40 years since Sinclair QL was released. And what a weird machine it was. I did not own one, but a friend had one.
How Sinclair’s QL computer outshined Apple’s Macintosh against all odds
https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/16/ql_legacy_at_40/?fbclid=IwAR25KCqGpu82VR-PVy_z_TMatwxHLKu58XMT0fw7VnQ8Zgqas_IaBqOkXMA
Compatible hardware and peripherals are still on sale, four decades after its launch.
Two weeks before Apple launched the Macintosh, Sir Clive Sinclair launched his unprecedentedly powerful yet affordable Motorola-powered SOHO computer – starting a line of hardware and software that, remarkably, is still going.
The QL remains a much-misunderstood computer. For its time, it was just as radical as the closely related machine that launched days later. Although it wasn’t a smash hit, it wasn’t the failure it’s often deemed.
Sinclair Research launched the QL on January 12, 1984, nearly two weeks before Apple Computer launched its new Macintosh computer on the 24th. Both machines had Motorola 68000-family processors, a mere 128 kB of memory, and just a pair of serial ports for I/O. Both launched with powerful bundled applications. Both had brutally cut-down specifications to make them price competitive, and both were big technological gambles on unproven technology, previously only available in vastly more expensive computers.
When the QL turned 30, The Reg published a detailed history
https://www.theregister.com/2014/01/12/archaeologic_sinclair_ql/
Apple launch
https://www.theregister.com/2014/01/24/thirty_years_of_the_apple_macintosh_p1/
0 Comments
Be the first to post a comment.