Sir Clive Sinclair is one of the most infamous British businessmen. He first invented the pocket calculator and the pocket television. He is most famous because of the best selling British computer of all time, the Spectrum. In 1985 Margeret Thatcher knighted him, as a symbol of the Britse Renaissance.
His legendary ZX Spectrum was for most Britons the first encounter with a computer. It was launched with 16 KB in 1982. There was a lot of software beecause his predecessor had already inspired many developers.
Although the computer wasn't as powerful as its competitors, the Acorn BBC and the Commodore 64, many parents had faith in the product, although not everybody thrusted its rubber keys.
In 1984 Sinclair presented the successor to the Spectrum: De Sinclair QL. The press was exstatic, but there were many distribution and development problems. Sinclair didn't want games to be developed, as he didn't want the QL to be known as a games machines. A bugget operating system made it lose all confidence, although when it was developed further it turned out to be very elegant. Sinclair never recovered and Amstrad bought the company in 1986
It wouldn't be the end of the Spectrum. In England there would remain a large Spectrum community for years. Behind the Iron Curtain there were a few clones developed, like the russian Pentagon. There are places were this computer is still produced.
