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@dang - I believe that deserves a black ribbon. In some countries generations grew up learning hacking and programming with his computers (and knock-offs)
by mynegation 5y ago
@dang - I believe that deserves a black ribbon. In some countries generations grew up learning hacking and programming with his computers (and knock-offs)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- empressplay 5y agoAgreed! The Timex Sinclair 1000 (US ZX81 rebadging) was my first computer when I was 6 and as an autistic child it really helped keep me engaged and I suspect that without it I would have ended up in special education classes... Sir Clive literally changed my life
- FearNotDaniel 5y agoAbsolutely. His systems did so much to democratize computing in the 8-bit era, and there must be countless greybeards who owe their careers to the access that Sinclair Computers granted. Likewise, many non-technical entrepreneurs who made tons of cash in the first dotcom boom would only be able to find programmers able to work for them because they had self-trained in skills that schools knew nothing about by staying up late staring at the family TV with one of these little machines plugged into it. More democratising than other machines around at the time, because those less-well-off families in the UK who couldn't afford a BBC Micro or CBM-64 could more easily scrape together the funds to buy a ZX Spectrum instead. My personal anecdote: I didn't have enough pocket money to feed my Pac-Man addiction in the arcades, and my family certainly wasn't going to splash out on an Atari console, so I wrote myself a Pac-Man clone in ZX Basic. It turned out that programming was so much more fun than playing the game in the long run, and almost 40 years later people are still paying me to do this! Thank you, Sir Clive.