R.I.P Sir Clive Sinclair

Boatbuilder · Post by **Boatbuilder** » 16 Sep 2021, 21:41

The inventor of the ZX Spectrum computer and the C5 electric vehicle, Clive Sinclair, has died at the age of 81. R.I.P Sir Clive.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58587521

Jack400 · Post by **Jack400** » 16 Sep 2021, 22:12

Well, he certainly provided many people with basic/cheap radio/cassette players. But I don't think his C5 was a great innovation. Putting peoples head level with the front bumper of a lorry -and selling it to them- showed his good marketing skills-but zero regard for their health!

Barnard · Post by **Barnard** » 16 Sep 2021, 22:15

I always thought that the C5 was Clive Sinclair’s version of the starship Enterprise.

Boatbuilder · Post by **Boatbuilder** » 16 Sep 2021, 22:35

Jack400 wrote: ↑16 Sep 2021, 22:12 ...But I don't think his C5 was a great innovation. Putting peoples head level with the front bumper of a lorry -and selling it to them- showed his good marketing skills-but zero regard for their health!

In that case, you could say the same about the 8-mph mobility scooters that are allowed to travel on the roads. Not to mention the electric two-wheel scooters that are now around.

Jack400 · Post by **Jack400** » 17 Sep 2021, 00:22

They are -at least the ones that I have seen- about 2 feet higher than the C5. Though I have my thoughts about the use of them on the road when the pavement is perfectly serviceable...
The scooters are mostly illegal on anything other than private land and even then only with the landowners permission. The only legal ones, in the UK, are rented and in "selected" trial areas. Lucky them!!

Boatbuilder · Post by **Boatbuilder** » 17 Sep 2021, 01:17

An 8-mph road mobility one on footpaths is not safe as they are intended for the roads at that speed. Yes, they can be ridden on footpaths but are then limited to 4-mph, as per the ones intended for footpaths only, which have a maximum speed of 4-mph. However, some of them are still ridden faster than 4-mph. I really think the height is immaterial as if you hit any part of a vehicle (lorry) you would likely be 'in trouble'.

As far as the other (illegal) scooters are concerned, I've seen plenty of them being ridden around here past my house, and most of the time irresponsibly, on both footpaths and roads. My driveway CCTV has picked them up numerous times. The trouble is, there just isn't sufficient policing for such things and the riders know that and that they can get away with it.

I'm sorry, this thread seems to have diversified from its intended subject.

Post by **Anita Bensoussane** » 17 Sep 2021, 08:45

RIP Sir Clive Sinclair. My sister and I had a ZX Spectrum 48K computer when we were teenagers and we loved playing the games 'Jetpac' and 'Horace Goes Skiing'. Games were loaded from a cassette and were played on the TV screen. You'd hear a high-pitched squealing sound while they were loading. If the volume on the cassette player was set slightly too high or slightly too low, the loading process would fail and you'd have to start again!

Like Jack, I thought the C5 looked unsafe. However, inventions that aren't successful help pave the way for future successes.

As for electric scooters, they're a menace. I've seen numerous docking stations in London, Birmingham and Southampton where you're allowed to hire them and use them on the roads. On Sunday my daughter went to a fete and there was an electric scooter track set up. The activity was free of charge as the promoters were trying to convince people that electric scooters were safe. My daughter had a go and fell off after a couple of seconds, breaking her leg just below the knee. She now faces at least six weeks in a leg brace, a possible operation and months of physiotherapy. I'm thankful that she wasn't riding the scooter on the road! My son broke his elbow taking part in a duelling activity at a fete in 2008, so I now think of fetes as "fates"!

Barnard · Post by **Barnard** » 17 Sep 2021, 09:03

Did anybody buy a Sinclair Zike?

Boatbuilder · Post by **Boatbuilder** » 17 Sep 2021, 09:30

So sorry to hear about your daughter, Anita. I hope she makes a speedy recovery without needing surgery, which would likely make the recovery longer.

Lucky Star · Post by **Lucky Star** » 17 Sep 2021, 10:35

So sorry to hear about your daughter Anita. Hopefully she will make a speedy recovery.

Jack400 · Post by **Jack400** » 17 Sep 2021, 11:38

Sorry to hear that your daughter, Anita. Hopefully the operation won't be needed. Whatever did the organisers say?!
The height is significant because it aids visibility. My late father's (pavement) electric wheelchair had four speed limiter settings. Painfully slow to 'he's not hanging about'.

Eddie Muir · Post by **Eddie Muir** » 17 Sep 2021, 12:22

I’m so sorry to hear about your daughter’s accident and wish her a full and speedy recovery, Anita.

We get lots of people, mostly teenage boys, using electric scooters on both pavements and roads where we live. They are an absolute menace and something needs to be done to stop or restrict their use.

Post by **Anita Bensoussane** » 17 Sep 2021, 21:22

Thanks for the good wishes for my daughter.

I've been reading a few articles about Sir Clive Sinclair and I particularly enjoyed this one about the ZX Spectrum:

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2021/ ... brilliance

Courtenay · Post by **Courtenay** » 18 Sep 2021, 16:19

I'm also sorry to hear about your daughter, Anita — hope she's soon on the mend without too much more difficulty. So much for proving the safety of electric scooters...

Interesting article about the ZX Spectrum, though that particular computer wasn't part of my life growing up (and I don't know anyone who had one). My sister and I got a state-of-the-art Commodore 64 for Christmas in 1985!!

It was still running well into the 1990s, too. Whenever I get to see or play retro computer games, I'm caught somewhere between "ahhh, nostalgia..." and "How on EARTH did we ever have the patience to wait for 5-10 minutes for these things to load, especially when the end result was so simplistic compared to what today's computers can do??"

Debbie · Post by **Debbie** » 18 Sep 2021, 21:17

Police round here take electric scooters if they see them. There's been a number of indignant posts on fb pages (they're normally told it's their own fault).

We had a ZX81. The wonderful computer that if you actually managed to write a programme, crashed when you ran it because it didn't have enough memory (8k, I think).
Then we got a ZX Spectrum 48K. We thought this was amazing graphics, although we didn't get it in colour as it wired up to our b/w TV (I think we must have been the last people in the country to get colour). The issue with that was Jet Set Willie, which had an anti-pirate bit written into the software. This meant that when you'd loaded the game (on about the 3rd or 4th try), taking 2-3 minutes per piece you then had to identify the code. This was a colour code. You had to identify 4 different colours and match it up to a code on the piece of paper inside the cassette case. Two of the colours were red and magenta. Try identifying those on a b/w fuzzy screen!

Why they thought a pirate wouldn't be canny enough to copy the paper as well, I'm not sure, but never mind. So you got 3 goes to get it right, then it blanked and you had to try loading it again. Occasionally we did actually get in to play the game too.

Never mind, no one ever got anywhere near finishing Jet Set Willie before the giant foot came down and squashed you.

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