Sinclair Research Limited - An Alternate Reality.

Scottie_uk

So, we all know that Sinclair Research went down the tubes because of a lack of focus on the core product, computers. We know that Clive wasted it on projects such as the Sinclair C5 but what if.....

What if in an alternate reality Clive did just what those at Appple did, and invested the money in nothing but making batter, sexier and more versatile and powerful computers? What if the QL did not end up being a commercial failure but soothing that could give the Amiga and ST a good beating. Could Sinclair Research be where apple is now? If it were it would probably be Britain's biggest export.

I'd love it know if Sinclair were making Black Clam-shell laptops like the MacBook Pro, sexy UHD monitors, desktops and tablets.

Having said that Clive is/was no Steve Jobs was he?

morph

I think the horrible truth is that the magic of Sinclair is that he tried lots of things. Some of them work, like the watch, calculator and zx81/ spectrum, and some failed, like the 'portable' television or C5. If he was the type to back a winner and stick with it, then he would probably have stopped at the calculator or watch and not developed the Spectrum.

ewgf

I just wish the Spectrum 128 had been given some new graphics modes; instead of just the 2 colours per 8 x 8 square as usual, it would be great to have a mode with four colours per 8 x 8 square, and maybe 16 colours too, plus an enlarged pallete with 64 or more colours.

By all accounts the Commodore 128 was a big upgrade from the C64, but the Spectrum 128 was basically the 48K but with more memory, a sound chip, a reset switch, and a rubbish new BASIC entry interface.

AndyC

It would probably have made little difference, as evidenced by the likes of Atari and Commodore who pretty much did exactly that. Eventually the world needed the PC to come along, an open hardware standard backed by someone with enough clout in business globally, to standardise the industry. Even Apple almost died off and were pretty much propped up by Microsoft to ease their troubles with competition (and these days are just another PC manufacturer, albeit one of the few shipping an alternate OS).

Luny

I often dream that dream. To have a 16 bit or 32 bit Sinclair machine with all the character of a Speccy. ah, soothing thoughts.

Paddy Coleman

Have to agree - it would have taken a miracle for Sinclair to have survived the PC revolution. Apple had a USP in terms of its GUI that Sinclair did not but even then it was a close run thing for Apple. PCs are just a commodity these days and it must be rather challenging to distinguish your product in the market. Even Apple are not shifting as many Macs these days, or iPads or iPhones!

Personally I think Sinclair is more akin to Google but without the guaranteed advertising income. Google try many things and some of these fail (like Sinclair) but are always inventing.

On another note it will be interesting to see how Microsoft get on in the years ahead. With the PC market shrinking will they end up being the "new" IBM i.e. just for corporates? The idea of having one Windows on phones, tablets and computers with unviersal apps is clever but that does require you having Windows available on all these platforms.

To me, Google and Apple are far closer than Microsoft to achieving this scenario as they both have serious penetration in the mobile market. My advice to Apple would be to merge OS X and iOS (like Microsoft did with Windows 9x and NT) and for Google to do the same with Chrome and Android. Between them they could end up owning the "operating system" irrespective of plaform and that leaves Microsoft as an apps supplier.

We live in interesting times.

Paddy

PrimitivePerson

ewgf wrote: »

I just wish the Spectrum 128 had been given some new graphics modes; instead of just the 2 colours per 8 x 8 square as usual, it would be great to have a mode with four colours per 8 x 8 square, and maybe 16 colours too, plus an enlarged pallete with 64 or more colours.

By all accounts the Commodore 128 was a big upgrade from the C64, but the Spectrum 128 was basically the 48K but with more memory, a sound chip, a reset switch, and a rubbish new BASIC entry interface.

I agree the Speccy 128 needed more, but I dispute the BASIC entry interface being rubbish - it was, in my opinion, vastly superior to the clumsy method used on the 48K machine. I think the key thing it really needed, though, was easier access to memory paging and the extra RAM from BASIC. I never really managed to get my +2 to do anything the 48K machine couldn't do.

PrimitivePerson

I think the sad truth of the matter is that Clive was not a great businessman and had a tenuous grip on reality at times. It's a shame he fell out with Chris Curry - the rivalry that developed between them led to the QL and Electron, both machines aimed at muscling in on the other's patch and both costing their developers dearly.

I know some will consider this sacrilege, but the Amstrad Spectrums were, in my opinion, much more usable and dependable machines than the Sinclair ones.

Saboteur

I wish that they had concentrated on making a 16bit spectrum with improved graphics and sound and a 3.5" disk.

MatGubbins

In an alternate reality, the designers of the Spectrum+ would've taken a little more time to put the delete key on the right hand side, above the Enter/Return key.
As we live in the real reality the designers looked at it and thought... "Yup that'll do, it's got a delete key, not in the standard place, but atleast they won't complain as much." Pretty much the Sinclair way.
It does make me wonder why Amstrad kept the + keyboard layout and not had a quick go at moving things around - I know that the keyboard matrix is a strange thing to design, but it could've been shuffled around a bit to make it more standard.

RetroTechie

PrimitivePerson wrote: »

Clive was not a great businessman and had a tenuous grip on reality at times.

Yep. Sinclair (the company) could have done much better if Sir Clive had teamed up with a marketing specialist. Sir Clive already had experience with selling electronics, and some of those products were quite innovative (like that portable TV). But Sir Clive's genius was on the engineering side. Not look & feel, how to sell, or customer support.

That's what set Sinclair Research apart from say, Microsoft or Apple. CEO's of those companies didn't just know how to build something. More than that, they knew how to sell things.

Never mind timing... With the ZX80/81 and Spectrum, timing was excellent. But the C5? Might have worked when introduced today using current (battery) technology. In the late 80's? Not a chance... :P Same about the idea to use chips on an IC wafer as-is, and use entire wafers (with good and bad chips) as solid state storage. Might work today with cheap mass-produced IC's, standard interfaces, and IC packaging forming a significant part of end-user price. Back in the 80's: nice proof of concept, not a chance whatsoever in the market.

As for PC's: well Sinclair could have been riding that wave. Would we have wanted that? Boring, beige, Sinclair-branded boxes with Intel inside & Windows slapped on? :))

Scottie_uk

If Sinclair made proper PC compatibles they could have made them black and set themselves apart.

ASH-II

The problem was that the public did not want a bigger better spectrum.
The Sam Coupé gave you everything you have asked for above but without the killer software....and it died on it's arse.
The QL was awful, £400 for what? I remember when the Amstrad PC came out around the same time 1985 you got a monitor , printer , floppy disk and proper keyboard for the same £400.
And that was that.

If Sinclair made a new C5 but that looked like a NORMAL BIKE (you know those bikes in the shops that look normal) BUT with battery assist and sold it for about £300 they would make a killing.

Zup

Sorry for my late answer.

I don't think Sinclair computers were sexy, so the Apple comparison is not entirely true. Also, remember that Apple survived their first year because their system was more "solid" (i.e.: consistent) than PCs, and their GUI and higher resolutions made it better for graphic artworks. Today there are still many people that thinks so, although everybody knows that they're not better than PCs in any application (maybe equal, but not better).

What if Sinclair focused on its core characteristics? It would be dead and buried, too. Their core characteristics were making cheap products (most people bought ZX Spectrums because they were the cheaper computers), so their history would be the same as Amstrad: outselling IBM at first, struggling when the first asian clones came and dying when that clones became the norm.

Saboteur

Thing is though I don't think the SAM Coupe is the 3rd gen spectrum, it's more like what the 128 should have been.

I dont see how anyone can say there was no market for a new spectrum either the ST and Amiga disprove that.

If sinclair had produced a 16 bit spectrum, with more ram and better graphics/sound then the future ( at lest the st/amiga era ) may have been different as sinclair was an already established brand.

morph

I don't know much about hardware, but could the spectrum have ever been improved to be a 16 bit contender? I got the idea that it was bodged together as it was, then was stretched to be 128K. But to go 16 bit would have required an entirely new machine (Like the QL) with only a Spectrum badge at most. Compatibility would have been impoissible. Is that right?

Saboteur

Yep, but why keep compatability. Everything moves on eventualy.

ASH-II

we don't [-(

rich_chandler

We spend far too much time saying "What if".
You can't change the past so what's the point of going on about it.

Scottie_uk

Karingal, the whole point of WOS is the past so yes we will talk about it and we will discuss it's unfolding and the effects of different choices on the industry we love and work in.

rich_chandler

But you're discussing what didn't happen rather than what did happen!!!

AndyC

When you look at the 16-bit era, which stretches (realistically) from about 89 to 94 it didn't actually have as big an impact as the 8-bit machines. With the exception of the Mac and PC, which were high priced and aimed squarely at business, they were machines that were never going to have lasting influence. They were seen as little more than games machines and the market for them, over dedicated consoles, was dwindling.

It might have been a different story if Sinclair had abandoned computers and aimed at the games console market, with a 16-bit machine instead of the Spectrum 128. That was never where he thought computing should be targeting though, so it seems highly unlikely.

Zup

karingal wrote: »

We spend far too much time saying "What if".
You can't change the past so what's the point of going on about it.

It makes good stories.

Go look "The man on the high castle" or those stories about the south winning the american civil war. I guess there are novels about England not losing their colonies.

textvoyage

I love the Spectrum (obvs) and ZX81 but if Sinclair carried on making computers to similar (heh heh) specs, let's face it, it would be a good looking but cheap approach to computing. Sinclair's business model was great for the home market at the time but his idea of what business wanted - the QL - was a flop.
If there was no competition at all to Sinclair, we'd be in a world of Microdrives, wobbly RAM packs and ZX Printers. Yes it has a lot of charm but it would be somewhat ridiculous! Imagine going to buy a train ticket, seeing a message "Please do not press the buttons too hard" and tearing off a ZX Printer silver ticket!

Paddy Coleman

Personally I think the tech market has not really changed. You can distill it down in to Sinclair vs. Acorn. You have companies like Apple who want to produce high quality, feature rich technology that is expensive - like Acorn. At the other end of the market you have the companies that take existing technologies, re-package it and sell it cheeply at volume aka Sinclair. One could argue that the Sinclair approach has won.

Paddy

1024MAK

Actually it's not that long ago (1988) that you could still get cardboard train tickets for some services on (what was) the BR network :D

I think had Sinclair switched to just computers, things may have been different. But computers were just one part of his interests.

For games, the C128 did not have any improvements in graphics compared to the C64. To use the new modes, you needed a monitor plugged into the RGB port.

The problem with the SAM Coupe was that it was expensive and too late to the market. It was competing with the Atari ST range and the Amiga.

WARNING: there now follows a lot of IFs and BUTs... :P

Now if the Sinclair Spectrum+ 128k had been given the same graphic modes as the later Timex machines (which were in production at the time I think), and maybe had sockets on the board so that a disk interface could be simply plugged in (like the issue 1 board could have another 32k plugged in)... just maybe, with Sinclair pricing, it could have done well if released just before the actual Spanish 128k was launched.

But don't forget, at the time nearly all the UK computer companies were in trouble, or had been in trouble. Even if that information was not public at the time.

Just three changes would have made a world of difference as far as the QL was concerned IMHO. It needed a much better keyboard. It needed a single 3.5" floppy drive in place of the Microdrives. And finally, it should have produced a standard video output signal so that it could use the same monitors as the Acorn BBC Micro instead of needing specially adjusted monitors.

Can you imagine that line up: a Spectrum with 128k RAM and the Timex video modes, loading from an optional 3.5" floppy.
The Psion busness packages loading in an instant on a smart looking busness machine with a quality keyboard...

Both would have sold well (well, much much better than the released Spectrum 128k and QL did). Could have saved Sinclair, at least for a few more years.

But as it happened, Amstrad got there first, and the rest is, as they say, history...

Mark

textvoyage

Off topic, but I've just remembered that BBC Micros were used on British Rail ... now if only they'd chosen Spectrums instead! (just having a little daydream now about a departures screen made using "Print Utilities")
http://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9217

Paddy Coleman

The Psion packages on the QL were very good. I remember using them at ICL on a One Per Desk (OPD) which was also a very nice machine. The Microdrives were very reliable as well on the OPD. I remember going to a "store" cupboard at ICL and on one shelf there were litterally hundreds of new Microdrive cartridges. I was like a kid in a sweetshop. The OPD was probably what the QL should have been...

Paddy

Paddy Coleman

I used to sell computers back in the 80s (8 bit, PCW, ST, Amiga etc.) and it always surprised me that not many Atari STs were sold as business machines. With GEM, the high res B&W monitor and graphical applications it was excellent (genuinely a poor person's MAC). Add a decent printer and hard disk and we are talking about a serious piece of kit. But, most business people came in and bought an Amstrad PCW - it had the mindset of the small business community until the MS-DOS PC took over.

Paddy

ASH-II

I worked at a computer place in the 80's (we serviced BBC's for the pharmacy shops in the country) they used BBC's to print out those little labels that go on your pill bottles. (never had a spectrum come in for a service) :(

Scottie_uk

in the early 00s if Clive Sinclair had of released a small black mp3 player with back-lit black and white display that could play Spectrum games and MP3 files , I dunno the ClivePod, would you have brought it if it sold for say $100 (65 pounds).

However, as some have indicated, Sinclair might have gone on a few more years in the 80s but the 90s would have been the toughest time. If Sinclair were to survive the 90s in retrospect what could they have produced?