I agree; how different the computing industry might of been had they joined forced. The acorn range was hugely popular because of the contract the BBC had with local primary schools during the 80's to provide a cheap, affordable computer for school children, and the first time I used a computer it was a BBC micro ! We have alot to thank for the British computing industry of the 80's, as the invention of the ARM processor in todays mobile phones was indeed developed by the Brits
It's a shame Sir Clive Sinclair was so against the idea of a computer product to start with. If he and Chris had stuck it out, they could well have been the British IBM. They might still be going strong and offer a third major platform along side the x86/x64 and Apples range. The Acorn range, was in my opinion one of the best platforms of the 80's and 90's. While intel was still playing around with the 386 PC's, Acorn was on StrongARM RISC PC's running at 233MHz, and with a GUI that was so easy
But Sinclair and Acorn were both hugely influential. It's not as though either companies were failures, certainly not in terms of legacy. Both of them helped develop machines that led to an entire generation of kids with great programming skills. Sinclair's ZX80 and ZX81 also inspired Commodore to try to create cheap computers for the masses in the US.
They succeeded, and despite what revisionists might claim about the importance of Apple, the most important machines in the micro revolution were the Vic-20 and Commodore 64. They changed the face of computing because they became something ordinary people could afford. The ZX81 and Spectrum did the same thing in the UK. Those machines changed everything.
And Acorn of course popularized RISC computing, vital to modern mobiles and smartphones.
Great video: Learned how to use a computer on the Timex Sinclair 1000, and later on the much lesser-known Timex Sinclair 2068.
MontagnardSix 2 weeks ago
@MrFreesearcher
I agree; how different the computing industry might of been had they joined forced. The acorn range was hugely popular because of the contract the BBC had with local primary schools during the 80's to provide a cheap, affordable computer for school children, and the first time I used a computer it was a BBC micro ! We have alot to thank for the British computing industry of the 80's, as the invention of the ARM processor in todays mobile phones was indeed developed by the Brits
amigajunkie 2 months ago
It's a shame Sir Clive Sinclair was so against the idea of a computer product to start with. If he and Chris had stuck it out, they could well have been the British IBM. They might still be going strong and offer a third major platform along side the x86/x64 and Apples range. The Acorn range, was in my opinion one of the best platforms of the 80's and 90's. While intel was still playing around with the 386 PC's, Acorn was on StrongARM RISC PC's running at 233MHz, and with a GUI that was so easy
MrFreesearcher 2 months ago
@MrFreesearcher
But Sinclair and Acorn were both hugely influential. It's not as though either companies were failures, certainly not in terms of legacy. Both of them helped develop machines that led to an entire generation of kids with great programming skills. Sinclair's ZX80 and ZX81 also inspired Commodore to try to create cheap computers for the masses in the US.
KaitainCPS 1 month ago
They succeeded, and despite what revisionists might claim about the importance of Apple, the most important machines in the micro revolution were the Vic-20 and Commodore 64. They changed the face of computing because they became something ordinary people could afford. The ZX81 and Spectrum did the same thing in the UK. Those machines changed everything.
And Acorn of course popularized RISC computing, vital to modern mobiles and smartphones.
KaitainCPS 1 month ago
This is brilliant and deserves to be a lot more well known.
Whatlad83 2 months ago