Clive Sinclair, an inventor who helped popularize personal computers, dies at 81 – CNN

Enter Clive Sinclair. The British inventor’s first personal computer, the ZX80, was a slim steal at $200. The invention and its more advanced successors helped bring computing to the masses (and inspired a generation of programmers to create inventive computer games).

Most of his inventions hinged on making existing products smaller and more affordable, even if they weren’t widely welcomed by the public — he’s just as well-known for the Sinclair C5, a small, low-speed electric car that was lambasted upon release, as he is for his far more successful computers.

But for all the mixed feedback his creations received, he stood by them staunchly.

“If the idea is good enough, it’s going to appear pretty crazy to almost everybody,” he told the Independent in a 2010 interview. “Either you do it yourself or it ain’t going to happen.” Sinclair, who was knighted for his contributions to computing in the UK, died this week, his daughter, Belinda, confirmed to the Guardian. He was 81.

Sinclair specialized in affordable, efficient inventions

Sinclair, born in London, was always looking for ways to make things more efficient, be it calculus, commuting or computing. It’s an idea he ran with from his very first invention at age 12, when he designed a one-man submarine, according to the Independent.

Like another esteemed tech pioneer, he opted to skip college and head straight into work. And in 1972, after a few years of working as a tech journalist, he had his first hit: The Executive, a lightweight portable calculator that fit neatly into a pocket. For its ingenuity, the calculator was awarded a Design Council Award for Electronics. Over the next decade, Sinclair, through his company, Sinclair Radionics, made his name selling mini TVs and the Black Watch, an electronic watch widely criticized for its low battery life and tendency to tell time incorrectly, among other issues. Undeterred by his first failure, Sinclair started over with a new company, Sinclair Research. In 1980, the company released the ZX80 personal computer, the very first computer to sell for under $200. It was small enough to fit within one’s hand and weighed just 12 ounces, though it had no screen and minimal storage. The small machine boasted just one-tenth of the parts that other computers used at the time, according to Old Computers, an online archive of, well, old computers. Its successor, the ZX81, was even cheaper, at $100, and more than 1 million of them were sold. His success continued the following year with the ZX Spectrum, a more advanced model with a color display that became one of the bestselling personal computers in the UK. But it’s perhaps best known as a gaming computer, …….

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/17/tech/clive-sinclair-death-zx-computer-cec/index.html