Sir Clive Sinclair, the creator of the Spectrum, passes away

Sir Clive Sinclair, Spectrum's father, dies at the age of 81. We take a look at one of the most illustrious inventors of the twentieth century.

This is a sad day for the industry. Spectrum's father, Sir Clive Sinclair, died at the age of 81 after a long illness. One of the important components in bringing home computers to the people was the inventor. “He was a beautiful individual. Of course, he was a brilliant man who was always interested in new things. “My daughter and her husband are both engineers, so I used to talk to them about engineering,” Belinda Sinclair, her daughter, told The Guardian.

Clive Sinclair is a well-known figure in the industry.

The story of Sinclair is fascinating. He left out of school at the age of 17 to pursue his passion of creating Sinclair Radionics. To do so, he worked as a technician for four years in order to save enough money to start his own business. His daughter recalls, "He wanted to create things tiny and affordable so that everyone could access them." As a result, he designed compact, lightweight calculators in the early 1970s that could fit nicely in your pocket.

The ZX80, the company's first computer, transformed the market. You might have the first model produced for 99.95 pounds. He sold 50,000 of them; the ZX81's successor, the ZX81, would lower the entry price to 69.95 pounds and sell 250,000 copies. Years later, Sinclair acknowledged that they had made 14 million pounds in profits in a single year.

The huge leap would come in 1982 with the release of the ZX Spectrum, a computer that would usher in a new era in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe, becoming an indelible part of the youth (and not so youth) of millions of admirers worldwide.

continent, who for the first time came into contact with a computer and computing thanks to these machines, whose concept emanated adaptability as well as cost management, following Sir Clive's idea of making products that were accessible to everyone. Even if he had no intention of doing so. The microcomputer would go on to become a real treasure for the growing global passion for videogames, amassing tens of thousands and making a decisive but indirect contribution to the videogame industry's expansion.

Success would follow him for years until his first major setback, which coincided with the sale of his company. The Sinclair C5 was a self-built tricycle that ran on electricity. In its first year, it hoped to sell at least 100,000 units. It did not, however, succeed in curdling the market. Many discordant voices expressed concern about driving it because it was at a lower height than the other cars. Amstrad purchased the company's computer division. The Sinclair TV80, which doubled as a pocket-sized portable television, was another commercial flop. A intriguing idea that did not meet with universal acclaim.

Belinda Sinclair says, "It was the ideas, the challenge, that I found exciting." "When he arrived with his plan, he stated, "It's pointless to ask if anyone wants it because they can't imagine." A strange individual who never used the technologies he brought to market in his daily life.