Feature
Everything you wanted to know about the ZX Spectrum but didn’t know to ask!
By Jess Ragan
What the hell is a Spectrum, anyway? Unless you’re British, it’s not a dumb question. Over the past three months, we’ve been attempting an answer on our Retronauts blog, with reviews of the system’s most popular games, but now, as the 30th anniversary Sinclair’s line of home computers approaches, it’s time for the full story. Who is Clive Sinclair? Why was his humble machine a massive hit in Great Britain and continually outselling its rivals, even holding its own against Commodore, a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut in the rest of the world? What contributions has it made to technology and to videogame culture in particular? Basically, what is it about this little black brick that kept British gamers under its spell for over a quarter of a century?
Before these questions can be answered, we’ll have to go back to the beginning — to the origins of its creator, Sir Clive Sinclair. Born and raised in the London suburb of Richmond, Sinclair was the oldest of three children, and a nerd from birth. It’s not a term he chose for himself, but one he accepts with little hesitation in an interview with The Telegraph. Sinclair admits that he was a prime target for bullies as a child, and the UK branch of Mensa describes him as having great difficulty relating to both his younger siblings and his classmates at school.
However, Sinclair was blessed with an IQ of 159, and played to that strength by immersing himself in knowledge and concocting inventions well beyond the scope of his peers. When he was 14, he had designed a compact submarine. Three years later, he took the reins of a technology magazine distributed throughout Great Britain, while selling custom-made earphones on the side. Not long after graduating from high school, Sinclair founded his own business, Sinclair Radionics Ltd., and sold a variety of consumer electronic kits.
