It was extremely sad to hear of the passing of Sir Clive Sinclair on September 16, 2021 — and those of us who are now what is known as retro gaming enthusiasts owe him a great deal. In fact, everyone who is even vaguely interested in computers and technology owes him a great deal — because while he wasn’t the only one to push computing technology forward in its infancy, he was definitely someone who clearly cared a great deal about making it accessible to all.
Home computers used to be very expensive, you see — often around the £400-500 mark, depending on model and make. Then along came the humble ZX Spectrum in mid-1982 costing just £125 for a basic model with 16K of memory (about £325 today), or £175 for a 48K model (about £540 today) — you can likely see why Sir Clive’s computer very much appealed to the masses.
This wasn’t even the first low-cost computer Sinclair had put out; the 1K ZX80 was one of the first home computers to be available in the UK for less than a hundred pounds, and its successor the ZX81 cost just fifty quid if you were willing to put it together yourself. Yes, both of these machines were considerably more limited than their more expensive contemporaries — as was the Spectrum, to a lesser degree — but that didn’t matter. Their low price point got them into a lot of homes — and from there, interesting things started happening.
Back in the early ’80s, people were still figuring out what computers were really “for”. Look back at magazines from the time and you’ll see countless editorials explaining that these shiny new gizmos were for more than just playing games on. Supposedly, they’d write, you could use them to manage your finances, type up letters, even produce artwork.
One of the most compelling and popular uses of home computers back in the early ’80s, though, was programming. The reason for this is that all the major home computers — including the Spectrum — had a built-in programming language called BASIC. That meant as soon as you turned the computer on, even if you didn’t have any other peripherals, you could type things into it and make it do things. Those things could be as simple as filling the screen with an endless loop of “PETE WAS HERE”, or as complex as fully-fledged games, applications and utilities.
Combine the low cost of the Spectrum with the accessibility of programming for it and you have a recipe for success. And how; while all home computing platforms of the period played host to the “bedroom programmer” phenomenon to one degree or another, none of them quite managed the runaway degree of success that the Spectrum did in its native UK. Everyone wanted to make Spectrum games; everyone could make Spectrum games if they took the time to learn the ins and outs of how the system worked.
And the resources to gain that knowledge were easy to come by, too. Monthly computer magazines would post type-in listings that enthusiasts could copy into their own computers and save to cassette or disk. Books were available to teach programming techniques in a practical context — and not just in a dry academic style; there were even novels published where part of the story was delivered through type-in BASIC programs. And, of course, the truly resourceful could find ways to pick apart even commercially released software — which led to, among other things, the rise of the “POKE” as a means of cheating at or adjusting the behaviour of your favourite games.
What we ended up with was an entire generation of computer enthusiasts who had a healthy curiosity about how things worked, a willingness to experiment with technology and logic — and a passion for creating. Many of those folks who started tentatively typing things into the Spectrum’s BASIC interpreter are still working in the games industry today — and a fair few of the platform’s most beloved games are still relevant and enjoyed today.
Would all of this have happened without Sir Clive Sinclair releasing his low-cost machines onto the market? Perhaps — but perhaps not in quite the same way. The explosive popularity of the Spectrum specifically helped to kickstart the British computer industry, and particularly the British video game industry. The Atari and Commodore machines saw a significant proportion of their success in the States, but the Spectrum was a uniquely British phenomenon; without it, I suspect there’s a fair few of today’s developers — and of the world’s most beloved games — that never would have seen the light of day.
You will be missed, Sir Clive; the retro gaming community — no, the entire gaming community — salutes you for your contributions to our favourite hobby.
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