Rick Dickinson, Designer of Sinclair Spectrum Home Computers, Dies

New submitter Badger Nadgers quotes a report from the BBC: Rick Dickinson, the designer of Sinclair computers, has died in the U.S. while receiving treatment for cancer. The British designer, thought to be in his 60s, worked in-house for Sinclair Research and oversaw the creation of its home computers in the 1980s. He was responsible for the boxy look of the ZX80 and ZX81 and the Bauhaus-inspired appearance of the Spectrum. Mr Dickinson also helped to develop the technologies for the UK company's touch-sensitive and rubber keyboards. He was recently linked to a crowd-funded project by Retro Computers to turn the Spectrum into a handheld computer. Some of the early reference designs for the machine were drawn up by him.

79.99 ZX81 kit

[scottrocket]

I still have delightfully frustrating memories of building and coding for a ZX81, right after the kit came out - 129.99 for the pre-built & I was young &poor!

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[cliffjumper222]

Yes, it was a game-changer. I remember the newspaper ad for the ZX-81 because my dad showed it to me. It was a full page in The Times (of London for US readers) and offered a fully functional computer for under 100 pounds! Wowza! Even at that price, I couldn't get one and had to hold out for a secondhand Video Genie, after which a few years later I graduated to a BBC Model B. As a result, I never got into the Sinclair side of things. I heard that if you zipped a ballpoint pen around each of the ZX-81 keys,

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[emorning]

I was a junior in college studying physics. I was putting myself through school so I bought the kit. I dumpster dived a TV and got a tape recorder at Goodwill. I coded solutions to numerical analysis problems on it before going to the lab to punch the code onto cards.
It lasted just under a year and I really missed it when it was gone.

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[scottrocket]

You were a bit more ambitious than I was! I wrote some lame rocket launch simulator (fast mode), re-wrote that blobby comet game, and some sinking fund calculator to tease me about how much money I could have with reinvestment, if I had any money to begin with. Good times! : )

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[K. S. Kyosuke]

Maybe they do, it seems he didn't survive the treatment...

Re: Cancer treatment in the US?

[cyber-vandal]

Using a man's death to score political points - nice.

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[Nutria]

I've already got enough karma.

Re: Cancer treatment in the US?

[cyber-vandal]

He was in the US for complementary therapy as a desperate last resort after the cancer came back after his previous NHS treatment. Nothing to do with US medical care at all.

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[Nutria]

You and I both know that there's complementary pseudo-therapy in the UK.

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[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

You realise your point is somewhat undermined by the fact he died right?

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[Nutria]

You missed the importance of pseudo-.

Re: Cancer treatment in the US?

[cyber-vandal]

Nutria doesn't care that a man died, he has political points to score

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[Nutria]

Men die on a regular basis. No amount of sympathy is going to change that.

Re: Cancer treatment in the US?

[cyber-vandal]

You don't have to be a dick about it though do you?

Re: Cancer treatment in the US?

[cyber-vandal]

It's not available on the NHS now stop being a bellend

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[freeze128]

It was dirt cheap as far as computers go. I was put off from buying one because: no disk for storage, terrible membrane keyboard, and redraw the screen after every keypress...

Re: Good riddance.

[UdoKeir]

You're thinking of the ZX80 :-)

Re: Good riddance.

[lord_mike]

The ZX81 still used the cpu to draw the display, it just did so during the vertical blank interval when nothing was being drawn on the screen. It slowed everything down by 75%, but it eliminated the flicker. The ZX computers seemed to be the only micros besides the Atari 2600 that required cpu to actively draw the screen. I'm sure ol' Clive saved a buck or two doing it that way.

Re: Good riddance.

[UdoKeir]

Perhaps we're talking about something different. The ZX80 had a terrible screen flicker when a key was pressed. The ZX81 did not.

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[lord_mike]

No, we are talking about the same thing. The ZX-81 CPU would update the screen the same way as the ZX-80, but would only do non-screen related calculations when the screen was taking a break from drawing. The ZX-80 just shut off the screen until there was a pause for input. Both drew the screen in the same way, but the ZX-81 managed to find a way to do calculations during the vertical blank, which would keep the screen "alive". The ZX-80 did not. This made teh ZX-81 "slow", mode look good, but at the cost

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[TheRaven64]

Several of the polytechnics were well known for first-rate vocational engineering training. I don't know about Newcastle, but Bristol Poly's aerospace engineering course pretty much guaranteed a job at BAe or Rolls Royce. It was a tragedy when the government decided everyone should go to university and turned them from first-rate vocational institutions into third-rate universities.

ZX Spectrum

[bmimatt]

I wrote my first lines of code on a ZX Spectrum, as a teenager. I still remember the rubber keyboard keys. This made me feel old.

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[4wdloop]

My first coding was on ZX81, there was one in town in some technical high school...ca. 1983..When the ZX Spectrum come in later, I could only watch others having fun with it. Nostalgia...

Apparently ebay still has ZX81 stuff
https://www.ebay.com/p/Sinclai... [ebay.com]

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[neilo_1701D]

My first coding was on ZX81, there was one in town in some technical high school...ca. 1983..When the ZX Spectrum come in later, I could only watch others having fun with it. Nostalgia...

Apparently ebay still has ZX81 stuff

Ditto; six ZX-81s were purchased at my high school in a rural town in Australia. It changed my life. My interest was electronics; this forces an abrupt change and now I'm living in the US and working as a principle technical consultant for Dynamics AX at a big consulting company.

That machine literally changed the direction of my life.

I know Rick designed the case and not the computer or BASIC. But he played a part; and for that I'm grateful towards Rick and sad at his all-to-young passing.

Sad, but apropos

[SlaveToTheGrind]

Given the notoriously well-known saying at the time that the Spectrum keyboard felt like typing on dead flesh [ifwiki.org].

Life Changer ...

[kbahey]

At least for me, it changed my life.

The ZX Spectrum was my first computer ever. I used it to learn BASIC, programming, and all things computers.

As a result, I switched careers from pharmacy to software, and never looked back ...

Rest in peace Rick!

Let's be clear..

[TechyImmigrant]

He designed the box.

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[K. S. Kyosuke]

Because Americans have great cancer specialists due to the unhealthy US lifestyle?

His ZX Spectrum Next design is awesome, too

[neilo_1701D]

I backed the ZX Spectrum Next on Kickstarter. Rick again designed the case, taking his ZX Spectrum 128 design and moving it forwards 35 years. It's beautiful. The case went into production last week, I believe. It's a shame he didn't live to see the project completed.

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[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

It really looks great... image here > Spectrum Next [specnext.com]

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[mccalli]

Oric were British too, and a direct (and later) competitor. But your search has given some true, but misleading results. They didn't "produce some computers", they essentially defined first half of the 80s. Between them and the BBC B, which cost a vast amount more, they set the scene for the home micro explosion. Their relative affordability was absolutely vital.

My first home computer was a ZX Spectrum 48k, bought for me by my parents. It has defined my entire professional life, getting me interested in

Timex-Sinclair 1000

[HiloJoe]

My first digital machine. IIRC it used cassette tape for storage. Could be wrong tho, it's been a long time..