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liam_on_linuxSo in a thread on CIX, someone was saying that the Sinclair computers were irritating and annoying, cut down too far, cheap and slow and unreliable.
That sort of comment still kinda burns after all these decades.
I was a Sinclair owner. I loved my Spectrums, spent a lot of time and money on them, and still have 2 working ones today.
Yes, they had their faults, but for all those who sneered and snarked at their cheapness and perceived nastiness, *that was their selling point*.
They were working, usable, useful home computers that were affordable.
They were transformative machines, transforming people, lives, economies.
I had a Spectrum not because I massively wanted a Spectrum -- I would have rather had a BBC Micro, for instance -- but because I could afford a Spectrum. Well, my parents could, just barely. A used one.
My 2nd, 3rd and 4th ones were used, as well, because I could just about afford them.
If all that had been available were proper, serious, real computers -- Apples, Acorns, even early Commodores -- I might never have got one. My entire career would never have happened.
A BBC Micro was pushing £350. My used 48K Spectrum was £80.
One of those is doable for what parents probably worried was a kid's toy that might never be used for anything productive. The other was the cost of a car.
I wouldn't have wanted something like a VIC-20 because it was so crippled, with its poor 22 column screen and poor BASIC. The C64 was blatantly a games machine, with the same poor BASIC, but the R&D money spent on fancy graphics and sound which you could only access by PEEK and POKE commands.
The BBC looked lovely but was too expensive even for my (expensive, private) school; I never touched one until they were old and past-it, driving lab equipment.
The ZX-81, with no true graphics, no sound, no colour, looked very boring to a pubescent boy. I wanted some bling and dazzle. Who doesn't at 13 or so?
The Spectrum hit a sweet spot: decent BASIC, decent amount of RAM, but still tons of 3rd party extras, both hardware and software. All for a price I could afford as an impoverished student.
Later, I had an Amstrad PCW 9512, another underrated machine, and then after that, an Acorn Archimedes. The late lamented Guy Kewney called trying an IBM PC-AT as "my first experience of Raw Computer Power." (A 6MHz 286!) But for me, it was the Archie. Again, 2nd hand -- but £800 for a machine with a whole megabyte of RAM, a hard disk, and amazing CPU power and graphics with a multitasking GUI.
But that was when I was 21 and in my first job. (It took a year or so to pay off my debts.) Not a chance when I was 14 or so. Then, I got a used Speccy. Rubber keys and all. And it was great.
If you folk were the wealthy elite who could afford £500 - £1000 computers, good for you. The Provens couldn't. We needed sub-£100 computers.
They were not cut down too far. They were cut down just far enough. Still having what made computers interesting, but just about affordable albeit expensive.
The QL was cut down too far, yes, *for its time*. Everyone forgets that it predated the Mac. When the QL was designed, a GUI personal computer meant an Apple Lisa, $10,000.
By the time it was shipping, it meant a Mac, $2,500 or so.
A year later, it meant an Amiga or an ST, for $500 or so.
In *that* context, yes, the QL was too cut down.
But compared to the BBC Micro, the C64, or the $1000+ machines like the Apple II or Atari range, no, it was just right. Don't knock it.
That sort of comment still kinda burns after all these decades.
I was a Sinclair owner. I loved my Spectrums, spent a lot of time and money on them, and still have 2 working ones today.
Yes, they had their faults, but for all those who sneered and snarked at their cheapness and perceived nastiness, *that was their selling point*.
They were working, usable, useful home computers that were affordable.
They were transformative machines, transforming people, lives, economies.
I had a Spectrum not because I massively wanted a Spectrum -- I would have rather had a BBC Micro, for instance -- but because I could afford a Spectrum. Well, my parents could, just barely. A used one.
My 2nd, 3rd and 4th ones were used, as well, because I could just about afford them.
If all that had been available were proper, serious, real computers -- Apples, Acorns, even early Commodores -- I might never have got one. My entire career would never have happened.
A BBC Micro was pushing £350. My used 48K Spectrum was £80.
One of those is doable for what parents probably worried was a kid's toy that might never be used for anything productive. The other was the cost of a car.
I wouldn't have wanted something like a VIC-20 because it was so crippled, with its poor 22 column screen and poor BASIC. The C64 was blatantly a games machine, with the same poor BASIC, but the R&D money spent on fancy graphics and sound which you could only access by PEEK and POKE commands.
The BBC looked lovely but was too expensive even for my (expensive, private) school; I never touched one until they were old and past-it, driving lab equipment.
The ZX-81, with no true graphics, no sound, no colour, looked very boring to a pubescent boy. I wanted some bling and dazzle. Who doesn't at 13 or so?
The Spectrum hit a sweet spot: decent BASIC, decent amount of RAM, but still tons of 3rd party extras, both hardware and software. All for a price I could afford as an impoverished student.
Later, I had an Amstrad PCW 9512, another underrated machine, and then after that, an Acorn Archimedes. The late lamented Guy Kewney called trying an IBM PC-AT as "my first experience of Raw Computer Power." (A 6MHz 286!) But for me, it was the Archie. Again, 2nd hand -- but £800 for a machine with a whole megabyte of RAM, a hard disk, and amazing CPU power and graphics with a multitasking GUI.
But that was when I was 21 and in my first job. (It took a year or so to pay off my debts.) Not a chance when I was 14 or so. Then, I got a used Speccy. Rubber keys and all. And it was great.
If you folk were the wealthy elite who could afford £500 - £1000 computers, good for you. The Provens couldn't. We needed sub-£100 computers.
They were not cut down too far. They were cut down just far enough. Still having what made computers interesting, but just about affordable albeit expensive.
The QL was cut down too far, yes, *for its time*. Everyone forgets that it predated the Mac. When the QL was designed, a GUI personal computer meant an Apple Lisa, $10,000.
By the time it was shipping, it meant a Mac, $2,500 or so.
A year later, it meant an Amiga or an ST, for $500 or so.
In *that* context, yes, the QL was too cut down.
But compared to the BBC Micro, the C64, or the $1000+ machines like the Apple II or Atari range, no, it was just right. Don't knock it.
no subject
Date: 2023-04-19 03:53 pm (UTC)This caused for QL to be seen as just another money generaing projects that were to kickstart the "real stuff" - friggin tricikle etc.
This is wjhy Clive used BT's money and funnelled it into QL development, but in return he had to tailor QL to suit their needs for Telco terminal etc etc.
Goal of the project has changed 20 times or so. It was to have NS32K CPU, then 68000, then Z-80 was considered. Finally they landed on 68008, which ended being about the same price as 68000 would be!
On top of that, pretty much everything in QL could be 16-bit. It has 16 RAM chips, two 8.-bit ROMs etc.
On top of that, Clive insisted on OS+Basic in ROM.
Which meant that SW team would have to hit very elusive and moving target spot-on with the first shot.
And cement whatever it is forever. No realistic OS upgrades ever etc.
Had QL had a floppy, loading QDOS and whatever else from floppy would take only few seconds. And OS could be updated, upgraded and changed bazzilion times.
At the time that QL came out, floppies ended being not much more expensive than microdrives, even not considering all the problems with them.
On top of that, microdrive itself was far too cut-down. he would have used full-width cassete tape instead of half-width. This would mean using 4 tracks instead of two. That would double the capacity all by itself.
Less pedestrian encoding should easily multiply that furher by 10 and bring far better signal intefrity and error correction, too.
Such units could be cheap while reaching and exceeding the capacity and transfer speeds of contemporary floppies.
IPC chip was also totally botched patch that was clearly result of mismanagement ant time crunch.
As it is, it's less than useless. It scans the keyboard, runs HALF of RS-232 functionality and a beeper.
keyboard scan would be done WAY better by CPU directly and corresponding resources in IPC could be used far better for something else.
ULA chips were ingenious in many ways, but were too constrained and looked to be leftover from something that was meant to be used with 68000.
Had it been done right, it would look FAR better, for the similar or even the same price.
Clive didn't have the vision nor the interest for computers and he was often penny-pinching in totally idiotic way.
no subject
Date: 2023-04-19 04:05 pm (UTC)This caused for QL to be seen as just another money generaing projects that were to kickstart the "real stuff" - friggin tricikle etc.
This is wjhy Clive used BT's money and funnelled it into QL development, but in return he had to tailor QL to suit their needs for Telco terminal etc etc.
Goal of the project has changed 20 times or so. It was to have NS32K CPU, then 68000, then Z-80 was considered. Finally they landed on 68008, which ended being about the same price as 68000 would be!
On top of that, pretty much everything in QL could be 16-bit. It has 16 RAM chips, two 8.-bit ROMs etc.
On top of that, Clive insisted on OS+Basic in ROM.
Which meant that SW team would have to hit very elusive and moving target spot-on with the first shot.
And cement whatever it is forever. No realistic OS upgrades ever etc.
Had QL had a floppy, loading QDOS and whatever else from floppy would take only few seconds. And OS could be updated, upgraded and changed bazzilion times.
At the time that QL came out, floppies ended being not much more expensive than microdrives, even not considering all the problems with them.
On top of that, microdrive itself was far too cut-down. he would have used full-width cassete tape instead of half-width. This would mean using 4 tracks instead of two. That would double the capacity all by itself.
Less pedestrian encoding should easily multiply that furher by 10 and bring far better signal intefrity and error correction, too.
Such units could be cheap while reaching and exceeding the capacity and transfer speeds of contemporary floppies.
IPC chip was also totally botched patch that was clearly result of mismanagement ant time crunch.
As it is, it's less than useless. It scans the keyboard, runs HALF of RS-232 functionality and a beeper.
keyboard scan would be done WAY better by CPU directly and corresponding resources in IPC could be used far better for something else.
ULA chips were ingenious in many ways, but were too constrained and looked to be leftover from something that was meant to be used with 68000.
Had it been done right, it would look FAR better, for the similar or even the same price.
QL already manages to push slightly MORE video bandwidth towards display generation than Atari ST, for example, even though it has only 8-bit databus.
Imagine what it could do, if it had been done properly with 68000 with full bus width, perhaps slightly overclocked etc.
And it already had 16 DRAM chips.
Since chips were cheap (old generation 64kx1 from the times of C64 and Spectrum), it could easily have two such banks and interlieve them for twice the bandwidth.
Shitload of time went into SuperBasic in ROM, which resulted in critical delays, for no obvious gain.
Who has EVER written anything worth using in BASIC - on ANY machine ?
This could have easily been done as one of the packages on microcartridge.
Even if it was late or incomplete, no one would care that much.
QL production costs were so low that he could probably do it profitably even at half the price ( 200GBPish) had there been stable demand.
Clive didn't have the vision nor the interest for computers and he was often penny-pinching in totally idiotic way.