socialmedian: In praise of... Sir Clive Sinclair

User-submitted headlines for this story

Clips

In praise of... Sir Clive Sinclair

Source: guardian.co.uk: The Guardian newspaper: Editorials & reply

Oct 11, 2009

Summary

Anyone who spent the early 1980s rewinding a squealing tape player in an attempt to load Lunar Lander on to a Sinclair ZX81 or Jet Set Willy on to a Spectrum will have been transported back to their youth by the BBC4 film Micro Men, repeated tonight. They will also have been in for a shock. Back in the 80s Clive Sinclair was the face of Britain's technological future, one part visionary, one part dotty uncle and one part marketing genius. Alexander Armstrong, who plays him in the film, says he was seen as a cross between Einstein and Willy Wonka, and that is about right. Now, all of a sudden, the BBC have revealed him to be a telephone-hurling, image-addicted corporate bully whose battle with plucky but boring Acorn computers (and its goody-two shoes beige BBC Micro) ended with both companies crashing to the ground. Sir Clive apparently watched the BBC film before it was broadcast, which says a lot for his tolerance, since, to put it mildly, he comes across as very strange. It is true that he spent his career trying to make things very small (launching an in-

...Read the full article

Comments (0)

Add Your Comment