Sinclair at 60

[Amie]

Everyone has their own oppinion of Sinclair products.
I had the Micro 6 and Micromatic and they both worked well.

Mike

I have the two transistor Micromatic, it works incredibly well. The circuit inspired the little red radio I built that is featured in my avatar being listened intently to by Roosevelt the miniature bear.

I also have a Thurlby Thandar amongst my oscilloscopes that features a two inch tube that I believe is one developed for the Sinclair Microvision TV... That is, er.. Functional OK provided you take its calibration and claimed bandwidth with a pinch of salt

[Craig]

Kind of usurping the thread a bit. I was looking at the manufacturing dates for the SR56, which started in 1977. The reason for purchase was that was my final undergraduate year, and was the first one in which you could use a calculator, so I stumped up for a decent one. I retired it (must have sold it) and bought the eye poppingly expensive HP34C in late 1979. It was about £100 (around £500 in today's money).

[ppppenguin]

I think the HP35 was over £200 when it first came out c1972. I remember being shown one around then, securely locked down in a cradle. Wondrous device.

I still have a Texas TI-36X Solar on my desk. Doesn't get used that much but sometimes it's more convenient than a spreadsheet or virtual calculator. The base 2/8/10/16 conversions are handy.

The Sinclair products that were really worthwhile, despite tatty engineering, were the ZX80 and ZX81. They kickstarted a whole generation of young computer literate youngsters. They were the cheap and cheerful opposites of the BBC Micro.

[Keithstv]

A friend of mine at university bought an HP35 when it came out but wasn't allowed to use it in exams. We reckoned he could make more "accurate" errors and make them faster than anyone else!

When I started work, the company bought in a few batches of Commodore scientific calculators and sold them to employees taking £5 per month from their wages for a few months. I got one of the second batch but the charger didn't come with a plug (it was the 70s though) so I went to the stores to get a plug but they had to have the type of equipment it was for. Calculator wouldn't do so I said power supply and that was accepted and I got my plug. Still got the calculator but the Nicads failed and were disposed of years ago but it still works when connected to its Charger/power supply.

Keith

[Craig]

I think the HP35 was over £200 when it first came out c1972. I remember being shown one around then, securely locked down in a cradle. Wondrous device.

Indeed. They had them in Southampton University library in 1974-75, screwed securely down.

[Nick]

I think the HP35 was over £200 when it first came out c1972. I remember being shown one around then, securely locked down in a cradle. Wondrous device.

Indeed. They had them in Southampton University library in 1974-75, screwed securely down.

I was at soton from 76 to 80. Don't remember those then...

Mind you, there's a lot of that era that I don't recall clearly 

[Craig]

I was there from 74-77 (Electronics) and 77-81 as a postgrad. So we definitely overlapped.

Those HP35's were probably knackered by 76 though - they got serious heavy use, when the alternative was punched card programming of the ICL mainframe, or the arcane language used on the Electronics Department Modcomp IV.

Craig

[peter scott]

This reverse-engineered Sinclair Calculator is rather interesting.

Peter

[Nick]

I was there from 74-77 (Electronics) and 77-81 as a postgrad. So we definitely overlapped.

Those HP35's were probably knackered by 76 though - they got serious heavy use, when the alternative was punched card programming of the ICL mainframe, or the arcane language used on the Electronics Department Modcomp IV.

The ICL was a 1602 I think... It was a long time ago.

Spent a year working for Prof Betts - I patched that Modcomp with a wirewrap tool. Ed Zed was terrified I'd break it...

[Craig]

Ah Betts. Great guy. Taught communication theory like a champ - I still have his book on the shelf as I type. He had a beautiful green Triumph TR5 which was his passage off this mortal coil in a crash. He mustn't have been very old.

Yes that old ICL had core store memory. If you needed more than 8k (the machine had 32k max) you had to get written permission from your supervisor. Anything that needed more than 32k (can't for the life of me remember if that was bits or bytes, or some other word length) ended up using tape drives as part of the storage process, and was classified as "low priority". i.e. come back in a week and if you're really lucky there might be a print out in your pigeonhole.