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.

ZX Spectrum of possibilities

The passing of Sir Clive Sinclair, the British inventor and entrepreneur who was instrumental in bringing home computers to the masses, at the age of 81, has reminded me of the joy of discovery.

Christmas 1982 was all about the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K, Horace Goes Skiing and Disney's Tron (available on Disney+)! Not to mention Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial breaking the collective hearts of cinemagoers the world over.

The first time I saw a computer in person was at dad's lighting shop in Truro. The Commodore PET looked like something out of Star Trek and captured my young imagination. Soon after, a BBC Micro materialised in middle school. However, having our own 8-bit home computer (a year after my folks bought a VCR so I could record The Five Faces of Doctor Who) was transcendental!

Computing leaned into an insatiable appetite for learning, buoyed by a reading age of 16 (I was 10).

Hours were spent and lost inputting basic code from the pack-in manual and Crash magazine at weekends. Although my coding skills fell far short of any lofty ambitions I may have had to create Tron's Master Control Program (MCP), programming helped to take my mind off of weekly rehabilitation from a life-changing brain injury.

This was further compounded by a diagnosis of asthma (after my parents sought a second opinion), which saw me missing weeks of schooling (not for the first time) until preventative medication was prescribed.

And games! So many games in the age of Atari!

Most notably from Ultimate Play the Game AKA Rare. Plugging in the Currah μSpeech peripheral unlocked voices in Atic Atac years before Atari's Gauntlet gobbled up my allowance at the arcades! Titles such as Knight Lore were revolutionary. And Ocean's Daley Thompson’s Decathlon culminated in the premature demise of lesser joysticks.

I would go on to own a Sinclair ZX Spectrum+ (the beloved original handed down to a younger cousin who soon broke it), Commodore 64 and all things Apple thereafter. But nothing will surpass discovering that little 8-bit home computer, with the rubbery keyboard, filled with infinite possibility under the Christmas tree in 1982...

Thank you, Sir Clive Sinclair. RIP.