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Author Topic: Clive Sinclair aka Mr ZX81 is dead  (Read 3089 times)

winni

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Jurassic Pork

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Re: Clive Sinclair aka Mr ZX81 is dead
« Reply #1 on: September 17, 2021, 11:50:19 pm »
 :'(  Sniff !   (see my signature)
Jurassic computer : Sinclair ZX81 - Zilog Z80A à 3,25 MHz - RAM 1 Ko - ROM 8 Ko

440bx

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Re: Clive Sinclair aka Mr ZX81 is dead
« Reply #2 on: September 18, 2021, 12:45:40 am »
I share Jurassic Pork's feelings.  That is sad news.
(FPC v3.0.4 and Lazarus 1.8.2) or (FPC v3.2.2 and Lazarus v3.2) on Windows 7 SP1 64bit.

MarkMLl

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Re: Clive Sinclair aka Mr ZX81 is dead
« Reply #3 on: September 18, 2021, 11:01:32 pm »
It wasn't that Sinclair was smart per se, but that he was smart enough to keep even smarter people engaged.

See http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simulator.html for a fascinating discourse on the original Sinclair Scientific calculator. And yes, that was what allowed me to put slide rule and log tables behind me. And yes, I can have the muscle memory for 3.14159265359 which is what you had to enter repeatedly if you wanted decent results.

For predecessor technology, http://www.hp9825.com/html/osborne_s_story.html is an extremely good read. Elsewhere I've come across the story that the prototype was lent to either Hewlett or Packard for the weekend (he bred horses, and had much maths to do) and he connected the PSU the wrong way round... but there was a protective diode and fuse :-)

MarkMLl
MT+86 & Turbo Pascal v1 on CCP/M-86, multitasking with LAN & graphics in 128Kb.
Pet hate: people who boast about the size and sophistication of their computer.
GitHub repositories: https://github.com/MarkMLl?tab=repositories

 

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