Electric Dreams by ate bit [web]
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(Together In) Electric Dreams
A tribute to Sir Clive Sinclair, 1940 - 2021
Code: evilpaul
Music: mA2E/dSr
Gfx: Aki, bfox, diver, J.McGibbitts, Luther, visionvortex, dman',
Grongy
Extra special thanks to: ne7, Ramon/dSr
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"I donΓÇÖt think Clive saw the Spectrum as just a computer. Whether it
was being used by parents and their kids to key in listings from
magazines, engineers probing early digital motor and systems
analysis, at the hands of hobbyists attempting to solder a kit for
the first time, being smuggled under the seats of beat-up TrabantΓÇÖs
into East Germany or via tapes swapped between us in the playground
it was the beginning of *something* different in computing: true
accessibility.
This little machine opened the door to affordable computing for
millions of users across the globe; many years before our having
access to the internet its hardware, clones and software connected
cultures all around the world from the UK to Asia and even across
the iron curtain into Russia and Eastern Europe where people risked
everything to just get a taste of computing in their homes.
The sheer number of people that cut their teeth coding on this
affordable little machine across the world is staggering, Clive
broke the barrier to entry to affordable computing with his kits and
machines from the zx80 to the 128k ZX Spectrum and even though he
eventually handed the reins over to Amstrad and Alan SugarΓÇÖs
development teams in later years it was those seeds of accessibility
that made all the difference for those folks that couldnΓÇÖt afford to
splash out on more expensive machines like the Apple, BBC Micro or
god forbid IBM’s quite boring 8086 based hardware…
We shared this little machine and itΓÇÖs z80 processor through its
clones and updates over the years with friends across the world:
itΓÇÖs CPU and derivatives are still used today in many pieces of
hardware and even made it into consoles like the Master System and
Nintendo Gameboy, one could argue without his spearheading the cheap
computer revolution we wouldnΓÇÖt have had those machines delivered in
the same way.
With its fixed palette you could be mistaken for assuming the ZX
Spectrum was a simple computer but its influence on computing cannot
be underestimated. I donΓÇÖt think Clive saw the ZX Spectrum as just a
computer and we didnΓÇÖt either: itΓÇÖs probably the single reason many
of us do what we do."
Andrew Lemon (@_lemon)
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