Visions - Interview with Sir Clive Sinclair on hopes and fears for the future 1990

Interview BBC2 16.02.1990 (MCMXC), two decades before the 2009 docu drama Micro Men.

[@user-vs7cw2rg7r]

A true visionary. He was treated very poorly, particularly by the media.

[@jlmonks]

It's uncanny how everything he says here has or is coming to pass, in some form or another. It also strikes me that you simply wouldn't get a full half hour of such good interview television in 2021, untainted by provocation or sensationalism.

[@gemspotting6252]

For all his faults he really understood how society should function and nearly always had ideas way ahead of the time he lived in - a true visionary

[@bigkivzero]

R.I.P Sir Clive. A true inspiration

[@tomormiston6592]

and now nearly 30 years from when this was recorded, electric vehicles are fast becoming mainstream. His vision was a bulls eye, though his timing and perhaps business prowess were less well aimed.

[@blackcurtains4710]

He did say, in this interview, he didn't have the budget or resources for it. He ran a micro computer company that released and was best known for, in his words, "Jet Set Fucking Willy!!!". Clive was smart but he didn't have the inheritance or family connections of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, let alone Jeff Bezos.

[@pic101]

He was right about AI too.

[@LOTPOR0402]

C5 was way ahead of its time ,people take the Micky ,but you were no more venerable on this compared to a push bike electric or not .If only the motor and battery technology was there in the 80s

[@DeLorean4]

He alluded to the California EV mandate during the interview. Had that law not been softened and subsequently repealed, his timing for EV adoption would have been 100% correct.

[@JonnyInfinite]

The man who brought us Jet Set Fucking Willy... RIP

[@stingyringpiece]

a compellingly different and intelligent man. And wow i loved my spectrum !! people forget what we didn't have in the 70's and how Sir Clive brought them to us 1st.

[@si4632]

what a legend

[@markwrightrf]

RIP Sir Clive

[@bolshevikproductions]

Legend and a true genius 🍺👍☝🏼🌈

[@jb428]

It's astonishing how little we've achieved in the last 30 years...

[@DmitryDaren]

he's so different from his portrait in Micro Machines movie, that was a pop-image, and he real is elevated

[@lucius1976]

Wow, just in the beginning he prophesized UKs current state and predicted Brexit.

[@maxheadrom3088]

He was a very practical environmentalist - if I recall correctly, computers were, for him, a way to make money so he could help reduce pollution around the world. His problem at the time was the battery - only Acid Lead was available for that use. He was also wrong about leaded gasoline but at the time (and since the 1920s) almost everybody was wrong about it. I believe Sir Clive Sinclair managed to do what Steve Jobs claimed to have done: change the world. Everybody I know in Brazil (around my age or a bit older) got into computer science through the ZX81 and later the Spectrum (here they were sold, licensed, as TK82C and TK90X). The cost of an Apple II in Brazil in the mid 80s was 1/4 of the most expensive car VW sold here. (an Apple II plus + 64K expansion + CP/M card and 1 5 1/4 disk drive) The interviewer, btw, is superb! A rare kind of journalist that is almost extinct nowadays. Don't know who he is but I compare him to Bill Moyers (US) or Roberto D'Ávila (BR). Thanks, QL! What a leap!

[@cjmillsnun]

He was right about leaded petrol. He never said moving away from it was wrong, what he was saying way back then is we should be moving away from internal combustion engined vehicles altogether. He was also right about engines initially. They were less efficient without leaded petrol, but that was before lean burn and low boost turbocharging was common.

[@scionga]

thank for this

[@bolshevikproductions]

Sir Clive should have a lordship by now.

[@media_dept]

"Go with Europe... Greater to the long term benefit... Or we can fail to do that and become a dismal backwater"

[@KillaBitz]

How have we forgotten this. He even predicted what the outcome would be and it's playing out 30 years later as he said it would. Price rises, shortages etc.

[@gigteevee6118]

Thank you Sir Clive for everything....the Elon Musk of the 70s/80s...but with a less successful electric car.

[@KillaBitz]

true but tesla isn't profitable if you removed the carbon credits etc. if we actually helped our visionaries instead of this pessimistic f.u.d mentality we seem to have maybe it would be a very different story.

[@DmitryDaren]

no one is like another. ps Musk is a mask.

[@blackcurtains4710]

Fun fact. According to KZbinr Frank Bundy Jr the Sinclair C5 (electric bike- not really a car) ended up being used as cheap dodgems at Pontins Holiday park!

[@LOTPOR0402]

It wasn't really a car ,closer to an electric bike

[@chris-ip4pk]

But his cars never caught fire like elons

[@Nick_R_]

Europe. Infrastructure. Climate change. AI. Clive at his prophetic best. Sadly the UK continued with its parochial view, failing to ever fully engage with the EU, persisting with childish denigration instead of positive leadership. The UK has also continued what Clive described as a pathetic approach to infrastructure. He was right about Britain's need for investment and a serious revamp of its role in the world. And he was right about the consequences of failure, which are and will be our daily reality. Clive was also right about the need for investment in technological solutions to the challenge of human caused climate change. Right too about the potential of AI too, where we are still floundering, but the potential is obvious.

[@daffyduk77]

Listening to him speak, you would imagine he was maybe a Cambridge graduate with 1st class honours. Not a graduate of the school of life.

[@svenred6eard757]

Apparently he had an IQ of over 150, which is genius level. Well ahead of his time with his ideas.

[@Brane214]

@edwardszzz From all these machines, QL posessed magical combination of firmware intelligence and hardware capabilities. Even with 8-bit bus it managed to pump enough data through to generate colour picture worth 32K of data.

[@DeLorean4]

Interviewer: 10 years ago, could you have predicted where the world would be today? Sir Clive: * Modestly replies "no" and proceeds to accurately predict the next 30 years * When I visited London, England from Canada 5 years ago, I got serious theme park vibes (as in being in an expensive sanitized place no one can live in). Hearing them use the expression stunned me. His EV predictions would have been 100% bang on if California hadn't caved in and repealed the EV mandate.

[@SwedishEmpire1700]

and England went with the latter option.

[@SwedishEmpire1700]

@@analogueavenue he is still alive?

[@rogana5158able]

Australia doesn't have any government owed interstate trains and we are 50 years behind already. Perth to Adelaide equals $5,000

[@rhodesy761uk]

@edwardszzz how can u call im a failure for that can you forsee what the top gadget would be in 15 years

[@Brane214]

@edwardszzz Yeah, everyone remembers Mac- as crappy HW that Atari could EMULATE FASTER than teh original ran and at the half of the price. QL had admittedly _somewhat_ circumsised hardware, but VERY capable multitasking OS- QDOS that worked beautifully. I

[@rhodesy761uk]

Respond to this video... he invented the first pocket calculator and digital watch first small portable tv the zx 80 zx 81 spectrum and so on were all big hits

[@donmoore7785]

Tne Black Watch was a piece of garbage, sadly.

[@stingyringpiece]

did you ???

[@dcocz3908]

What will they remember me by?? Fxxxing Jet Set Willy

[@notanfningain]

i notice in interviews; not just this one that he mentions Scotland whenever he wants to use an example of failing industry

[@whatamalike]

@Borin81 Can you blame us? Spending the entire 80's in a state of Thatchers short, sharp shock. People just wanted FUN and thats what they got. Hey im not saying its the best solution but there was a reason we went down that route.

[@wotdoesthisbuttondo]

None of us kids gave a toss about Thatcher, we hated the lefty striking b'stards who went on strike for 2 years repeatedly informing us of "the next wave" bringing a strange sense of de ja vu to the also 2 year lefty induced covid lockdown when were were also periodically informed of "the next wave". Commies really need to enlarge their vocabulary.

[@cant1rac]

its impossible to critise the speccy in the uk, no matter how factual you maybe. you will see lots of comparison reviews & speccy games described as better color scrolling & sound only problem is the original 48k never had a sound chip. it was basicly a zilog z80 with the bare minimum to make a color computer, to sell much cheaper than anyone else i enjoy gaming on a spectrum +2. i was lucky back in the day, as a msx owner i managed to keep out off the speccy mania & keep an accurate perspective

[@gpz550a2]

Well he kept that quiet. Based on this interview he either created a time machine or a crystal ball. I wonder if the patent has expired yet...?🤔

[@cant1rac]

your right about the majority off things that came out of sinclair research. quality was low, lots of faults, the sinclair watch, sinclar QL who i think was a real failure, was alan sugar. in getting such a strong foot print with the cpc. what did he do from that base, try to relaunch it in 1990 as a games machine after the world had gone 16 bit in 1985, trying to take computer users as mugs and produced along side the commodore c64gs, the worst selling consoles offf all time

[@unsealedabsurdfiles]

Inventors invent, it's up to industry to perfect..... Amstrad was a company of compete dross. Sugar was a right wing parasite, still is

[@MrLtia1234]

@@unsealedabsurdfiles The CPC was a great machine, though. Shame it was sold by that company.

[@colindixon806]

Whilst I admired Sir Clive Sinclair for being a great innovator and businessman and felt he was misunderstood by the media, his beginning statement was completely wrong, The EU provided little for the UK.

[@daffyduk77]

Haha, that's why a majority now realise we shot ourselves in the foot leaving it

[@colindixon806]

@@daffyduk77 think you have just made that up. Everyone that voted out wanted out which was the majority. Explain to me, what the EU did for the UK?

[@daffyduk77]

​@@colindixon806 It's a case of what is "not being in the EU" doing for us. Higher inflation. More obstacles to exporting to our geographically logical main trading partners. But we daren't make it difficult for their exports to us, with more checks & tariffs, because we desperately need their products & can't take a further inflation hit. Now we don't have the negotiating power for all these wonderful trading deals with non EU states, so either the deals are refused (Canada) or we're so desperate to get a deal, we end up sh*fting our farmers (Aus). And the US isn't in a hurry for one. If it happens, it will be on their terms. Sh*fted again. Our fisheries sh*fted. And all the nonsense re: Northern Ireland, when it was supposed to be an "oven-ready deal". Travel/relocation to EU - more difficult/expensive. And much much more.

[@colindixon806]

@@daffyduk77 no you’ve got that completely wrong. We have the opportunity to trade with anyone in the world, not just the EU. We’ve ended the free movement of people dispite the pathetic action to stop illegal immigrants invading our country. We have restored control over UK law making and the supreme court. Made it harder for criminals to enter the UK. Stopped ID cards. Taken back control of our waters which will eventually be fully restored. Ended preferential treatment of EU migrants to our welfare system despite contributing nothing. Lowered costs for businesses. Looking to remove the EU ban on UK imperial marking and sales. No longer paying billions to the EU budget and spending £57 billion more on our NHS. The pound is stronger against the dollar and other currencies once again. The benefits go on and on. The EU gave us nothing and took all our laws and identity away from us. THATS WHY, millions voted leave. No one is bothered some lost deals or tariffs. We got our country back and we have to now sort out the shit the EU made of it. It will take time!

[@edwardszzz]

@capricious71 am stupid .Please explain the term TROLLING. I have never received so much hatred, in e-mails since I posted my "failure" comment.Sinclair did not invent the ZX81. Two geniuses who later designed the Jupiter Ace did all the hard work . He never invented the Spectrum either, the blokes who created the Atari Jaguar console engineered it. I was annoyed that Sinclair got all the glory. His boffins, who were the real creatives, hated him and all left to undertake more worthy projects.

[@speedbird737]

yep we've now left europe and we are now an abysmal back water country

[@BM-jy6cb]

Well Clive, we tried globalisation and it failed at the first hurdle when every nation closed their borders and hoarded their supplies. Nothing wrong with his vision except it ignored the single most important factor - human nature. As for the EU, it is a bureaucratic lumbering failure.

[@frederickbowdler8169]

Electric cars were better in 1899 than in 1980 go figure 😅😅😅

[@turibinosanches4692]

Strange ideas... I think he's better as an engineer than as a visionary...

[@2808drw]

I would rather say "the man who turned scrap into waste". I was stupid enough to use my savings for the first calculator and a ZX81. Cheap Chinese crap later followed in his footsteps. In addition, he himself had zero technical knowledge of what he was doing. It's all ridiculous. The man with the title Sir stole my savings 😆😡

[@si4632]

poor clive didnt realise what a disaster globalisation is

[@edwardszzz]

I apologise to everyone for calling him a failure. The mac was launched the same day as the QL. The bloke who wrote LINUX had a Q.L. He said it was crap. No one in the U.S. has heard of the Q.L. ,but everyone remembers the MAC. Sinclair only sold one million computers. 17 million C64 and 7 million apple iie were produced. All his products apart from the speccy were crap and did not work properly. No mouse or floppy for the QL. The C5 was a brilliant invention? Sinclair research went bust.

[@jonathancauldwell9822]

That is factually incorrect. 5 million ZX Spectrum computers were sold, not to mention the many millions of illegal clones around the world.

[@edwardszzz]

The man was a failure. He never predicted the internet, youtube and the iphone revolution.

[@Diggnuts]

neither did you.

[@ZxSpectrumplus]

Iphone and everything else mobile is based on ARM. If he hasn't ticked of Chris Curry and start Acorn Computers, you won't have your iPhone today. So yeah, you are the bigger failure.

[@pic101]

Get a grip. He never predicted the Internet… *still laughing*

[@liamfraserobrien]

He had no concept of making computers smaller or people watching tv and video in your hand. My mum went on and on about an internet phone in 1990 she was big mates with Nigel garage I think he told her.

[@mortimore4030]

A failure? With a net worth of one hundred million at the time of his death and a legacy most could only dream of. What a weird thing for you to have said.