[ad_1]
Clive Sinclair, a driving force behind the UK IT industry and a major player in making computers cheap and accessible to everyone, died today at the age of 81. Sinclair was best known in America for its insanely low price Timex-Sinclair 1000 Computer, which sold for $ 99 in 1981. In the UK it is perhaps the most famous for the Sinclair ZX Specter home computer, and most infamous for the weird, A 3-wheeled electric quasi-car he made, the C5.
The Spectrum was a pretty amazing computer, giving almost on its own birth of the UK software industry, but we’re an automotive website, so we can talk about what has been, in some ways, Sinclair’s biggest and boldest failure, the C5.
I drove one for an episode of Jason drives some time ago, and I have to say it was fascinating. Not Well, Warning. Not at all. But fascinating.
Like I said about the C5 when I first drove it:
The C5’s electric motor developed a total power of 0.34 horsepower, which is, what, like part of a horse’s leg and intestines? It also had pedal assist, which allowed you to add human power to that insanely small number, for a total output of, let’s see, hauling both, barely.
What is perhaps more incredible is that Clive Sinclair intended to drive these things to work, in Britain, a country famous for its muggy and cold rain, and the weather protection of the C5. was known in the auto industry as “crap shit”.
Sinclair was a truly gifted inventor, and although he is less well known here in America, his contributions to making computing truly accessible to all should be appreciated by all of us. He had a real innate sense of distilling products down to the essentials, and his work has been something I have admired for a long time.
Rest in peace, Mr. Clive. I’m sure there isn’t color conflict in the afterlife.
[ad_2]
Source link