A big part of my teenage legacy suffered a blow today as I learned that Clive Sinclair, innovator and electronic gizmo entrepreneur died this week aged 81. The ZX81 (pictured above and released in 1981) was the first computer I ever owned; I was hooked from the very first few minutes of unpacking the box for the rest of my life so far, I even made a career and a living out of computing because of it. Sinclair was somewhat of a visionary in my view, sure, he was also a bit eccentric and had some very public failures but on balance he put his money where his mouth was. Where as many British business leaders would have given up and left it to the Americans or the Japanese, Sinclair took the risk of being different and created machines that delighted and amazed their fans, at a price point that made them accessible to most people, that's a difficult trick to pull off!
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