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His products include the first portable electronic calculator in 1972, home computers, digital watches, and early versions of flat-screen TVs.
According to reports, British inventor Clive Sinclair, a pioneer of pocket calculators and affordable home computers, reportedly died on Thursday at the age of 81.
British media said that he died at his home in London after fighting cancer for more than a decade. This has caused many people to fondly recall their first experience of using a computer in the early 1980s to pay tribute.
His daughter Belinda Sinclair told the BBC that he was still working on inventions last week, “because that is what he likes to do.”
“He is creative and imaginative, it is an exciting adventure for him, it is his passion,” she added.
Clive Sinclair’s pioneering products include the first portable electronic calculator in 1972.
Sinclair ZX80 was launched in 1980, bringing home computing to the general public in the UK and other regions.
Other early home computers, such as the Apple II, were much more expensive, and Sinclair’s company was the first company in the world to sell more than 1 million machines.
Subsequent models include the ZX Spectrum in 1982, which has superior power and a more user-friendly interface, which promoted the revolution in home games and programming.
British film director Edgar Wright’s latest movie “The Last Night in Soho” premiered in Venice this month, and he paid tribute to Sinclair on Twitter.
“For those who saw Brave New World for the first time, they saw the terrible picture of ‘3D Monster Maze’ on ZX81. I want to pay tribute to the pioneer of technology Sir Clive Sinclair,” he said.
“He made the dream of the 21st century possible. He will slam the rubber button of Spectrum in your name. Torn.”
Tom Watson, the former deputy leader of the British opposition Labour Party, wrote on Twitter: “This person has changed the trajectory of my life.
“It can be said that our digital age in the UK began with Sinclair ZX80, when thousands of children learned to use 1k RAM to code.
“To us, Spectrum is like a 48k Rolls Royce.”
However, not all of Sinclair’s inventions have achieved great success.
Sinclair C5 is a battery-powered tricycle touted as the future of environmentally friendly transportation, but it suffered a costly failure after it was launched in 1985.
But in retrospect, considering today’s concern about climate change and the popularity of electric vehicles, it is ahead.
“You can’t exaggerate the impact of Sir Clive Sinclair on the world,” game reporter and host Dominic Diamond tweeted.
“If we all stop laughing long enough to buy C5, he might save the environment.”
Sinclair was born in 1940 and left school at the age of 17 to become a technical journalist and write professional manuals.
At the age of 22, he founded his first company to produce mail-order radio kits, including the smallest transistor radio in the world at the time.
Other companies include early versions of digital watches and flat-screen TVs.
He was knighted in 1983.
Ironically, in an interview with the BBC in 2013, Sinclair revealed that he himself did not use a computer.
“I don’t like distractions,” he explained.
“If I had a computer, I would start to think I could change this, I could change that, but I didn’t want to. My wife took care of me very kindly.”
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