Sinclair and the 'Sunrise' Technology: The Deconstruction of a Myth (16 page)

Although the deal with W. H. Smith was agreed in January 1981 and the ZX81 launched in March, Sinclair wisely ensured that his company reaped healthy mail-order margins before turning the product loose on the high street. An apprehensive W. H. Smith didn’t take delivery of its first microcomputers until the September. By this time, Timex had finally got into the swing of ZX81 assembly and the fulfilment delays of nine weeks reported in July had been whittled down to something approaching the twenty-eight days promised in the ads.

Over the next twelve months, Rowland’s gamble was to generate a return that would justify his salary for the next decade. Negative feedback from the shopfloor was rapidly reversed by an overwhelmingly enthusiastic market response. In the year following the ZX81’s appearance in the high street, W. H. Smith sold in excess of 350,000 machines and banked a net profit of around £10m (This figure assumes a ZX81 purchase price of £69.95 and the 40 per cent retailer’s discount quoted by W. H. Smith. It takes no account of additional revenue from ZX81 peripherals, software, books and magazines.) As far as the revamped bookstore chain was concerned, Sinclair products meant good business.

Unfortunately, every innovation has its price. Although the arrival of the Sinclair machine upped till counts in branches all over the country, on the shopfloor W. H. Smith staff found themselves totally unprepared for the kind of problems that arise when you mix with hi-tech merchandise. In an effort to instil sufficient worker confidence to neutralize the precocious demands of the hobbyist hordes, the company hastily initiated computer-consciousness training. Four hundred and fifty bemused employees were shown how to switch on a ZX81, load software and write a simple BASIC program. In the months that followed, these hapless individuals were lumbered with the mantle of ‘computer expert’ and suffered accordingly.

Cushioned by the distance that comes with executive privilege, Rowland is quite content to write off the shopfloor aggravation precipitated by Smith’s microcomputing venture. He readily admits that the high number of faulty ZX81s returned initiated a company policy of ordering a third more Sinclair machines than were actually required for sale. Although Rowland maintained to us that ‘quality control is always a problem with Sinclair products’, as far as the ZX81 and the Spectrum were concerned, the profits more than compensated for the complaints.

In the interests of completeness (and as a trivial example of the domino theory in commercial life), it’s worth recalling the transformation of a particularly dull consumer-electronics artefact into a microcomputing peripheral. For the majority of ZX users, magnetic tape was the only viable means of storing their software creations. Data storage not being a strong point of Sinclair machines, it soon became clear that only a certain kind of cassette recorder was equipped for the task. In an era of music centres and portable sound systems, it turned out that data storage on a ZX micro required a mono, low-fidelity ‘shoebox’ cassette player; the kind of machine that had disappeared from the market years before the appearance of the ZX81.

As Sinclair micros sold in their hundreds of thousands, an insatiable market developed for an extinct breed of cassette recorder. Sinclair Research has never devoted much energy to the peripheral support of its products, but there’s no excuse for its failure to exploit the data-storage requirements of every single ZX owner. Rather than initiate the ambitious Microdrive development, the company could have anticipated consumer demand and reaped a substantial profit by simply adding its logo to an existing low-tech product. In the event, consumers suffered the frustration of a barren market until W. H. Smith was driven to satisfy demand with a product of their own. The company bought in devalued stock from the Far East, added the W. H. Smith brand and sold 100,000 ‘data recorders’ in eighteen months.

One of the defining characteristics of fashion is that its manifestations can never be accurately captured by history. Origins, events and consequences can all be recorded, but no retrospective account can communicate the passion and urgency of a social fad. In short, the spirit and commercial potential of the micro mania that followed the launch of the ZX81 are effectively lost to memory. Nevertheless, when assessing a man whose real achievements have so often been smothered by hyperbole and misleading self-promotion, it is critical that Clive Sinclair and his products are recognized as the single most important elements in the technological and commercial environment that created the UK microcomputing boom of the early 1980s. The hobbyists who took computing out of the universities and into the home were (broadly speaking) bright social misfits in their late twenties who, a decade earlier, would have been building the ultimate hi-fi or searching for a way to better the theory of relativity. The consumers who made Sinclair a millionaire and micros an option for Christmas were predominantly schoolkids who lacked the coordination or the inclination to ride a skateboard but had the brains or determination to assimilate a new technical practice (or got a kick out of computer games).

The new investors in the latest flagship of consumer electronics fired and inspired an embryonic industry with the imagination and enthusiasm of adolescence. They were also the determining factor in its commercial durability as a mass-market phenomenon. Product development and market penetration undoubtedly benefited from their support, but businesses floundered and failed when they underestimated the technical sophistication and healthy discrimination of a disturbingly uncompromising punter. Sinclair lost his grip on the microcomputer market when he chose to neglect the enthusiasts he understood and who had made him a household name.

One of the enduring impressions on meeting Clive Sinclair is endearingly anachronistic: the eternal electronics enthusiast who will never outgrow his passion for soldering-irons, transistors and a new gizmo. As we have seen, the success of the kits marketed by Radionics and the early Sinclair Research had little to do with the quality of the products, but quite a lot to do with the persuasive marketing of concepts that intrigued the electronics hobbyist or promised a window into the future. Sinclair’s talent has always been his ability to identify such concepts and direct an R&D team towards their commercial realization.

With the success of the ZX81, Sinclair found himself in the role of avuncular guru for an entire generation of microcomputing enthusiasts. Sinclair the man would have identified with the obsessionalism of a technological vanguard, but soon tired of a product range in which he had little interest or expertise. Sinclair the businessman should simply have noted the ardour of the obsession and profited from his company’s reputation and market lead. After the launch of the ZX Spectrum, the ZX81’s successor, Sinclair Research’s domination of the home-computer market could have been secured by the design and promotion of products clinically tailored to a market sufficiently sophisticated to define its future demands with the precision of a blueprint.

As it turned out, Sinclair chose to become a victim of his own propaganda. Intimidated by the computing mystique, but intrigued by the frenzy the new craze inspired, the popular press had decided to tackle a commercial success it didn’t understand by latching on to its leading light, and milking Sinclair’s PR image as the working man’s boffin for all it was worth. Never comfortable with half-measures, Fleet Street hyped up Primary Contact’s promotional sketch of the innovatory entrepreneur until it described a genius to rival the greats of history. (The Sun promoted Sinclair as ‘the most prodigious inventor since Leonardo’.) In the short term, this ostensibly positive press was good for business, but as far as Sinclair was concerned the consequences were disastrous. Never a shrinking violet at the best of times, Clive was encouraged by the media promotion and development of his fantasy image to subscribe to his own mythologizing. It’s clear that even before the launch of the Spectrum Sinclair had outgrown the role of microcomputer manufacturer and accepted the mantle of pioneering boffin leading Britain into a technological Utopia. His cavalier approach to customer relations is reminiscent of an imperial disdain for persistent petitioners. That Sinclair Research initially prospered in spite of its casual approach to consumer relations is simply a consequence of its effective monopoly of a section of the market in which demand frequently exceeded supply. John Rowland of W. H. Smith is convinced that the company’s declining fortunes are directly attributable to a corporate arrogance born of its sustained period as a market leader.

By now it should be clear that weak or effectively non-existent management structures have been the root cause of the inconsistent performance of the Sinclair companies. The most conspicuous manifestation of this failing has been a squandering of valuable resources, and of all the resources that have been wasted none is more important than the goodwill and enthusiasm of the predominantly teenage market that supported the first wave of home computers.

Of the motive forces that drive Clive Sinclair, alongside genuine initiative, relentless personal ambition and commercial dogmatism runs a vein of good old-fashioned patriotism. Close friends insist that although both surprised and mildly embarrassed by the honour, Sinclair regards his knighthood as one of the crowning achievements of his life. Sinclair is not just a businessman, but a British Businessman expanding the frontiers of commerce in pursuit of the technological key to national prosperity. It is patriotism as much as commercial loss that inspires Sinclair’s rage whenever the BBC saga is mentioned.

The BBC’s decision to promote the popular application of microcomputers is the second external factor that influenced sales of the ZX81. Shortly after establishing the retail agreement with W. H. Smith, Sinclair received a call from former employee Chris Curry. The Acorn director had come across a story in one of the computing weeklies announcing that the BBC was planning a series outlining the principles, practice and application of microcomputers. The series was to be produced by Paul Kriwaczek, who, having devoted a year to exploring the potential of the microcomputer boom, had very clear ideas about the form and function of his project. One of the series’ defining principles was that the Corporation would produce software in support of its enterprise. Once this approach had been decided on, the selection of an appropriate hardware base soon became a pressing concern:

At the very beginning, all our advisers told us that it was absolutely necessary that an organization with the standing and public confidence of the BBC should enter the business of computer software, but software for what? (Your Computer, March 1982.)

The Beeb’s ‘advisers’ in the microcomputing project were MUSE (Mini and Micro Users in Secondary Education), who made it clear to Kriwaczek that in-house hardware should define the software base for the project. According to the article Chris Curry had spotted, a subsidiary of the Corporation, BBC Enterprises, intended marketing the computer that would run the Corporation’s software. To the chagrin of the Radionics exiles, it emerged that the Beeb had selected Newbury’s NewBrain as the centrepiece for the series. The fruits of the microcomputer project Sinclair had initiated at Sinclair Radionics seemed poised to strike the hand of their creator. The substance of Curry’s call was that he felt Acorn and Sinclair Research should join forces to resist the Beeb’s decision to use the NewBrain as the basis of the series.

Since all other participants dismiss the saga as ancient history, we must rely on Sinclair’s version of subsequent events. The Sinclair version of the story goes something like this. When Clive learned of the Beeb’s decision to use the NewBrain exclusively throughout the series, he made it clear that he was opposed to any machine being so promoted by a state institution. On the basis of his phone call, Sinclair assumed that Chris Curry’s objections were along much the same lines. In any event, from the Research corner letters were written, MPs lobbied and outrage expressed, but no one seemed to take much notice.

To cut a long story short, Newbury stunned both Sinclair and Curry by turning down the BBC’s patronage. (‘More no-brain than NewBrain,’ quips a still incredulous Sir Clive.) A few days later, Sinclair called the Acorn office only to be told that at that very moment Curry was at the BBC. It seems that Curry had been actively promoting the new Acorn product (codename ‘Proton’) as the NewBrain alternative. The Beeb checked out the specs and swallowed Curry’s bait. Acorn was awarded the BBC contract. (After a series of delays, the BBC Micro was finally launched in January 1982 at £205 for the 16K version and £292 for the 32K machine.) In the Sinclair account of these events, much is made of the fact that John Coll of MUSE ultimately became part of the Acorn team. In reality, it seems unlikely that anyone working for MUSE would so blatantly compromise the integrity of both himself and his organization. More realistically, it seems entirely likely that in his determination to win the Beeb contract Curry embellished the Proton’s potential. Assuming this to be the case, it would have been logical for Acorn to headhunt Coll in the hope that his expertise would guide the Proton towards the satisfaction of the Beeb’s expectations.

Apart from severely bruising a friendship, the BBC saga also instilled in Sinclair a deep-rooted animosity for the Corporation. With more venom than accuracy, in a recent interview he described the affair as an example of ‘disgraceful profiteering’. According to Sinclair, his company was never given a genuine opportunity to tender for the BBC contract. When, after repeated protests, the Corporation finally came up with the specifications of the machine they required, an infuriated Sinclair was confronted with the specs for the Acorn Proton. It seems that the BBC had made up its mind and nothing was going to change it.

Personalities aside, one of Sinclair’s most vocal complaints about this affair has been that the BBC has never explained the reasoning behind its decision to adopt the Acorn product. It must be said that the Corporation’s choice of micro can remain a mystery only for Sir Clive. In spite of the awesome sales of the ZX81’s successor, few technical commentators would dispute the superiority of the Acorn machine over any of the ZX range. This said, no prototype of the Proton existed when the contract with Acorn was finalized, so it’s a fair bet that the BBC was swayed by a comparison of Sinclair’s militantly aberrant ZX81 with Acorn’s ostensibly standard Atom. (To be fair, it should be noted that Curry’s early machine resembled a ‘standard’ micro only to the uneducated eye. Although the Acorn computer boasted a ‘professional’ keyboard, Atom BASIC was actually one of the most aberrant implementations of the language to hit the streets.) As far as the Corporation was concerned, Curry was offering the world a professional keyboard, plans for standard disc-storage facilities and an admirably structured BASIC with advanced graphics potential. On the evidence of the ZX81, Sinclair was promoting a dubious membrane keyboard, the promise of untested, non-standard data storage in the shape of the Microdrives and a decidedly unstructured BASIC with no sign of graphics. So where was Acorn’s competition?