Acorn vs Sinclair - An Epic '80s Computer Rivalry | Nostalgia Nerd

Although this video involves many companies such as Sinclair Radionics, Sinclair Instrument Ltd, Thandar Ltd and Cambridge Processor Unit, it boils down to the trading names of Acorn Computers and Sinclair Research and the rivalry between them during the early 1980s era of home computers. It's a very British story of the early micro computer industry, with each company respectively owned by Chris Curry (and Herman Hauser) and Clive Sinclair. This video charts the whole story from the inception of Clive Sinclair's first company, Sinclair Radionics, to when Chris Curry started working for him, to when he left and formed Acorn and when the rivalry of early '80s micros set in with each company trying to compete against other in gaming, educational and professional markets. Join me starting some time in the early '60s for a journey that doesn't really finish until this very day, as we visit Sinclair's Black Watch, the Newbury Newbrain (later it would become the Grundy Newbrain), the Sinclair ZX80, the ZX81, the Spectrum, Sinclair QL and the Spectrum 128k+.... and on Acorn's side, the Acorn System 1, System 2, System 3, Acorn Atom, Acorn Proton, BBC Micro, BBC Micro B, Acorn Electron, BBC Master, Acorn Archimedes and finishing up with the RISC ARM processors developed by the Acorn team in the mid-late 1980s.
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♜Resources♜
Certain images sourced from Wikipedia.
Some magazine footage sourced from archive.org, with thanks.
Micro Men (formally known as Syntax Era) footage courtesy of BBC (2009) and directed by Saul Metzein. Chris Curry played by Martin Freeman. Clive Sinclair played by Alexander Armstrong.
Hall of the Mountain King by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (creativecommon...)
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Artist: incompetech.com/
The Life and Death of a Certain K. Zabriskie, Patriarch by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (creativecommon...)
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[@FrazerSmithsChannel]

Great video, but I'm a little disappointed that even though many of the engineers that made Acorn a success get a name check, Jim Westwood doesn't get a mention despite his vital importance to Sinclair. I worked with Jim for many years and he's an absolute legend.

[@kawatzaki]

Frazer Smith wait, you actually know people that are very important to Sinclair? That means you're also important for Sinclair, am I right?

[@antnicscabinfever271]

Hi Frazer, we just saw your comment about Jim and need your help. If you see this just reply and then we'll work out a way to correspond. Many thanks!

[@FrazerSmithsChannel]

@@antnicscabinfever271 Hi, I've emailed the address in your youtube bio

[@Larry]

The man who gave the world JET SET FUCKING WILLY!!! :D

[@Nostalgianerd]

+Larry Bundy Jr Personally, I'd be incredibly happy with that distinction!

[@SNARC15]

+Larry Bundy Jr I watched Micro Men last night and when I heard that line I thought who was the more angry computer executive? Clive Sinclair or Steve Jobs?

[@macgoo9716]

Not really, he gave them a horrible barely acceptable 1982 computer which some talented and creative ARCADE MACHINE CODERS used to sell an acceptable (for this low tech machine even for the day of release) game for cheap and make money. I wrote a JET PAC clone in compiled BASIC on the C64 lol

[@michaeltsung9741]

Amen

[@si4632]

what a game i also remember atick attack lol

[@graugaarddk]

i really like these types of documentaries that you do, like "The Launch of the (insert console name here)". And since only the Spectrum was sold here in Denmark (sold at the largest toy store chain ONLY, not in computer shops) i never knew about this rivalry... exiting stuff actually... keep it up :D

[@MostlyPennyCat]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/jomlqYlsYt-Uo68

[@arvizturotukorfurogep6235]

This channel is getting better and better!

[@sukumvit]

Aahhh... Back when Britain was a player in the consumer level computer market. What the hell happened?

[@KuraIthys]

Eh, probably the same thing that happened to nearly all home computer makers aside from clone system producers. Forced out by the PC. Though the ARM cpu acorn made lives on in mobile phones and many, many other devices, the only remaining personal computers are the Macintosh, and Clones of the IBM PC. (not even original IBM's remain now.) Everything else is gone. And while parts of computers are made everywhere, AMD and Intel dominate the entire core market for PC components, (both mac and the IBM clones). Besides, seems somewhat like what happened to jet engines. Up until the 60's or 70's, the UK had a massive lead in jet technology, but politics, accidents (the comet) and poor business practices all but killed most of the UK industry, in spite of it's original technical lead.

[@garyoptica]

Like all things we were left the path finders...Clive took way too many gambles with the QL and if he had thought to licence out both the storage system and keyboard devices using already available bus types then he could of delivered a machine that would of truly carried the torch for the Spectrum as it was he left the door open for commodore, IBM and Atari.The road to success has proven to be allowing third parties to take up your frameworks to allow greater modular development and from a business point it creates prosperous economic redundancy and inter dependence.

[@bluebull399]

The PC is just as important as the spectrum was. The spectrum inspired young people of that time to get into computers and the internet would not have evolved without the PC. The PC is the spectrum of today.

[@BrySkye]

KuraIthys - Jet engines probably aren't the best example. It's kind of the other way around actually. UK had a lead in the 40's, trailed in the 50s and 60's, but then kinda came back into the forefront with the Rolls-Royce RB211 in the 70's, which just about everything they've made since has been developed from with the Trent series of engines. RR Trents have been lead engines on the 787 Dreamliner, A380, exclusively power the A350XWB, etc. It's an area where we actually are a big deal right now. :) Even American Airlines, the US Flag Carrier, has 777s that are powered by British RR engines. :)

[@cjmillsnun]

Not even close. The Internet existed without the PC (and I'm using the IBM compatible Wintel x86 definition) and could've evolved if the Atari ST, Amiga or Mac had become the main dominant systems in the world. The XBox one and the PS4 are the Speccy and C64 of today.

[@BollingHolt]

Ahhhh, yes.... The ZX81, or as I knew it on this side of the pond, the Timex Sinclair. I was 2 years old in 1983, and my grandfather, being an electrical engineer, wanted me to grow up around computers, so he got me one of these. As I got older, I actually have memories of it being hooked up to our television in the den. We had the memory expansion pack, too. It was succeeded on my fifth birthday by Color Computer 2 while my grandfather moved to a TI 99/4A, then an Amstrad PC1512, and on and on. Oh how I wish I still had all those machines I just mentioned today!

[@StangerStrange]

That was a nice little video, it's sad that some people actually forget Britains own computer history. It's fantastic the Acorn developed a chip that helped form the basis of a processor that dominates the portable market and in recent times has started to make inroads into the desktop market as well.

[@petermitchell6348]

Great, well researched piece Nostalgianerd. Many thanks for that.

[@nathanmilnthorpe11]

I'm literally Crying with Laughter at the Clive Sinclair Rage! That Metal Music fits that Picture Perfectly :-) Made my Day yet again Nostalgia Nerd!!

[@itsJWPH]

Heated Gamer Moment...

[@MuaadElSharif]

Any idea what song was that?

[@henryokeeffe5835]

Of Mice & Men - This One's For You

[@btizef2008]

One of the greatest stories ever to be told

[@incyou]

A+ new series!!! Greatly enjoyed the time you spent on this important piece of history. I was one of the only kids in the US that had a ZX. My ZX will always be my winner for most nostalgic system I have ever owned.

[@WAQWBrentwood]

Ian Comer I'm another US based ZX Spectrum (and TS-2068) fan! I was messing with my 2068 this week, I also aquired a TS 1000 (basically an NTSC version of the ZX 81) complete with the "infamous" RAM expansion! Sinclairs are more interesting to me than the C64 because EVERYONE had a C64! Plus I spent a chunk of the early 80s learning Z80 machine code (Thanks, Radio Shack....) This makes all Zilog CPU based computers a nostalgic trip for me, Yes, Even the Coleco ADAM😀!

[@trisalong]

An excellent watch! I especially like the fact you mentioned the Acorn Atom, which was an excellent computer for its time and one I really enjoyed using. I didn't realise only 10k of them were sold.

[@crumplezone1]

Yep you have hit a good format there buddy :) enjoyed much :)

[@lotsarats]

keep the documentary format videos coming! they are the best

[@nimrodlevy]

perfection, many thanks, high quality documentary is always blessed. and boy, you deliver.

[@audreywinter4553]

10:30 Oh, the rage... the bitter, insurmountable CLIVE RAGE.

[@DOSBoxMom]

Those mid-80s UK computer ads brought back so many memories of the US computer ads I remember from the same period! I especially remember the mail-order ads Computer Direct used to run in all of the US computer magazines back then, usually offering a bargain price on a computer that was last year's technology. (As it turned out, Computer Direct's physical store was only about 100km North of our home, so we ended up buying our first couple of computers from them -- even though it meant driving about 1 1/2-2 hours each way through the heavy traffic of Chicago's suburbs to get there.)

[@garyproffitt5941]

The genius micro-technology inventing & re-inventing the late and great Sir Clive Sinclair ✔

[@etzhaim]

On "who won?", the big question itself: My heart says Sinclair, for the very personal reason that the ZX Spectrum was my first computer. Nevertheless, the reasonable answer is that Acorn won, thanks to their legacy of ARM that today is in the heart of every smartphone and powers the Internet of Things.

[@nebularain3338]

I don't think either company "won". Sinclair dominated the games market and Acorn the educational field. Ironically, they both would have loved success in each other's field, becasue Clive always wanted a more serious reputation, and Acorn knew the strength of the games market.

[@foxxy46213]

It always gives me a little chuckle knowing the legacy of the company who made my first computer the electron lives on today in all the smartphones around today

[@what-uc]

Only 3 minutes in and it's already more complicated than a whole series of 'Soap' :)

[@judgewest2000]

Another awesome vid man. Thank you

[@NetNerdy]

The "LGR" is Strong with this one

[@pferreira1983]

@Tom Caine Tell me about it!

[@nebularain3338]

I don't think that making a documentary about computers is the sole domain of one person.

[@jameswilliamson4315]

Wow, I'd never heard of the Micro Men film. I'll be giving that a watch ASAP!

[@ianedmonds9191]

My Dad was the production manager on the Spectrum line when it was active and he received a glass ZX Spectrum on the event of the millionth spectrum. I'm his son and I always had engineering samples at home to use and learn on. I learned to program on a 48K rubber key spectrum. I got some software from the design engineers at Timex. Doodlebug was a piece of software I'll always remember but I don't think was ever released. I used my speccy daily and upgraded it with Interface 1, 2 microdrives, a bogroll printer, a kempston interface 2 and eventually a proper serial port to connect it to my Amstrad serial printer. I had an american thermal printer in the interim that required 110v. It had a solid iron transformer that hummed malevolently and constantly to power this printer that was a timex thing and printed thermally on white paper. At some time in my life (4th Year High School) I encountered Windows 2.0 and Macintoshes. Macs were utterly astonishing. It was the Mac and the Mac+. After a while we got a Mac FX. All were monochrome with tiny screens but they were amazing to use for Desk top Publishing which was a new thing. Loved the macs. Another older guy in the computer club was more forward thinking and started to use Hypercard which was a basic HTML clone. I also used Windows 2 at the time. It was very obviously inferior but somehow more functional for our lessons. What I took away from this was I needed a Mouse for my Speccy. For my Christmas that year I got a mouse for the Spectrum and some software to Draw using it. There was also included an API to make software that supported the Spectrum Mouse but honestly I'd seen the light of the 16 bit machines. I was maybe 16. Not long after My mum bought an Amstrad 1640HD30ECD for her business and I used that machine until I was 21. I learned Pascal, C and C++ on that machine and it did me fine. Great computer. Replaced it with 486DX4 for my 21st Birthday.

[@trevorlack630]

I will never forget the excitement as a 12 year old in 1983 of my dad unboxing our first computer a shiny new Spectrum. It was amazing compared to the monochrome Commodore Pets I was using in school. Yes, it had a rubber keyboard, colour clash and a beeper for sound but it was half the price of of a lot of its competitors. It had more usable memory than the Commodore 64 that we later got. Was it twice the computer? No. I always admired Clive for being brave enough to fail. I wasn’t really of an age to have Beebs in the class. We had one that we played Chuckie egg on. None of my friends had one. I don’t even think any had an Electron because it was Spectrum and 64 by that time. I tried an Amstrad and found it soulless. Computers were coming out almost weekly or so it seemed in the early to mid 80s.

[@heidirichter]

Well done! Thank you, well worth watching. I hope the BBC dn't cause you any drama like they have other KZbin content creators who have used clips from Micro Men...

[@robchissy]

I was an 80's kid, who was a speccy owner, and will always see the BBC micro as a school computer and the speccy as the machine i learned to program on

[@Voodoo_S3]

When 4k meant something totally different. I had a spectrum 48k then a 128k. Right now I'm running a AMD FX 8 core 16Gb of ram and a 8Gb RX 480... looking forward to getting my hands on Ryzen.

[@Parknest]

I had a 48K Spectrum back in 1984 and in 1995 I bought a +2A which I still have to this day and is featured in one of my videos. I remember when every school in the UK had a BBC Micro. I've got one in the loft and I'm hoping to feature it in a future video. These days I get my 8-bit fix from the emulators.

[@scottn7cy]

We so often look at this as a story of failure and for Sinclair it absolutely is, but for Acorn there is another side. Although the Acorn computes faded away the ARM chip from Acorn is more popular today than ever and continues to be an incredibly important technology,

[@SerBallister]

6:33 Floating point hardware wasn't common at all in 8bit systems, even in the 16bit era most systems didn't have a hardware FPU. You can do floating point in software, which any machine can do, although it's going to be slow.

[@KarlHamilton]

Beat me to it. By about a year.

[@Sinn0100]

Everything you make is fascinating to me! I have not watched a bad show.

[@bluebull399]

Sinclair should have stayed in gaming and Acorn in education. At the time those 2 industries were worlds apart so it seems crazy that you'd try to cross over. Despite it's failures Sinclair is one of the greatest computer companies that ever existed. Just imagine what things would be like if they never made an affordable home computer, things would have progressed a lot slower.

[@arvizturotukorfurogep6235]

Will you do a video on the history of Amstrad as well? Or Psion? Or the UK computing companies that didn't make it, like Dragon Data and Oric?

[@Nostalgianerd]

+Westwurtzli I'm gonna do them ALL (disclaimer: subject to finance and time).... Amstrad is quite high on my list. I've covered a lot of Oric's history in my Oric-1 review video kzbin.info/www/bejne/pnjHaKKHpbZ_gJY

[@Ozymandias1]

You could have mentioned that the Acorn RISC Machine chip (ARM for short) is in just about any mobile device these days, including iPhones and Android devices.

[@paulanderson79]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/lYe8qXyXrJaeeLc

[@sautebroussailles]

Another great video. Can't wait for similar ones about other systems. Though regarding Amstrad, your comments on other videos lend me to think you might have a slight bias against this Sugar dude... I guess we'll see in due time :-)

[@Nostalgianerd]

+sautebroussailles Don't let my disdain for Sugar lead you to believe I'll neglect the system because of it ;)

[@chrisbomber101]

i really wanna get a spectrum 48k again like i had back in the 80s as a kid but i never see them anywhere anymore..... its just not the same playing Dizzy on emulators..... i'm not going to pay ebay prices atlest i still have my trusty atari ST

[@klausb.7505]

Well Done ! A well f*****g great made Video ! I was soooo interessting !!!

[@bizzarrogeorge]

great job, brother!

[@DodderingOldMan]

Ha, ever since I watched that Micro Men docudrama a couple of months ago, I keep recognising it just about every retro gaming video I watch :P

[@tremorist]

Clive Sinclair, the guy who brought us Jet Set Willy!

[@wisteela]

Excellent video

[@BadgerOff32]

I'll always have a love for Acorn. They're the reason I fell in love with computer games. The Acorn Electron was the first computer I ever owned as a kid. I got mine a couple of years after they had come out, so they were probably cheap as chips at that point, and that's probably why my parents chose the Acorn over other computers lol. (they, like me, knew absolutely NOTHING about computers) Being able to play a video game in my own room (even if it did take an hour to load up a game from a cassette tape!) was literally life-changing. Computers and video games were all still very new back in the 80's, so to actually own something that could play a VIDEO game was mind-blowing back then! Kids today just won't be able to comprehend how amazing it was!

[@foxxy46213]

Same..I have very good memories of getting mine an how happy my mum was at my happiness. I always remember she got a BW TV for me to use it on an as she got it out dropped it an cracked the plastic on the corner an cried thinking I would upset that she had ruined it an I just gave her a hug an said I don't care mum it's the best present ever an I love it an you. We didn't have much money in the 80s so new how much she grafted an skimped to get it so truly didn't care as I had a computer an was jumping all over the place...spent the rest of the day playing Arcadians lol an going thru the demo tape. It came with loads of games too. There was one called corporate that had you walking through office like mazes shooting robots an was actually really hard. There was a text based one my mum was obsessed with that I think was based in Egypt an she got stuck so wrote the company an got pages of A4 paper with a guide on....good times

[@Jardonius]

10:30 You fucking won me there. Everything was all informative and learnin' and being entertained... And then you massacred me. Good show xD

[@jamesrichardson8488]

MICROMEN!!! BOOM! Lol, Great video.

[@johnjay6370]

I really like how in earope they pushed the microcomputer and programming in the classroom. I grew up in the states and I had a microcomputer vic 20 and color computer 3..but it seems like the microcomputer popularity was much less with kids growing up. It is a shame because lots of kids would have enjoyed programming even if it was just games.

[@Retro_Royal]

Saying the ZX80 is not a real computer surprises me, floating point usually had numeric co-processors running until the 486DX / Pentium Age. So my beloved 286/12Mhz wasn´t a computer? :)

[@splinter191]

what song was that hardcore scream from?

[@jo0GotPwnt]

The ending breakdown of "This One's For You" by Of Mice & Men.

[@wesmatron]

Loved that. Subbed.

[@callumshotmail]

another great video!

[@ZXRulezzz]

And I think QL actually has a 68008 CPU, which is cheapo 68000 alternative with 8-bit data bus.

[@Nostalgianerd]

+ZXRulezzz Yep, slip of the mind...

[@Archimedes75009]

I believe everybody wish it had a 68010, far superior to the 08.

[@MirlitronOne]

Part of the problem was that the 68008 was only intended to be a stop-gap to allow software developers get to grips with writing code for the full 16-bit versions that were still in development. As such, it was not manufactured in large quantities and was discontinued pretty much as soon as the full 16-bit versions came out, which the QL couldn't use. It didn't help that Sinclair (as usual) hyped the QL as using a "16-bit processor" without pointing out that it was effectively crippled by the 8-bit external bus. Quill was the only word processor I have ever come across that couldn't keep up with my one-finger typing!

[@staceygrove5976]

15:15 BBC B priced at £1632? Didn't it say earlier that it was £399?

[@davidrobinson4400]

The higher price was by the time you'd added the additional peripherals to give it the same functionality as the QL and Sinclair marketing playing fast and loose with the numbers. Even so, as someone whose first computer was a BBC-B, I remember the eye-watering prices. To be able to use floppy disks, you had to add an EEPROM to the motherboard that provided Disk Filing System (DFS) capabilities. I think my parents paid about £200 when I got my 40/80T dual-sided 5.25" disk drive. 400KB on a floppy.

[@picknicko13]

11:34 music is Matt Gray - Last Ninja II (Song 2)

[@SimonJackson13]

Yep, the Acorn mistake was the compatibility issue. BBC BASIC was fine, but having video compatibility was just not practical. There weren't many games anyway, and converting modified graphics modes and sound would have been an interesting programming task. The QL was a mistake most notable in the keyboard, and I'm surprised no one thought to run a data cassette at FF speed.

[@MultiVince95]

Great video

[@ZXRulezzz]

2:40 I think I have like a handful of those bubble displays somewhere in my components boxes. USSR clones though, not original HP ones, but holy crap they look cool :D

[@terraspent]

hehe the beginning never gets old

[@sharedknowledge6640]

Clive Sinclair's huge ego was his ultimate failure. He was like John Delorean with some good ideas and marketing skills but an inability to deliver quality and competitive products despite all his false hype. He was ultimately humbled by countless companies mostly outside the UK. The big story within the UK is Acorn being the foundation for ARM which, by comparison, makes everything Sinclair did a microscopic drop of water in the ocean. Sinclair was like P.T. Barnum and mostly a fraud.

[@mapesdhs597]

From a straight technical perspective, perhaps, but it's worth remembering that plenty of people started out their computing lives on a Spectrum (it was the first machine I ever used, when I was 12) and then went on to make use of Acorn systems elsewhere (I had an Electron, wrote stuff for my school, etc.) Clive was also important in getting things started with the low pricing, but it was certainly at the expense of quality (ahh, my brother and his fury when his ZX81's RAM pack wobble would wipe out another coding session. :D), though at the time this compromise was a good idea, ie. let the market decide what the public were willing to tolerate. As one might expect, there was scope for the low and the high. If you think about it though, Clive in the end was right: today Windows dominates, and people have come to accept that Windows being full of bugs, crashing and being insecure is perfectly normal (I was a sysadmin for 10 years, NT drove me nuts), an attitude that would never persist with any other type of consumer product. To me, Clive's key character flaw was *choosing* to believe he was right about market demand for the things he believed in without any evidence to back it up. Mini TVs, personal transport, etc., he just wouldn't let them go. However, the vid does miss something relevant here: when referring to the many faulty units of the black watch, the reality is that the customers who had problems with them still had a good relationship with Sinclair in terms of working out what was wrong and getting them fixed, ie. the back and forth was not a negative experience, many people bought the kits knowing it was going to be a challenge. Watch the interview with Chris Curry on the CfCH channel, it's very interesting and explains this in more detail. As for games, much though I loved my Electron to bits (ahh, Elite!), I had to concede that a friend's C64 was a much more impressive system for gaming, even if I didn't think much of C64 BASIC (had to write my own string routines when coding for the C64, it didn't have the useful functions already present in BBC BASIC). Certainly easy though to meddle with sprites on the C64, and the SID is now legendary (I can still easily bring to mind what the C64 Elite themes sound like). I remember playing excellent games like Uridium, and IMO C64 Elite is the best 8bit version of that game (awesome energy bomb effect, great music, etc.) One has to wonder though what Clive would have done if the NEB hadn't taken over and interfered so much. Maybe this is why the history of that time is not taught, because it would mean admitting that state interference once again messed up what might have been. Afterall, as I've said, Clive clung on to believing the products he was so devoted to had a market (he wasn't that interested in the home micro); if the NEB had not gotten involved, and Sinclair had been allowed to fail, it's entirely possible Clive might finally have realised he was wrong; and thus reorganised his focus where the nexus of the 80s really was, the home micro. At the same time though, state support of the Beeb also held things back, by maintaining its price at a stupidly high level for far too long. The 80s was mostly a glorious free market experiment with home micro tech, but it could have been better; however, given the choices on offer at the time, I'm still glad the UK schools project went with the Beeb in the end. Ian.

[@medes5597]

Barnum wasn't a fraud.

[@leftgrrl]

Everything I read about how Sinclair's computers came about suggests the successes were despite, not thanks to, Clive. Without his obsession with the Pandora laptop project, for instance, the QL would not have had its weird display circuitry that was not compatable with mainstream monitors and TVs losing strips of the display off the left and right of their screens.

[@RetroCabeza]

Good job!

[@owenfitzgerald3219]

Micro Men was a good film about Clive and Chris.

[@TheZXKUQYB]

Clive Sinclair or Dr Rusty Venture??

[@frederickbowdler8169]

An electronics firm which can't make switches (keyboard) or am i missing something?

[@pferreira1983]

Love this retrospective on the 'Beba C' Micro from Acorn and Spectrum.

[@jaymcd8577]

Micro men was an awesome little film

[@mkmot530]

Cool vid, would you ever consider making a doc on the invincible Amiga, well not invincible but certainly incredible.

[@Nostalgianerd]

+Mkmot Absolutely. It's high on my priorities

[@mkmot530]

Nostalgia Nerd Thats good to hear

[@foxxy46213]

Always preferred my electron over the spektrum.

[@JonathanRossRogers]

What 80s microcomputers had floating point units? The first Intel CPU to have one built-in was the 80486, which wasn't released until 1989.

[@leftgrrl]

I think they're saying not that it lacked an FPU but that the BASIC couldn't do fp maths.

[@GMT439]

BBC was more capable but the Spectrum had loads more games available. I liked both machines and have owned them both back in the day.

[@youaintseenmeok]

Love the videos

[@Pervypriest]

"Jetset fucking Willy" haha, I loved that scene from Micro men, great movie, however not truly accurate.

[@Yordleton]

I really like the Kraftwerk soundtrack.....Computer world and pocket calculator

[@christophermaassen5418]

Love the of mice and men clip XD

[@AdrianJayeOnline]

really enjoyed this txs

[@PixelCacti]

Remember lander on the acorn? I do and it was so bloody hard I played angband to death instead.

[@ShaunBebbington]

The Sinclair QL had the 68008 CPU.

[@Kee-Lo]

You sure love Micro Men LOL I was more of an Acorn man in school, and Atari at home. I, and my father were not keen on the Sinclair machines.

[@Nostalgianerd]

+Kee Lo I really, really do!

[@Kee-Lo]

Shame it never got a DVD release.

[@Nostalgianerd]

I know.... seems crazy to me

[@wakkowarner8810]

If Acorn never developed the ARM chip we would not have the new and efficient and powerful Apple Silicon laptops that are being sold today.

[@mjnurney]

Wrong cpu dude , the QL used the Motorola 68008, a 8/16/32-bit microprocessor made by Motorola. It is a version of the Motorola 68000 with an 8-bit external data bus, as well as a smaller address bus. The 68010 was not used in a micro computer as far as I know but it is a slight upgrade for Amiga / Atari ST computers. Mike.

[@Nostalgianerd]

+mjnurney Yeah, that was just a slip of the mind if I'm honest. I think I'd been looking at some CPUs with 10s at the end earlier in the day. Given that I've recently done a QL review video, you'd think I'd have remembered... Doh!

[@mjnurney]

ha ha easily done ....i do similar things often. I'm trying to remember classic mac programs and scsi set ups at the moment....seems so long ago

[@Boogie_the_cat]

Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm not baldy-shaming because I barely have any hair (on my head. My back has a nice shag rug) but I must say it appears Clive has been rocking the monk\clown ring around the head hair strip since birth. I don't think I've seen a single picture of him with hair on the top-front of his head. I feel his pain, but he got to be a millionaire knight, so it can't be all bad.

[@mr.y.mysterious.video1]

There was always one posh kid at school who had a bbc model b. Only one though

[@jrherita]

~ 15:30 - QL was 68008 not 68010

[@michaelhall6178]

That intro wouldn't be a sly jab at LGR, by any chance?

[@Nostalgianerd]

+Michael Hall Ha! It's not a jab in any form. It's just a genuine thought I had, then thought better of.

[@mobluse]

The Sinclair QL had a Motorola 68008 CPU -- not 68010 as is said at 15:22, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_QL

[@Nostalgianerd]

+mob luse Yep, Freudian slip I'm afraid

[@paulspydar]

whatever happened to the Apricot brand of PC`s ?

[@Inaflap]

According to Wiki, Apricot was eaten by Mitsubishi.

[@mattl_]

Shampoo! another fine video!

[@happysunshinydays6349]

Fucking awesome comfy video/10

[@005AGIMA]

Oh the colours were so poor on the Spectrum (ironically). That's the only thing I envied of my C64 owning friends. Some later games managed to make do and produce come colourful looking games with little noticeable bleed but most were terrible looking if we're honest. But I still loved my Specy +3

[@davidspencer7254]

The colours were muddy and dire on the C64. If the ULA on the speccy had a radastan mode or a linear mode for graphics, it would have been the best machine to own. Problem is that manufacturing limits of the time it would have been cost prohibitive. If more had used "rainbow graphics" like a few games today it would have been better but time to market is important.

[@davidspencer7254]

I had a Vic 20 plus disk drive at the same time as a speccy 48 and when I got my +3 it showed what a pile of junk the Commodore disk drive was. Jack seemed to think having been stung by Texas instruments and having bought MOS they needed to use those chips everywhere.

[@TitanFind]

David Spencer The colours on the 64 were absolutely fine.

[@thatredkite8310]

and another kraftwerk song 07:05 : "Computer World"

[@domagojloncar]

I can't load the video

[@SevenDeMagnus]

Interesting. Is the Acorn the maker of the BBC Micro? Which was the Nintendo Switch of the british computer rivalry? I can't believe I have one of the pioneer CPUs in my room, right now (in the Famicom), the MOS 6502:-) God bless, Proverbs 31

[@desiv1170]

"So, arguably not really a true computer"??? er.. No, there's not argument there, or shouldn't be... It might not have been a very powerful (or good) computer, but the ZX80 was a true computer...

[@slipknotboy555]

Nice video, I love stuff like this; 8bit micros and their stories/histories are awesome. I have to say it seems like Acorn's machines were significantly better. It was pretty funny how butthurt Clive got about that ad campaign, considering Acorn was basically telling the truth - his machines *were* often ridiculously unreliable.

[@MrLtia1234]

+slipknotboy555 "Acorn's machines were significantly better." One the whole yes, although that would be expected given the differences in price. The Spectrum was the best for games, though- really fast. Turns out there really was something in Sinclair's 'elegance in design' thing, even if he actually got other people to do it for him. Once they had the ARM I reckon had the crash (and subsequent fall out) not happened the Archimedes would have trounced everything. As it was, it was ludicrously overpowered and shockingly under supported.

[@kaitainjones7078]

“Best for games” highly debatable. Certainly it had a very INNOVATIVE game scene.

[@leftgrrl]

@@MrLtia1234 the main problem with the Archimedes was it was so damn expensive. Like with the QL that lack of sales made for a feedback loop of no support, no sales, no support...

[@MrLtia1234]

@@kaitainjones7078 If you've developed for the Spectrum and other computers of the time, you'd get what I mean!

[@MrLtia1234]

@@leftgrrl I don't know - in the same cost bracket as the ST and Amiga and more powerful. From the memory, the ST was £400, the Amiga was £500 and the Arc was £700. It did have a fair amount of success, unlike the QL - most UK schools used them for a few years. Just not the success we'd like!

[@MrEmperorApples]

Clive is criticized for unreliable products, meanwhile 25% of the first batch of electrons failed....

[@cpt_nordbart]

Man, Sinclair looks a lot like modern Apple. More smaller more elegant. Geez.

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

The QL would have needed emulation software.

[@herrfriberger5]

It wasn't fast enough to emulate the Spectrum in real time (if that is what you meant).

[@IDPhotoMan]

@3:56 Woah, i did not see that coming. No sir. Or, no madam. Whatever.

[@paulanderson79]

Sophie Wilson played, in a cameo role, the landlady of The Baron Of Beef in the BBC Movie 'Micro Men'. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Wilson Look out for the film as well. It's very very well done indeed.

[@kaksikymmenta3]

I know Sinclair Black Watch is shit but I want one.

[@hanro50]

I'd say the winner is Acorn. I mean they're still around today...kinda

[@AllGamingStarred]

What was so wrong with the male body that you had to- I have no words for this, none. Jesus

[@AllGamingStarred]

Rodger Wilson's wikipedia page insists on "she" (sigh)