[HN Gopher] Siclair Microvision (1977)
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Siclair Microvision (1977)
Author : joebig
Score : 49 points
Date : 2026-03-26 17:33 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (r-type.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (r-type.org)
| kgwgk wrote:
| Sinclair (currently it says Siclair)
| hbbio wrote:
| SINCLAIR!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Sinclair
| rwmj wrote:
| As you'd expect it was not a success in the end:
|
| _> Supply exceeded demand, and 12,000 units were left unsold
| until they were sold off cheaply. This resulted in a PS480,000
| loss for Sinclair. Sir Clive Sinclair was certain that the TV1B
| model released in 1978 would be more successful, but sales were
| disappointing._
|
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Radionics#Portable_te...)
|
| His later TV was more interesting in design but not any more
| successful:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV80
| http://rk.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/televisions/tv80.htm
| stevekemp wrote:
| The one I remember is the TV80:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUYlS3HcC8s
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| SINCLAIR
| lokinork wrote:
| Reminds me of a love child between Steve Jobs and Ron popeil
| whobre wrote:
| Ironically , Clive Sinclair will be remembered for affordable
| home computers, but his real passion were small screens and
| electric vehicles. A true visionary - he was a couple of decades
| too early.
|
| RIP Sir Clive...
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| He was a crazy, inspired individual that is for sure. The Elon
| Musk of his time, replete with relevant temperament.
|
| Sure is interesting to wonder where todays' 21st Century Clive
| is, and what they're up to. My guess is, somewhere way on the
| edge of the lunatic fringe, doing wild and kooky stuff.. and I
| think if I look close enough at the hardware hacking community
| today, I could probably spot a hundred Clives' pretty easily.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| More of a UK Steve Jobs - similar marketing flair, filtered
| through British austerity.
|
| He kept the same pitch throughout his career - make consumer
| goods as small and cheap as possible, wrap them in state of
| the art industrial design (superficially futuristic and
| memorable, but also as cheap as possible), and market them
| aggressively.
|
| He did ok with his calculators, surfed a trend with his
| computers and (accidentally IMO) created a national
| ecosystem, but his other attempts were less successful.
|
| He seemed to enjoy miniaturised downscale engineering for the
| sake of it, whether or not there was a market there.
| jhbadger wrote:
| He did have his showman side certainly -- but I'd argue
| that Alan Sugar of Amstrad was more the UK Steve Jobs
| because Clive Sinclair really did have deep technological
| knowledge himself (even though he obviously also had a
| staff of talented engineers like Richard Altwasser who
| rarely got their due in the public eye)
| sgbeal wrote:
| > The price of the black and white set has been fixed at PS175
| plus VAT. Sinclair says there is no prospect of a reduction.
| 'Firstly because it is such a complicated product and, secondly,
| we have a monopoly'.
|
| At least he's honest about it.
| adonovan wrote:
| It's not an illegal monopoly to be the sole entity capable of a
| technique. The problems come from manipulating the market to
| prevent competition.
| sgbeal wrote:
| There was no implying that it was illegal, only that it was
| balsy (or perhaps foolish) of him to openly declare it. It's
| not a great PR move, in that the word tends to have a
| negative connotation for consumers.
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| I have a Sony TV8-301 in my retro collection, just waiting for me
| to build it a suitable power supply, give it a service, and wire
| it up to be used as a terminal for something powerful.
|
| https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/sony_8_301_w8_301.html
|
| The aesthetic of these old designs is really appealing. If you're
| not familiar with the TV8-301, its been used as a prop in
| countless games and sci-fi movies .. and hasn't the Sinclair
| Microvision _also_ shown up in films in places? I want to say
| Bladerunner or Alien, but I'm pretty sure they just copied the
| aesthetic... Perhaps Space 1999 or The Tomorrow People or
| something like that?
|
| In any case, its somewhat amusing to recollect just how fantastic
| it seemed, way back then, to have a portable television/video
| device to watch things on .. I used to lust after the toys in the
| Sinclair ads back in the day, it was a precursor to computing
| fever that hit me - and a lot of the rest of the world - on the
| cusp of the 80's .. and it seems proper to notice that Sinclairs'
| desire to give everyone the things that were being dreamed up by
| sci-fi authors seems to have been somewhat prescient.
|
| We all have a TV in our pockets now, there's no escaping it ..
| and what a world it has become, with literally everyone on the
| planet capable of starting their own channels, if they want to ..
| joebig wrote:
| I need some help if you happen know your way around flybacks? I
| have a grime encrusted flyback transformer harvested from a crt
| set which I would like to hack around with, iff I had some
| inkling of the internal wiring of the coils, rectifiers etc.
| All it says is "FOK14A001 REV.0 ANYON T11520VO" and web
| searches refuse to surface an exact schematic; even though a
| lot of general information is available. But piecing together a
| schematic for this specific model is proving a drag from these
| nebulous floaters.
| MichaelRo wrote:
| Kids today probably won't get what's the big idea with "just"
| some TV, no DVD playing capability, no computer games. But in
| the early 90s I would have sold a kidney for one of these, on a
| boring 8 hour train trip, they would have been the ultimate
| gadget. Not just for entertainment purposes, watching TV, but
| also bragging rights since noone even dreamt of having one of
| these in that time period and that place (Eastern Europe). At
| least I didn't see or knew anyone that had such a thing.
| samesimilar wrote:
| [sic]
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(page generated 2026-03-29 23:01 UTC)