 as one of the highest-selling brands of computers across the UK and the United States as well as establishing a deal with distribution in Japan with Mitsui.[17] A number of users' groups, magazines and homebrew hardware accessories for both systems also arose.[17]

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The [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum]ZX Spectrum (introduced in 1982)

In February 1982, Timex obtained a licence to manufacture and market Sinclair's computers in the United States under the name Timex Sinclair. In April, the ZX Spectrum was launched at £125 for the 16 kB RAM version and £175 for the 48 kB version.[20] It was the first computer in the ZX line to support colour output. The ZX Spectrum remained more affordable than other computers on the market, including the BBC Micro, the Commodore VIC-20 or Apple II, and during a time of recession and high unemployment in the UK, was positioned by Sinclair as a low-cost home computer for productivity applications.[21] However, it also proved to be a popular gift for teenagers and young adults that year. This led to a number of these young people learning to program on the ZX Spectrum, using its newfound colour support, to make quirky video games inspired by British humour which they sold through word of mouth and mail order. So-called "bedroom coders" using the ZX Spectrum gave rise to the start of the UK's video game industry.[22][23] By 1984, over 3500 games had been released for the ZX Spectrum.[24]

The popularity of the ZX Spectrum spread to Western Europe. While Sinclair could not import into Eastern European countries still within the Soviet bloc at the time, numerous low-cost clones of the ZX Spectrum sprung up within these countries, further boosting the start of video game development by similar bedroom coders.[25] The ZX Spectrum went on to become the UK's highest-selling computer, selling more than 5 million units before it was discontinued in 1992.[26] Sinclair Research computers accounted for 45% of the British market in 1984, including those from British and American companies.[27]

The continued success of the computer market continued to help boost Sinclair Research's profit. In 1982, the company has a pre-tax profit of £9.2 million on a turnover of £27.6 million. Sinclair himself was estimated to a net value of over £100 million in 1983, two years after launching the first of the ZX computers.[28] With the additional funds, Sinclair converted the Barker & Wadsworth mineral water bottling factory into the company's headquarters in 1982.[29]


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