# Sir Clive Sinclair



## Sandyn (17 Sep 2021)

Was very sad to hear of the death of Clive Sinclair. He was way ahead of his time. I had a QL, could never afford any of his earlier computers. It was a brilliant machine. Still got it somewhere in the house. The clicky calculator, his watch and of course the C5 Electric vehicle, all well ahead of their time. The C5 was a bit of a flop, but it was 35 years ago and look what we have flying about the streets and pavements now.


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## J-G (17 Sep 2021)

Sandyn said:


> I had a QL


I'd actually forgotten the QL - yes good but 'quirky' - tape drive ??? 

When I left a management post in the late 60's my staff bought me the Sinclair Scientific Calculator - just over £50's worth


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## DIYTinkerer (17 Sep 2021)

J-G said:


> I'd actually forgotten the QL - yes good but 'quirky' - tape drive ???


It was a 'microdrive' I had a Spectrum, Specky 128+ and a quirky 'Merlin Tonto', it had an integrated microdrives, phone and modem - I think it even had a ROM cartridge with productivity software on it, it was based on the QL. '


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## Sandyn (17 Sep 2021)

DIYTinkerer said:


> It was a 'microdrive'


yes, the microdrive. If I remember correctly it used video quality tape to get the recording density higher than audio tape. The microdrive was actually very reliable. The QL came with an excellent office suite done by Psion. I was an expert Lotus 123 user at the time, but the QL spreadsheet had some really good features. I wrote a printer driver for the QL so I could print graphics. It worked, but not what you would say high resolution, lol.


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## sploo (17 Sep 2021)

Started with a 48k+. Many good memories of "Lego" like low resolution graphics, colour clash, and terrible sound 

Barring a bit of time on a school RM Link 380Z, that Speccy basically started my career in software engineering.


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## dzj (17 Sep 2021)

I had a Spectrum 48K. The year I was discharged from National Service. 
Spent the whole summer playing pirated games on cassettes . 
J, Shift PP. That's how you load a game.


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## Sandyn (17 Sep 2021)

J-G said:


> When I left a management post in the late 60's my staff bought me the Sinclair Scientific Calculator - just over £50's worth



click, click click, click click click, click, click click click, click click click, click


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## Droogs (17 Sep 2021)

My first computer was a ZX80. Mum (she being a computer programmer since the 60s) bought it for Christmas 1979, it came in a poly bag in bits and had a photo copy of hand written assembly instructions. My parents didn't see me again until around the 5th of Jan 1980. I loved that machine. the start of a very slippery slope that lead to a great life of adventure and excitement combining being a nerd, that Jones boy and Richard Sharpe all rolled into one. Fantastic. Hopefully my FIL (who died on Monday) isn't giving him a lot of earache wherever they are .


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## J-G (17 Sep 2021)

Sandyn said:


> click, click click, click click click, click, click click click, click click click, click
> View attachment 118034


Slightly later than I remember but, on reflection, it was certainly after I got married in 1972 and I do seem to recall that it was a very new product.


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## J-G (17 Sep 2021)

DIYTinkerer said:


> It was a 'microdrive'


Yes, the Microdrive was an 'endless loop' tape system. 

I remember selling ZX 80, 81 & Spectrums and having between 20 & 25% failure rate. The introduction of the Amstrad 464 was a revallation with less than 2% faulty. I didn't sell many QLs (less than 20) since at £399 they were 'expensive'.


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## JobandKnock (17 Sep 2021)

I had a Sinclair digital watch when they came out. Ridiculously expensive and didn't keep time. Neither did the replacement one, nor the one after that, so I paid some more and got a Sinclair calculator, which also didn't last...


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## slavedata (18 Sep 2021)

Sinclair, especially in his early days, was very good at buying cheap electronics and marketing it well. His early integrated circuit amplifiers were Plessey rejects hand tested as just about working and then sold on with a glossy Sinclair labels stuck over the Plessey type no and reject stamp. The early audio systems were hand soldered on kitchen tables by out workers all over the Cambridgeshire Fens.

His real legacy was getting so many youngsters to understand programming and assembler playing for hours on their affordable Speckys. They then went on to successful careers in the computer industry.


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## Trainee neophyte (18 Sep 2021)

This may help with your reminiscences: ZX Spectrum games – Qaop/JS

Horace goes skiing, anyone?


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## Keith Cocker (18 Sep 2021)

I remember I had one with a membrane keyboard and then graduated to one with wobbly rubber keys. Sinclair seemed a much nicer man than Sugar.


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## Stuart Moffat (18 Sep 2021)

I’m a fan of Sinclair, but I was living very close to Ally Pally when the C5 was launched there. Me and my mates all went for a go round the indoor track. It felt a bit like a fairground ride, say, dodgems but not allowed to crash. An obvious flop. None of us would have taken it onto the streets of north London.


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## J-G (18 Sep 2021)

Keith Cocker said:


> I remember I had one with a membrane keyboard and then graduated to one with wobbly rubber keys.


The most famous 'Wobbly' was the Ram-Pack !! Caused me all manner of 'after sales' problems when the customer had lost a whole evenings programming in a split second after 'nudging' it.


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## slavedata (18 Sep 2021)

Alan Michael Sugar (Amstrad Trading) started off selling TV aerials out of a van on Romford market. He then cottoned on to Dixons (just down the road was the first shop) master plan of getting electronics built cheap in Hong Kong and bringing it in to the UK with his own brand on it. He was always a down the market sort of guy whilst Clive Sinclair was a highly intelligent man with an understanding of Electronics , branding and marketing.


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## slavedata (18 Sep 2021)

J-G said:


> The most famous 'Wobbly' was the Ram-Pack !! Caused me all manner of 'after sales' problems when the customer had lost a whole evenings programming in a split second after 'nudging' it.



We used to sell Specky accessories when I ran Byteshop Computerland in Nottingham. One of the best sellers was a stand bracket for the Ram pack to solve the crash problem.


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## J-G (18 Sep 2021)

slavedata said:


> Alan Michael Sugar (Amstrad Trading) started off selling TV aerials out of a van on Romford market. He then cottoned on to Dixons (just down the road was the first shop) master plan of getting electronics built cheap in Hong Kong and bringing it in to the UK with his own brand on it. He was always a down the market sort of guy whilst Clive Sinclair was a highly intelligent man with an understanding of Electronics , branding and marketing.


I would argue that Sugar is vastly superior at branding & marketing and employed vastly more capable 'Electronics' engineers who developed his (and their) ideas - notably, Roland Perry - in the UK but naturally getting the product mass produced in the far east - mostly Malaysia.

AMSTRAD is a contraction of *A*lan *M*ichael *S*ugar *Trad*ing - not Amstrad Trading - and he initially sold various electrical parts including Car Radios & Hi-Fi as well as TV aerials.


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## ian33a (18 Sep 2021)

I had my name down for a black watch but delays and more delays, if I remember correctly, caused me to cancel it. I bought an LED watch on the high street in the end.

I never went down the ZX route, instead, BBC Micro. It paved my way into electronics and my degree project used one as the central controller and processor, mathematical ability laughable by today's standard, but it was 1983. A career in the semiconductor industry followed. 

Things were so different back then, electronic innovation was really simple and relatively inexpensive. These days you either need a few million in the bank as seed money or an angel investor/venture capitalist in the wings to play at even the medium sized tables.


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## WoodchipWilbur (18 Sep 2021)

ian33a said:


> I never went down the ZX route, instead, BBC Micro.


My start in modern computing was with BBC too. But my real start was "Merlin" - a school-build in 196?3/4. We think it was the first digital "computer" in an English school. Bedford were ahead of us - but theirs was mechanical, using telephone switching gear. 
No keys, membrane or wobbly rubber. Just punch tape. You fed in a long strip with a calculation. It replied with a shorter one that said, "ERROR".
And it consumed around 1.5kW. Mostly by the fans we put in to blow away the heat generated by... the other fans!
Happy days.


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## slavedata (18 Sep 2021)

J-G said:


> I would argue that Sugar is vastly superior at branding & marketing and employed vastly more capable 'Electronics' engineers who developed his (and their) ideas - notably, Roland Perry - in the UK but naturally getting the product mass produced in the far east - mostly Malaysia.
> 
> AMSTRAD is a contraction of *A*lan *M*ichael *S*ugar *Trad*ing - not Amstrad Trading - and he initially sold various electrical parts including Car Radios & Hi-Fi as well as TV aerials.



Well you choose Sugar I'll choose Sinclair. Intellectually Clive Sinclair made a much greater contribution to the world in my opinion.


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## Geriatrix (18 Sep 2021)

I met Clive Sinclair in 1981 before he was knighted. I was working with an aircraft sales and chartering business at the time and helping out at a sales event at Cranfield Aerodrome. A lady came to our stand and asked if someone could show her boss around an executive aircraft on display. I got the job and her boss turned out to be Clive Sinclair. I forget what type of aircraft it was, but as we were both standing erect in the cabin, I imagine it was an HS-125. One of the few bizjets at the time where that was possible. He was very interested in the aircraft, but I got the impression he was more curious about it rather than being a serious buyer. He seemed to be quite a reticent man but of course I was in awe of him. The event was later overshadowed by a crash on the airfield with four fatalities in a ball of flame. That's what I remember most and I've only recently recalled our meeting. RIP Sir Clive.


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## J-G (18 Sep 2021)

slavedata said:


> in my opinion


And you are entitled to it  If you do a little research you see that Amstrad computers sold at least twice as many as Sinclair. This makes me believe that Sugar had a greater influence on the dissemination of Computer knowledge.

Personally I didn't own a ZX (any flavour) and I only used Amstrad 464, 664, 6128, PCW, PC1512 etc. due to selling them. When I bought my own it was the best available at the time - a NASCOM II.


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## Richard_C (18 Sep 2021)

Good to be reminded of the calculator - I bought one c. 1972 when still a student, I guess in relative terms it cost about the same as a basic laptop today. It was the second Sinclair Calculator, the first was a basic 4 function red LED display, a bit longer but slimmer, deep black, styled a bit like the monolith in the film 2001 which came out in 1968. Cost about £80. In styling terms perhaps it was the Apple of its day. A fellow student worked in a bookies office on Saturdays, was flush with money and bought one. I never knew why - his mental arthmetic was legendary: 2/6 to win at 7:2 ...answer in seconds. I wonder if currency decimalisation in 1971 was the big opportunity for calculators and for Sinclair, we did all the money stuff in 10's, not 12's and 20's after that.

I was on a science course with a fair bit of statistics involved: we could book and hour in the calculator room (a very special place with a few big desktop 4 function 4 memory machines, no printer so you wrote thinsg down), use a clunky mechanical adding machine or use pen, paper and a pale blue book of mathematical tables, logs and so on. That £50 calculator revolutionised all that, and not many months later you could buy cheap equivalents for less than £10.

If you are interested in such things, in Cambridge (off Coldhams Lane, not in the centre) is a museum of computing, lots of it 'hands on'. Worth a visit to bring back memories - or if you are younger, to marvel at how we managed to achieve anything with just 2k of RAM and no internet.





__





The Centre for Computing History - Computer and Video Game Museum - Cambridge


The Centre for Computing History is a computer and video game museum based in Cambridge, UK. With a collection of vintage computers and game consoles, many of the exhibits are hands on and interactive.



www.computinghistory.org.uk





My view of Sinclair/Sugar is that Sinclair was a bit more of a 'blue sky' creative, Sugar was an adaptive creative who could develop existing ideas and market them. Each has their place.

_(Someone mentioned Psion programmes, it was Psion Exchange: basic spreadsheet, word processor, charting programme and one or two other things, print module so you could churn out your report on a dot matrix printer - we didn't email pdfs back then)_


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## J-G (18 Sep 2021)

Richard_C said:


> Each has their place.


I'll echo that.


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## paulrbarnard (18 Sep 2021)

dzj said:


> I had a Spectrum 48K. The year I was discharged from National Service.
> Spent the whole summer playing pirated games on cassettes .
> J, Shift PP. That's how you load a game.


I hope those games weren’t any of mine. It would explain why I never made my fortune.
My first Sinclair was the ZX81 built from the kit when they first came out. I had built my own computer before that but quickly switched to the commercial computers and went through pretty much of them.


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## penyrolewen (19 Sep 2021)

dzj said:


> I had a Spectrum 48K. The year I was discharged from National Service.
> Spent the whole summer playing pirated games on cassettes .
> J, Shift PP. That's how you load a game.


National service? In the 80s?


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## Richard_C (19 Sep 2021)

penyrolewen said:


> National service? In the 80s?



He's in Serbia, so likely yes. Some countries still have it.


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## Doug71 (19 Sep 2021)

This brings back so many memories for me, like most I had a ZX81 then a Spectrum. It's not just the computers either, who else had a Kempston Competition Pro joystick with 2 big red buttons followed by a Quickshot Pro which had four suckers to hold it to your desk and an auto fire switch 

I downloaded Jet Pac to my 11yr olds Xbox, he did a few levels without losing a life and asked "Is this it or does anything else happen?"


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## flh801978 (19 Sep 2021)

It’s well worth watching “micro men” on YouTube a 2006 film about Clive and acorn computers


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## dzj (19 Sep 2021)

penyrolewen said:


> National service? In the 80s?


Yeah, 12 months on an island in the middle of the Adriatic. 
My Gilligan phase.


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## John Brown (19 Sep 2021)

I have no desire to badmouth Clive, but he's always spoken of as an inventor. What did he actually invent? As far as I can remember, he marketed some small things and some cheap things, and some small cheap things. Plus the C5, neither small nor cheap, but pointless. None of these were inventions, were they?
I concur that he probably would have been a nicer person to meet than Mr Sugar, but that's damning with faint praise...

Personally, my first computer experience was the SWTP 6800 system. Controlled by a 32 column green screen serial terminal. 4k bytes of RAM, and later upgraded to 32k for a few hundred pounds. My boss sent me on a two day(IIRC) course at some university in London to learn about programming microprocessors, and I loved it. 
Fantastic fun to be somewhere near the vanguard in the micro revolution.


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## Jonm (19 Sep 2021)

I recall buying one of his stereo amplifiers kits in about 1973. I made it exactly to the plans and it hummed terribly, took the power supply out and put it in a separate box and that cured the humm. Used it for about 10 years and it still worked fine. Think I must have thrown it away at some point.

I then bought the scientific calculator which was again in kit form. It used “reverse polish logic”, supposedly the same as Hewlett Packard but actually the Sinclair version was not as user friendly. As I recall the Calculator was not much use, not that accurate and difficult to use.


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## J-G (20 Sep 2021)

Jonm said:


> It used “reverse polish logic”, supposedly the same as Hewlett Packard but actually the Sinclair version was not as user friendly. As I recall the Calculator was not much use, not that accurate and difficult to use.


It is RPN - Reverse Polish NOTATION - and my recollection is quite different. I remember it being a great boon in solving triangles - saved many hours of pouring over trig tables!


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## Richard_C (20 Sep 2021)

I agree 85 15 + percent with J-G but it's a very long time since I used it.


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## Superduner (20 Sep 2021)

85 enter 15 +, surely?


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## Jonm (20 Sep 2021)

J-G said:


> It is RPN - Reverse Polish NOTATION - and my recollection is quite different. I remember it being a great boon in solving triangles - saved many hours of pouring over trig tables!


It is a long time ago but I was using it to calculate co-ordinates, so basically triangles. We had main frame computers for the main number crunching but needed “hand“ calculations as well. We had a Hewlett Packard programmable calculator in the office but it was heavily used and often a wait to use it. Accuracy needed was ideally a mm in say 300 metres. My recollection is that the Sinclair calculator was not sufficiently accurate, hence I did not use it very much.

We later had some desk top computers, possibly apricot? They initially had the same problem of accuracy but the computer section did something to them to improve accuracy and then they were ok.

I think it is down to what you are comparing it to, or requiring it to do. It was the Casio fx81 which came out in about 1980 that ticked all the boxes for me. I had one for years until the on off switch became unrepairable.


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## J-G (20 Sep 2021)

Jonm said:


> Accuracy needed was ideally a mm in say 300 metres


That is asking for 6 significant figures - so you are/were not comparing like-for-like. 

The Sinclair had only a 4 figure mantissa so the best you would ever get would be 5 figures (It did hold another digit in memory so the last one displayed would be accurate). The HP-35 had 10 significant figures but of course cost nearly 3½ times as much.

My needs at that time were household & model-making so seldom greater than 2m.

It's interesting to realize today's cost equivalents --- Sinclair £566 - HP-35 £1905


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## Jonm (21 Sep 2021)

J-G said:


> That is asking for 6 significant figures - so you are/were not comparing like-for-like.


I did say “ideally”. In many case less significant figures would have been ok. I would have looked at the number of significant figures before purchase and looking at a video it appears to be five displayed figures (plus exponent) which would have been been fine, if they were accurate. It is far too long ago for me to remember the details but I never used it for calculations at work because of the accuracy. Wikipedia says “_Significant modifications to the algorithms used meant that a chipset intended for a four-function calculator was able to process scientific functions, but at the cost of reduced speed and accuracy. Compared to contemporary scientific calculators, some functions were slow to execute, and others had limited accuracy or gave the wrong answer_”

Looking on the internet I have found a 1975 advert giving a kit price of £9.95 which is probably what I paid. About £85 in today’s money. Perhaps we are looking at different Sinclair scientific calculators if yours was £556 in today’s money.


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## HamsterJam (21 Sep 2021)

J-G said:


> That is asking for 6 significant figures - so you are/were not comparing like-for-like.
> 
> The Sinclair had only a 4 figure mantissa so the best you would ever get would be 5 figures (It did hold another digit in memory so the last one displayed would be accurate). The HP-35 had 10 significant figures but of course cost nearly 3½ times as much.
> 
> ...



I thought the Sinclair had 5 digit mantissa (unit plus 4 decimal places). Will have to dig mine out and check. - Edit: just realised mantissa is the part after the decimal point. So agreed, unit plus 4-digit mantissa.
I also have a Casio fx81 someone referred to. My parents bought it for me when I did maths A-level (which dates me). I never switched it off as it powers down after a few minutes of inactivity and the 2xAA batteries last years. (Unlike the Sinclair which could eat a set of AAAs in a single maths lesson).
I used it extensively for 15-20 years of my engineering career when Excel took over. A mate had the same calculator and soldered his power switch permanently on when it failed.


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## HamsterJam (21 Sep 2021)

So I thought I’d see if it stiil works ….
and it did


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## nickds1 (21 Sep 2021)

J-G said:


> I'd actually forgotten the QL - yes good but 'quirky' - tape drive ???
> 
> When I left a management post in the late 60's my staff bought me the Sinclair Scientific Calculator - just over £50's worth



Age and memory! The Scientific came out in 1974 - I was still at school and bought one - it was about 60 quid - a fortune in those days.

I still have it!! (and, yes, it still works) It's on my "shelf of horrors" along with my British Thornton slide rule, book of log tables and random other bits.

Further, I have his Quad ESL speakers plus the Quad 405-2 amp and the matching 44 pre-amp. All are in awful cosmetic condition - lots of nicotine (he was a heavy smoker), coffee cup rings, cat claw marks (speaker cloth ruined) etc.

I've designed and restored quite a few amps, including Quad 405-2s, e.g. Quad 405-2 upgrades , so these will be done as soon as I don't need PPE for something more critical!



Jonm said:


> Looking on the internet I have found a 1975 advert giving a kit price of £9.95 which is probably what I paid. About £85 in today’s money. Perhaps we are looking at different Sinclair scientific calculators if yours was £556 in today’s money.



The kit was originally around £28 but was significantly discounted within a couple of years to clear stock - Sinclair (and others) were producing progressively better and cheaper calculators - the market moved very quickly - and the kits had to go.


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## slavedata (22 Sep 2021)

I bought that Sinclair scientific as a kit. I remember covering a desk with cooking foil linked back to earth as antistatic precautions and soldering it together. It didn't work. I snt it back to Sinclair fearful I had done something wrong but sure I had soldered it right and taken every precaution. They sent me back a working calculator. Subsequently it became clear that very often Sinclair products were made from rejected batches of chips from the mainstream electronic industries.


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## Sandyn (22 Sep 2021)

slavedata said:


> Sinclair products were made from rejected batches of chips from the mainstream electronic industries.


Sometimes components can be 'rejected', but still work perfectly. They may be on the edge of test limits. Different companies set different tolerances. I worked for a company which got the very best of optical transceivers, so the ones we didn't want were sold to other customers. It is just part of normal manufacturing and still goes on today. Where problems occur is if the design doesn't account for the wider tolerances and if it's a kit, it won't have been tested as an assembly, so in that case you have good customer service to sort the problem. I think getting a working calculator in return is OK customer service, but must have been irritating. 
Can you imagine what goes on today in far east manufacturing? all the 'rejected' parts will be sold and used by small manufacturers to build circuits which we all buy, but so cheap you get 10 and one always fails


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## Richard_C (22 Sep 2021)

When the calculators first appeared, pre April 73, they were probably classed as "luxury items" like cameras so attracted close to 50% purchase tax in those pre Vat days. Selling as a kit got round that (you could even buy a lotus 7 car as a kit). That might explain why kits were popular for things like calculators and stereo amplifiers. Plus only 3 TV channels so you had to find something to do on winter evenings. 

I bet Sinclair abandoned kits soon after standard rate 10% vat arrived, customer support and returns must have been a nightmare. "yes sir, the components are guaranteed but you are supposed to solder with an iron, not a plumbers blow lamp....."


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## sploo (22 Sep 2021)

Richard_C said:


> ..."yes sir, the components are guaranteed but you are supposed to solder with an iron, not a plumbers blow lamp....."


I did once hear a story about a full computer kit (can't remember the brand) that was returned as not working. On inspection, the buyer had put all the components on the board perfectly, with the job being incredibly neat. Shame he'd used superglue instead of solder.


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## Stuart Moffat (22 Sep 2021)

Anyone know of surviving descendants from Sinclair products? I never owned one. But had quite a lot to do with various Chris Curry products and businesses (post Acorn / BBC micro) Curry worked with and fell out & left Sinclair. Both made and lost lots. I think that Arm is a descendant of Curry activities... what is left of Sinclair’s


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## sploo (22 Sep 2021)

Not sure, but I owned Miles Gordon Sam Coupé (which is kinda related)


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## doctor Bob (22 Sep 2021)

He was going to buy the Delorean factory to manufacture bigger electric cars but it all went wrong and Sinclair vehicles liquidated a few months later. Always wanted a c5, i like the unusual, I have the Delorean


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## Richard_C (22 Sep 2021)

If you have a proper original DeLorean you owe us about £6000 each. Tax subsidy divided by the number made. . I know he got off the drug trafficing charges, but have you checked the trunk for white powder?

(only having a go because I'm slightly envious of anyone with an interesting car.)


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## doctor Bob (22 Sep 2021)

Richard_C said:


> If you have a proper original DeLorean you owe us about £6000 each. Tax subsidy divided by the number made. . I know he got off the drug trafficing charges, but have you checked the trunk for white powder?
> 
> (only having a go because I'm slightly envious of anyone with an interesting car.)



Powder free.


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## sploo (22 Sep 2021)

doctor Bob said:


> Powder free.


Be careful with that thing; I understand weird stuff happens once you hit 88mph.


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