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30 minute video from BBC East 1981

GeoffGeoff
edited December 2011 in Sinclair Miscellaneous
There is an incredible 30-minute video from the East Anglian Film Archive

http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/5099

showing Clive Sinclair in 1981. Great footage featuring 6 King's Parade
- a Lunn Poly travel office on the ground floor.
Clive getting into his car (Lotus?) and Jim Westwood working on the
ZX80.

One scene shows thousands of ZX80 cases stacked next to the girls
assembling them. If they only knew the prices their work would fetch
in their lifetimes.

Featured People:
The late Mrs Ann Sinclair, wife and first Lady Sinclair to-be; Mr Crispin Sinclair, eldest son aged 14; Miss
Sinclair, daughter; Mr Sinclair, youngest son; David Chapman, Sinclair’s Production Controller at Tek Electronics Ltd, St Ives

Featured Buildings:
Lunn Poly, King’s Parade, Cambridge (Sinclair’s office above); Clive Sinclairs Cambridge home; The Clive Sinclair Factory, St Ives nr Cambridge
Post edited by Geoff on

Comments

  • WookieeWookiee
    edited December 2011
    thanks dude
  • jpjp
    edited December 2011
    Somewhat amusing to see the presenter of 1981 talking of "flat screen televisions" being "hung on walls"... a great find Geoff - half hour well spent!
    jp nz | TZXs updated with new loading screens | youtube bits and bobs
  • Alien 8Alien 8
    edited December 2011
    That was interesting, thanks for posting the link. He was quite a visionary in some ways, and a million miles wide of the mark in others. I wonder if his dream of an electric car will ever see fruition. It should do, in principle it's a fair idea, the only drawback being that if we all have electric cars we just shift the pollution to the power station rather than the exhaust pipe.
  • minimad1972minimad1972
    edited December 2011
    What an amazing video! Thanks for sharing it with us!
  • HairyHairy
    edited December 2011
    Nice find, cheers for sharing that, thouroughly enjoyed it.
  • spectrumlinuxspectrumlinux
    edited December 2011
    Geoff wrote: »
    showing Clive Sinclair in 1981. Great footage featuring 6 King's Parade
    - a Lunn Poly travel office on the ground floor.
    Clive getting into his car (Lotus?) and Jim Westwood working on the
    ZX80.

    Thanks for posting the video, really interesting.

    Clive seemed to have owned a Porsche 924 Carrera when this was filmed and the car he was seen getting into is a close match for one.
  • RetroTechieRetroTechie
    edited December 2011
    Sh*t, another 0.1G harddrive space permanently lost... ;) thx Geoff!

    Especially loved those lab & factory clips, with the heaps of ZX80 shells waiting for assembly.
  • WookieeWookiee
    edited December 2011
    Geoff wrote: »
    Clive getting into his car (Lotus?)

    Porsche I think
  • WinstonWinston
    edited December 2011
    Fantastic. Sinclair's predictions towards the end of the programme about manufacturing were spot-on too for the most part.
  • beanzbeanz
    edited December 2011
    Anyone suggest a good/easy way to get this on my hard drive?
  • milemile
    edited December 2011
    tv's on the wall, dont be daft.
  • KleptoKlepto
    edited December 2011
    beanz wrote: »
    Anyone suggest a good/easy way to get this on my hard drive?

    Download Helper plug in for Firefox is what I used.
  • BloodBazBloodBaz
    edited December 2011
    Enjoyed watching that. Particularly that it was before the release of the C5 (and the Spectrum of course)
  • TechnicianSiTechnicianSi
    edited December 2011
    Class. Really enjoyed watching that.
    Sinclair jogging creeped me out though. Boffins shouldn't wear short shorts.

    I used unplug for firefox to grab the vid btw.
  • Alien 8Alien 8
    edited December 2011
    BloodBaz wrote: »
    Enjoyed watching that. Particularly that it was before the release of the C5 (and the Spectrum of course)

    And maybe even the ZX81, as I don't recall it being mentioned. The ZX80 seems to be the flavour of the month.
  • fogfog
    edited December 2011
    TechnicianSi wrote: »
    Sinclair jogging creeped me out though.

    and the rest of us ..you'd think with all that dosh he'd have a full tracksuit ffs hehe
  • beanzbeanz
    edited December 2011
    fog wrote: »
    and the rest of us ..you'd think with all that dosh he'd have a full tracksuit ffs hehe

    My thoughts were....why haven't his 3 kids said 'dad...don't go out in those shorts'.
  • bigjonbigjon
    edited December 2011
    As a Cambridge resident, I can relate to the sudden and terrifying sound of the squealing tyres off camera on King's Parade about 3 minutes in.
  • GeoffGeoff
    edited December 2011
    bigjon wrote: »
    As a Cambridge resident, I can relate to the sudden and terrifying sound of the squealing tyres off camera on King Street about 3 minutes in.

    That would be Rick Dickinson making sure that the company didn't lose their parking spot. :-) Disabled parking only now.

    http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=6+Kings+Parade,+Cambridge&hl=en&ll=52.204207,0.11762&spn=0.000013,0.010568&sll=52.204383,0.117654&layer=c&cbp=13,138.71,,0,11.27&cbll=52.204303,0.117639&hnear=6+King's+Parade,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=17&vpsrc=0&panoid=ciYUca4tQCzoVuK-NDv2Qw

    (The White Bookshop, crying out for a blue plaque )

    You can now watch the video in glorious WOS embedation.

  • ArjunArjun
    edited December 2011
    Interesting video!

    I didn't put down Sir Clive as a jogging sort of person. Well, not in those shorts anyway!

    His take on mail-orders is interesting. I wonder if he tried to market C5 that way?!

    Also, I notice that he has this trick of speaking as if an elephant were sitting on his chest - his voice doesn't seem to go about a certain decibel level! Very English of course. :)

    Quite amusing to hear the narrator say that Clive's son is well on his way to programming, "trained on the ZX 80 of course". But looks like he seems to find the PEEK statement a bit "complicated". And 60 GO TO 10 tells me that that little program has been hurriedly put together for the T.V. Some things never change eh?
    Zero - A modern Spectrum emulator for Windows.
    Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
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