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Talk:Clive Sinclair

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Zike

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Zike redirects here, but there's no mention of it on the page. Surely it warrants its own article? WMarsh 03:46, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Post 1982

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This article currently ends rather abruptly around 1982, with just a passing reference to having to sell the company HQ due to financial trouble in 1985. However these financial troubles are not otherwise mentioned, nor is anything that has happened since the mid 80s.

This really needs to be rectified. Thryduulf 21:44, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also mising, Sinclair QL, Microdrives, C5 electric 'thing', Zike chrisboote (talk) 12:08, 4 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've added some brief post-1982 history. Letdorf (talk) 11:11, 30 April 2008 (UTC).[reply]
It's worth remembering that this is an autobiographical article; the gory details of his companies' products are best left to more appropriate articles. Letdorf (talk) 09:14, 1 May 2008 (UTC).[reply]

Sir Clive

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How did he earn his "sir" title? — —Preceding unsigned comment added by Csl77 (talk • contribs)

Services to entrepreneurship, I think. — Wackymacs 08:23, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Services to British industry, at least according to the BBC. Queens birthday honours, 1983. This should probably be mentioned in the article :-) Cheers --Pak21 08:56, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Letdorf (talk) 11:21, 30 April 2008 (UTC).[reply]

George and Bill

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I'm a bit confused by the genealogy. The article starts by talking about Clive's father and grandfather, and identifies George Sinclair as his grandfather, and Bill Sinclair as George's son (and presumably Clive's father). However Clive is then said to have been "born to George William Carter Sinclair"; but the paragraph ends by describing Bill as his dad. Simple typo, or is the article trying to say that Clive was born in his grandfather's house, or something else? -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 21:46, 13 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Adamson & Kennedy (1986) gives his father's name as George William Carter Sinclair. It's entirely possible that he used his middle name as his first name, especially if he had the same name as his own father, hence "Bill". Letdorf (talk) 23:12, 13 January 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Pre-1982

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Sinclair Radionics Ltd. (1965-1973) Sinclair advertised his home constructor kits for the Micro-6 AM radio and other home constructor kits in lavish full-page ads in Wireless World, a regular monthly magazine. When he advertised a position as Chief Engineer in 1965 I applied, and after an interview in Cambridge I was hired. I was responsible for the design of the Micro-FM, a compact portable FM radio receiver, and more importantly the Z-120, a full-bridge power amplifier capable of continuous output of 120W into a 4-ohm load over an operating temperature range to nominally 60 deg. Celsius. This was a commissioned project for an industrial electronics company and found uses at NPL, AWRE and other UK establishments as well as the original commission. My next major project was the design of the Neoteric 60 integrated stereo amplifier, which won acclaim in Stereo Review and Hi-Fi News as they published a detailed test report that showed it lived up to its claimed power output and THD - previous Sinclair amplifier products X-10 and X-20 had been criticized in magazine reviews for "Sinclair watts" (basically peak power output rather than sustained.) I was also involved in the design of the System 2000 FM Tuner, and later the program library for the first programmable calculator based on the TI calculator chip (which was much later found to infringe on HP's patent.) TI and Bowmar made calculators using this chip, in a package similar to the HP four function calculator, but using algebraic notation rather than the HP's reverse Polish notation (which put the operator ahead of the operands.) The Sinclair calculator was physically much smaller and lighter than either of the TI or Bowmar models, and far more economical on power, allowing it to use hearing aid cells instead of AA batteries, due to an innovative design that lit the LED display in brief pulses rather than continuously. It was applauded for industrial design (by Iain Sinclair) and became an exhibit in the Gulbenkian Museum of Modern Art in New York City (last seen there by me in May 1973.) It also was sold in quantity internationally, and notably 60,000 calculators were shipped to Japan then in the infancy of their calculator industry. The program library for this calculator was also one of my projects. Sinclair was by then gaining a reputation for quality products, and the Z-120 amplifier attracted American company Westrex as a possible candidate for replacing their 100W tube power amplifiers - but Sinclair was not prepared to design and manufacture a power supply module for the Z-120 and Westrex did not proceed. I also worked on the integrated circuit design for the Sinclair Microvision portable TV, which used a specially designed 2" diagonal B/W CRT display and the integrated circuits which were custom designed by myself and Mike Pye of TI. They had to work on a low voltage battery supply from 3V down to 1.8V. The CRT required about 1.2kV and required an efficient inverter design. In the eight years I worked for Sinclair, the company grew to some 250 employees, with its own manufacturing plant at the River Mill, St. Ives, Huntingdon, of which some 20 engineers and draftsmen worked under me. The company repeatedly won Queen's Awards for Industry for innovative product designs, among which were the System 2000 and System 3000 amplifiers and tuners (I was also responsible for much of the electronics inside those, including an innovative FM stereo decoder design.) I left the company in 1973 soon after Mike Pye was hired to a position senior to me, and I joined a small Cambridge company, TATE Audio, where I developed my invention of a universal quadraphonic decoder which was patented in the UK and USA, and several foreign countries in Europe, Japan and Australia. (US Pat. 3,944,735 and others.) Subsequently, I also worked as a consultant during the development of the later programmable calculators and particularly developed much of the program library for the Sinclair Cambridge model. Martinwill2 (talk) 10:10, 15 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

NewBrain?

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The article says

In June 1978 Science of Cambridge launched a microcomputer kit, the MK14, based on the National SC/MP chip. By July 1978, a personal computer project was under way. When Sinclair learned the NewBrain could not be sold at below £100 as he envisaged, he turned to a simpler computer. In May 1979 Jim Westwood started the ZX80 project at Science of Cambridge; it was launched in February 1980 at £79.95 in kit form and £99.95 ready-built. In November, Science of Cambridge was renamed Sinclair Computers Ltd.

However, the link on "NewBrain" says this:

The Grundy NewBrain was a microcomputer sold in the early 1980s by Grundy Business Systems Ltd of Teddington and Cambridge, England.

Seems inconsistent. NotYourFathersOldsmobile (talk) 08:13, 30 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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ZX Spectrum

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«and ZX Spectrum; the latter is widely recognised[by whom?] for its importance in the early days of the British home computer industry.» By whom? What about by everybody? Just a quibble: Not just the British home computer industry, but most small countries in western Europe, too. Tuvalkin (talk) 22:59, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]


Birth

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His birth is recorded as "near Richmond", but in the 1939 Register his parents, George W C and Thora E E, are living at 65 Minterne Road, Norwood Green, Southall. His birth is registered in the Brentford district. AndyScott (talk) 11:22, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We're not supposed to use government records for biographical information, and instead what RSes say. Can't find any that say anything other than Richmond. --Masem (t) 13:56, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A Levels date

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The text states “Sinclair's Micro Kit was formalised in an exercise book dated 19 June 1958, three weeks before his A-levels.” But this incorrect. A-levels in the UK are always set from late May to late June. Therefore, it is most likely Sinclair formalised his design at the end of his A-levels, not three weeks before. I do not know of the exact examination board of the papers Sinclair sat, but all A-level papers from the era I’ve found were dated late June. Derekjc (talk) 13:32, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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