Gaming History You Should Know – Sir Clive Sinclair September 26, 2021

It’s Sunday, welcome back to another Gaming History You Should Know, where we highlight some of the best independently produced documentaries across the web about the history of games. If you followed the news this past week, you may have learned that we recently lost one of the original pioneers of home PC gaming, Sir Clive Sinclair. If you are a British visitor to this website the name above may be a bit more familiar. Sir Clive was of a mind that personal computers should be cheap and readily available to everyone. While this philosophy sounds great on paper, anyone with computing background will tell you that if you are sourcing cheaper parts, you will sacrifice either quality or performance. In the case of the Sinclair computer, while it wasn’t as robust as a Commodore 64 or Apple II, nor could it have as good a performance as either, its lower price made it a good choice for young people to use as their first PC.

Before we talk about the man, I want to talk a bit about the machines that bore his name. Here’s a video produced by the 8-Bit Guy, who talked about the Sinclair computers. He mostly highlights the computers that made their way over to the US, but they are fairly comparable to the more common UK units. I honestly had never experienced using these machines back in the 80s, so this is a great video to watch them in action.

Next we are going to talk about the man behind the machine, and also about the impact the man and the machine had on so many people. Here’s the work of Computerphile, a channel I appreciate for their detailed documentaries about computer history. In this special video, they interviewed many people from the classic gaming community to share their thoughts about the Sinclair platform and about their experiences with the man himself. Enjoy.

Rest In Peace, Sir.