Ruth Bramley - Working at Sinclair Research from 1981 to 1984

Ruth Bramley reflects on working at Sinlcair Research in the early 1980s.

[@sourcecode6467]

Really enjoyed this, Ruth is awesome, obviously a great asset to one of the finest tech companies in history

[@tinytonymaloney7832]

What a brilliant video, I know where I was in my younger days while these people went about their brilliant work helping to make IT what it is today. I can only envy at their lifestyle then, what a fantastic life they had. Never to be repeated. I Googled Sir Clive to see what he was doing now and found out the poor man passed away 3 weeks ago, and I never knew. What a hero he was. RIP Sir Clive. 😔

[@metalheadmalta]

Super insight into how Sinclair worked... These snippets of information fill out the whole learning experience. Supremely informative and very enjoyable. Many thanks for this.

[@dinotahirovic675]

Such an interesting woman, not amazed at all that Sir Clive recognised that and gave her the job during the interview! It was so easy to imagine some of those everyday events at Sinclair by just listening to her.

[@davidmartintech]

What a great video and interview with a superb lady, a wonderful interviewee with many very interesting stories.

[@sherlockholmeslives.1605]

She seems like a very nice and intelligent woman.

[@AstAMoore]

Okay, Ruth is absolutely wonderful. I could listed to her all day.

[@josearqco]

This lady is wonderful and lovely, great interview!!!

[@CallousCoder]

Such a great interview and insight. What a lovely experience Ruth had. It must have been brilliant to be really starting the computer revolution. I miss those days were decisions were made on the spot. My first job was sort of similar - hired on the spot, started the day after. These days as a freelancer it takes already at least a week to get started some where.

[@patrickcardon1643]

Thanks for sharing those great memories! Even if we were not there, we can now imagine to have been!

[@LiveSteamMad]

Are you going to be interviewing Jim Westwood and Richard Altwasser at some point also? That would be awesome. I'd love to know about the development of the ZX80 and Spectrum directly from them, and their views on it...

[@KarlHamilton]

Lovely to hear about Clive being so nice in real life. We always hear so much about his temper, but never the good side.

[@JohnnyBareToes1]

What a wonderful insight into the Sinclair family. Seems like it was purely an amazing experience to have worked there. I would love to go for a pint with this wonderful lady. Thanks so much for this video, it was very enjoyable and I was disappointed when it ended lol

[@ffssmusic]

00:00 Looking for a job 06:00 The ZX80 07:33 A steep learning curve 16:15 Strange questions from customers 20:04 The other people and the King's Parade office 24:20 Christmas bonus and hampers 29:15 Memorable people 29:48 First experiences with computers 35:42 The most memorable experience 39:46 Being a female programmer 43:35 Work hard, play hard - parties at Clive's house 46:58 Producing the documentation - cut and paste 49:35 The boat race 51:26 The company aeroplane 56:46 Using a Spectrum for a business purpose 58:20 Changes and the new office 01:04:04 People sending in software 01:05:52 Sir Clive on TV and the photo shoot 01:10:40 The salary and overall memories

[@EgoShredder]

51:30 - Jason,"Oh, there is less questions here".......Ruth, "FEWER!.....please". Yes! I have always corrected people when they use the word "less" in the wrong context! :-D

[@firmbutton6485]

EgoShredder so many do, it's infuriating lol

[@steven-vn9ui]

@@firmbutton6485 It may annoy but to correct someone you hardly know, I would consider at least, is quite rude.

[@firmbutton6485]

That’s why I don’t correct people I don’t know well, but my wife and child, yes I do. Nevertheless, it’s infuriating like I said.

[@steven-vn9ui]

@@firmbutton6485 agreed!

[@v8pilot]

@@steven-vn9ui I read that no judge would convict you of murder if you killed somebody because they corrected your speech.

[@sma7530]

I've just bought a copy of the first Sinclair User that she mentions that she was in at 8:24 and yes, I've just opened it up and she's there ! What a bonus

[@elektron2kim666]

The ZX-Spectrum gave me a lot in my teenage years. Also some discipline in life.

[@ITTom]

Ruth and the rest of the team - thank you for ZX Spectrum and make everything You talk about - possible. ZX Spectum was wonderful part of my childhood. THANKS AGAIN. PS. In Poland there were some radio stations that was actually brodcasting some programms on air. It was almost impossible to record working program but anyway - it was fun..... ;)

[@TheFusedplug]

What a wonderful experience this must have been to be right at the start, she's very good at explaining things the "way they were" I'm old enough to remember when we just had phone boxes and I was lucky enough to have a Mum and Dad that paid for a home phone but obviously had to ask permission to ring somebody "Don't take too long we need to watch the phone bill". We had the old style dial type phone (not buttons) I recently thought how "999" was the number that took the longest to dial waiting for the dial to return ... the logic there was not excellent as vital seconds cost lives lol

[@v8pilot]

I think the logic was the "999" was easy to dial in the dark. Also "111" could easily be generated by spurious contacts touching the lines.

[@medes5597]

It was 999 because in high winds, telephone wires touching would send false positive numbers out. 9, requiring 9 bursts of electricity, was unlikely to be sent by accident. Three 9s was the most unlikely. It was a way of making sure the number was never overloaded with false positives, which in the early days happened to operator numbers frequently. So from that perspective it saved many lives.

[@sircles-net]

Such an excellent interview and not requiring much questioning or prompting. Ruth really relays the excitement of being early to the British microcomputer revolution in brilliant fashion, and had me engaged and fascinated throughout.

[@davedogge2280]

What I want to know is what was her hi-score on Jet Pac

[@6581punk]

And did she finish Jet Set Willy.

[@Dranok1]

Sinclair Magazine 1: *I remember that photo!!!* Oh my, Way Back Machine set to years ago... 🤭

[@proudsnowtiger]

The Willis Road roof garden was great. On a nice day, the Softies ran serial cables there and hauled their VT-100s up to work in the open air. Yes, you could have portable computing wiht a VAX...

[@shanepython]

Such a joy to watch/listen to this video. Thank you. : )

[@crezzwell]

Very interesting interview if like me your in your early forties and remember playing with commodore 64 etc in the eighties. Love Ruth also, obviously very intelligent, and genuinely interesting woman.

[@Lilithe]

I love seeing the ZX81 in the background. My dad bought one and gave it to me with the RAM pack after he upgraded to a CoCo2. It was fun to play with. I didn't quite understand it yet as I was 4 or 5 but I could type on it and make really small programs.

[@Dranok1]

And behind the interviewer a bunch of Microvitec Cub multisync monitors sitting on double disc drive bridges! (Akhter? Cumana? Oh it all floods back!)

[@NatureAndTech]

I've got a couple of ZX80s. The heatsink is just borderline OK. If Sinclair had made one twice the size, it would have been so much better.

[@keithammleter3824]

I worked at one time for an electronics company, headquarters in UK, that provided a tax paid Christmas bonus and hamper. It made us all feel appreciated - a very nice extra. The Who's Who staff book is pretty standard,

[@tonypreece3586]

My first job was working as a trainee engineer for a small IT company that sold BBC, Sinclair, Sirius, and Apricot. Still in IT. But the best times were in the late '80s for me. Still have my BBC.

[@martin.pokorny]

What a great interview. It is almost shocking for me... I mean: I'm used to watching awfully aggressive "journalism" all the time. At least here in the Czech Republic...

[@ggklncnoifewAsdarp]

Thank you for this interview, a fantastic story. Please use a bit of compression on the mike in the future, there are parts where my laptop fan is louder than the voice on loudest setting.

[@DaveMcGarry]

Fantastic insight into Sinclair... Thank you Ruth and your team for building the machine of my childhood... That resulted in my lifelong career.. 👍 🖥

[@christoohunders5316]

Love the geek dyslexia mix of celebrity and circuitry = Celebuitry !

[@gyozopajter535]

Thank you very much Ruth for the insight and the interesting stories. Sinclair machines were my childhood's unforgettable adventure in Hungary in 1984. One of my inner part will live always in this fairy period. It was fanny to hear the 2 stories where people tought that you are Clive's doughter. :)

[@SA77888]

A proper fully functioning human being.

[@pp37903]

Really, really interesting. It was such a fascinating period, and I'm glad I got to witness it first hand.

[@Neffers_UK]

This was a brilliant watch. Myths busted, with an insight of how the times were back then. Great answers from Ruth.

[@unlokia]

I would have thought it more apt for a Bramley to work at Apple...

[@zxspectrum128]

Did she ever see a telephone flying towards someone?

[@craiggilchrist4223]

Lol, Fuckiiing Hellll, Crash.

[@pp37903]

Really, really interesting. It was such a fascinating period, and I'm glad I got to witness it first hand.

[@RightWing1]

Great interview. and employers take note thats how you treat employees

[@ms-ex8em]

Ruth can you program a bbc micro to display a menu system similar to the ones used in schools back in 1986????? Thanks

[@ms-ex8em]

does any one know about this (Sinclair ZX Spectrum) when u power it on does it show ltd. or just ltd (many thanks).

[@andyhowlett2231]

What a lovely story. It must have been quite an experience.

[@peter486]

she had a amazing life, imagine working at zinclair in the golden age.. must have been amazing I worked for webfirms in the late 90´s that was sick aswell :)

[@ruzziasht349]

You poor man, I hope you're fully recovered and feeling better.

[@peter486]

@@ruzziasht349 yea rough times how to burn 10k in a night :)

[@jakobole]

So, the picture painted in 'Micromen' of Clive isn't quite correct? I remember when seeing the movie that I thought his character was off....

[@josearqco]

8 bit computing!, it all started there!

[@EricTViking]

"I can tell you if a full stop is italic, and shouldn't be". Brilliant 😁

[@hanniffydinn6019]

Fun exciting times! Computing is very boring these days! 🤯🤯🤯

[@GadgetUK164]

Lovely interview! Very interesting to listen to!

[@mazharsaid2548]

hello does any1 know if Lander had sound back in 1989? thanks thanks.

[@vapourmile]

It's bizarre the keyword thing isn't still used. Why not have all the keywords of a language bound to a keystroke macro? If you use a new language, you can not only have a new membrane, you can also map similar keywords to the same keys, so you don't have to recall what each language uses for console output, you just press the keyboard macro for it.

[@6581punk]

Not needed now. The keyword thing was implemented to save memory. Rather than store the text for GOTO it would store a number for the key pressed. No need to parse the text either. You can test this by typing in a program using the text, not the key shortcuts, it won't run (found this out the hard way on the ZX81).

[@neozeed8139]

A lot of UIs do auto completion, which is easier to remember because you don’t have to.

[@cygil1]

It's difficult to make it change modes intelligently based on context. The Sinclair Basic would change modes when a string or a variable was expected, but BASIC was simple and unambiguous about its parsing contexts, so this was easy.

[@leeosborne3793]

In all honesty, the keyword entry was awful. It just about worked on the ZX81 but it should have been ditched on the Spectrum. I was very glad to discover you didn't have to use it on 128K models.

[@vapourmile]

@@leeosborne3793 I never programmed a Spectrum but I wrote a lot of ZX81 programs and I quickly became comfortable with it. I see no problem with having common keyboard macros for commands.

[@bollesg]

Ruth Bramley for president!

[@sa3270]

It's funny that they're both named Sinclair.

[@Truthseeker1515]

Dam, Coventry back in the mid 70s......

[@redlinetelevision]

I live near paradise, it's anything but.

[@McSynth]

Wonderful int. So glad this has been shared.

[@hevren]

Great interview, such a nice idea to document all.

[@gav53]

absolutely engrossed in this - what a very nice woman - thank you very much

[@pepperoniunicorn8641]

full of shit, that is Sir Clive's Love child and\or sister

[@garyproffitt5941]

Very intelligent Ruth Bramley and charm too.

[@frederickbowdler8169]

What about debatable business practices at Sinclair?

[@SB-mi2ii]

What a lovely interview/chat 😊

[@jase01472]

Brilliant Thanks

[@orangedac]

Great interview. Thanks so much for the effort.

[@paulrichie3319]

sir Clive a great guy, an missed

[@ms-ex8em]

how do u turn on sound on lander? do u press a key or something? thanks

[@ruzziasht349]

Louder is a start

[@alexabadi7458]

What could you do with 1k octets in 2017 ?

[@SerBallister]

Demo coding :)

[@stalepalemale]

Great interview, well done!

[@paulf7043]

lovely person

[@oxogood9018]

Great interview.

[@8-bitsteve500]

Wonderful!

[@keithellis5163]

Great Interview & some fantastic stories!

[@davegwldn]

Fantastic interview. Really interesting...

[@nnnnnn3647]

typical English woman.

[@RobertPayne556]

nnnnnnnaughty

[@SusanAmberBruce]

Great interview thanks

[@MySining]

короче ничо не понятно..но в принцепи спектрум зх рулит!!

[@orangedac]

CCCP developed the game Tetris

[@RobertPayne556]

*Pajitnov side-eyeing*

[@davedogge2280]

back in the days when people actually replied to your CV submissions in IT in the UK. These days HR departments are lazy and don't reply or recruitment agents just blast your CV around via email and don't bother giving you feedback after an interview even because again, lazy and stupid.

[@michaelturner4457]

ZX Spectra

[@OlegShwim]

Ну почему нет русского дубляжа(

[@globdesign5492]

Wait didn't Indians build Silicon Valley...................

[@craiggilchrist4223]

I know it was a long time ago but you would remember the interview with Sir Clive. She dont seem to remember much. Give the woman a glass of water for that cough.

[@PauloConstantino167]

This big bony woman is really annoying. Always interrupts Jason when he tries to say something.

[@Tenraiden]

She's the one being interviewed after all, you idiot.

[@jtsotherone]

@@Tenraiden ever heard of sarcasm, idiot?

[@cygil1]

Worst troll ever.

[@RobertPayne556]

I'd just like to say- *Sol decides to go supernova*