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Old 28th Sep 2021, 8:45 pm   #76
SiriusHardware
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Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Posts: 11,585
Default Re: Sir Clive Sinclair. R.I.P.

Quote:
I wonder how many of us even remember the £139 Amstrad Sinclair, let alone with affection?
I have a boxed example, a grey 'Plus 2' which I bought when they were current machines, but I have never regarded it as a genuine Sinclair. I have the same attitude towards the Binatone branded version of the Mini TV and the Thandar / RS branded versions of Sinclair test meters like the PDM35 and the PFM200 - just not the real thing, even though they are virtually identical. (The Thandar / RS PFM200 frequency meter improved the design by using BNC sockets instead of 4mm sockets for the input connections).

On the Spectrum +2, Amstrad's trademark integral tape deck robbed us of the (often necessary) ability to fiddle with the loading volumes, but the thing which most offended me was the decision to replace the 48K mode power on prompt "<Copyright Symbol> Sinclair 1982" with "Amstrad 1986". That vain and wholly unnecessary change actually broke a few 'legacy' tape protection schemes which reconstructed the code as it loaded from tape by mathematically manipulating it against the original Sinclair 48K ROM content.

I wasn't impressed.

The (Original) Sinclair Spectrum 128, often called the 'Toastrack', is the machine I would prefer to have now, but for some reason I didn't get one of those when they were originally around. Both Sinclair and Amstrad's version of the 128 have useful features - RGB video out, and a dedicated three note channel + 1 noise channel sound chip with output through the TV - still quite primitive, but a lot better than the ghastly beeper on the original Spectrum.

There have been one, maybe two recent posts where people have bought old Amstrad tower audio systems purely on the back of their having been the first 'hifi' they ever owned, so maybe it will come to pass that people will have a degree of fondness for all things Amstrad at some point in the future. There already is a sizeable Amstrad CPC computer 'scene' but there I would say the love is for the computers, which were actually quite decent, rather than their manufacturer, whereas with the Sinclair scene the fondness for the gadgets and for their creator is all bound up into one.

Last edited by SiriusHardware; 28th Sep 2021 at 9:01 pm.
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