A VIC-20 kid remembers the ZX Spectrum

Following my personal tribute to Sir Clive Sinclair, I thought it would be fun to invite Nick Smith, our US-based stellar scribe, to comment on his legacy from the perspective of a Commodore VIC-20 kid. Incidentally, Star Trek's William Shatner promoted the VIC-20 as the 'wonder computer' of the 1980s.

Guest post by Nick Smith

Sir Clive Sinclair was many things, a gentleman, an inventor, a knight of the superhighway. More than that, he was a herald of the future, offering a glimpse of shiny new tech.

Yes, we laughed at his Sinclair C5 when it was released in 1985. This one-man electric vehicle looked goofy and flimsy as if it would topple over in a stiff slipstream breeze. It was expensive and unsafe. But it was a herald of the electric vehicles and hybrids we have today.

Sinclair was no two-bit Tesla. He was a prodigal innovator in his own right, developing calculators, pocket radios and digital watches, always mindful of selling, if not successfully marketing, his gizmos. His premade personal computer, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, was designed as a low-cost alternative to the Commodore PET and was released in 1982. The PET cost approximately £700; the ZX Spectrum retailed for an introductory price of £125 (£175 if you wanted 48K of RAM!). It was the first chance for many to have a computer in their home, long before such science fiction became science matter-of-fact.

I was a Commodore VIC-20 kid and I loved my little machine but the ZX Spectrum had the best look, the best ads, and unique games: Chequered Flag, Magic Meanies, Dark Star, Dukes of Hazzard, Zombie Zombie, Stonkers, Styx, Vampire Village… some of them were text-only but they all had intriguing names and illustrated covers.

The ZX Spectrum wasn’t just for playing around. Colour support (in 16 varieties!) helped coders to create their own programs. Within two years of its release, thousands of games had been created for the system, which cornered almost half the UK market for home computers. Sinclair conquered the video game world – temporarily, at least.

There would be other computers, vehicles and gadgets. But the ZX Spectrum was the machine I would nip over to a friend’s house for, the one that had me goggling over print ads and dreaming of King Arthur’s Quest. Sinclair will always be fondly remembered for his entrepreneurship, his innovations and the risks he took to achieve his dreams.

What are your Sinclair ZX Spectrum memories? Let me know in the comments below.