Sir Clive Sinclair: developer of legendary home computers has died

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More than 40 years ago, on March 5th, 1981 and thus before the Commodore 64, the Sinclair ZX81 home computer based on the Z80 microprocessor with 3.25 MHz and a 1 kilobyte appeared Random access memory. Its creator, the British inventor and computer developer Clive Sinclair, has now died at the age of 81.

An icon of home computers

In addition to the legendary Sinclair ZX81 with 3.25 MHz and 1 kilobyte of RAM, which at the time made home computers popular for the first time at a price of only 69.95 British pounds or 398 DM and also popularized beyond the borders of the “scene” The predecessor Sinclair ZX80 and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum are based on the designs of the British developer icon.

A picture gallery of an original from community member “ghecko” demonstrates the Sinclair ZX81 and its hardware in all facets. An 8-bit microprocessor of the Zilog Z80 type, which was binary compatible with the Intel 8080, served as the basis.

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Sinclair ZX81
Sinclair ZX81
Sinclair ZX81
Sinclair ZX81 with Zilog Z80 and 1 kB RAM

ComputerBase has already set a small memorial to Sir Clive Sinclair, who died on September 16, 2021 at the age of 81, with C: B_retro Ausgabe_77 . The British developer, whose company Sinclair Research, founded in 1962, built home computers, is an absolute pioneer of home computers.

In addition to home computers, Sinclair also developed portable televisions and in 1985 the Sinclair C5 three-wheeled electric vehicle with 0.25 kW electric motor.

The editorial team thanks the community members “Iotis” and “CaptainPicard” for pointing out this message.