Sir Clive Sinclair Doesn't Use Computers, E-Mail

Tweet

Sir Clive Sinclair was a pioneer in the home computing and (sort of) electric car markets, but nowadays, he can’t be bothered to use computers or e-mail for that matter. The 70-year-old entrepreneur sat down with the Guardian and shared his opinions on modern computers – which he feels are “wasteful”.

When the Guardian asked Sir Clive about his he thought his old ZX80 and ZX81 computers compared to a laptop today, (which, the Guardian points out, with 2GB of RAM would have 2,000,000 times the memory), he says, “Our machines were lean and efficient. The sad thing is that today’s computers totally abuse their memory – totally wasteful, you have to wait for the damn things to boot up, just appalling designs. Absolute mess! So dreadful it’s heartbreaking.”

When asked about which computer he uses today, he says he doesn’t bother. “I’ve got people to do it for me,” he says. When the Guardian asked him if he knew how to use a modern computer, the Knight promptly said, “I do know how to, but I don’t. [...] Well I find them annoying. I’d much prefer someone would telephone me if they want to communicate. No, it’s not sheer laziness – I just don’t want to be distracted by the whole process. Nightmare.”

His company, Sinclair Research, released cheap home computers in the early 1980′s. While the Commodore 64 dominated North America, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum rivaled the Commodore machine in England. In 1983, he expanded to electric vehicles and made an often-lampooned electric tricycle called the Sinclair C5 that reached a top speed of 12 mph (24 km/h).

In 1985, his companies suffered financial troubles. When asked about the cause behind this, Sir Clive told the Guardian that the BBC Micro home computer, despite being more expensive, stole sales from his computers “because the BBC put its name to it, which was quite outrageous.” As for the rise of the IBC PC and all the clones that follow, Sir Clive says , “It was a completely appalling design, but it was IBM, so you know.”

When asked about what he’s working on these days, the 70-year-old is producing “A-bikes”, collapsible bicycles. He also hinted to the Guardian that he was working on a new electric vehicle, in secret, and that it would ready for revealing in about a year. When asked if would look like the horrid Sinclair C5, he said “No, it doesn’t look like anything we’ve done before.“