Sinclair QL

The Sinclair QL was a personal computer released in 1984, intended for "the small business and the serious hobbyist" (Salus 2011, The Daemon, the Gnu, and the the Penguin, ch. 21). The "QL" stands for "Quantum Leap". It was on a machine like this that Linus Torvalds (the original creator of Linux) developed his programming skills in his late teens. It had a 7.5 Mhz processor, 128K of RAM and two cartridge drives for the tiny so-called "Microdrive" tape cartridges.

I found an ad for a Sinclair QL by pure coincidence, I was actually looking for old UNIX machines. The stunning looks made it hard to resist. Since the buyer lived relatively close, I decided to save the cost (and risk) of shipping by picking it up in person. I had no car at the time, so I took the bus and was met by the seller at the bus stop. He was a friendly old geek, probably around 60. Rather than bringing the Sinclair to me at the bus stop, he drove me to his home to pick it up there. His house was quite a sight: tables, shelves and benches were covered with circuit boards, archaic manuals, computer magazines from past decades and various bits and ends. Over a cup of coffee, the old man spoke enthusiastically of his younger days, when he apparently had been quite adept at programming in BASIC. He showed me old magazines with page after page of source code that one could type into one's computer, a very laborious and demanding method of copying but probably quite effective in the days before cheap data storage media and network connectivity. I was nodding, trying to keep up with his fast-paced explanations, hoping that he wasn't going to reveal that he was a serial killer. Before I left, he even got the point where he told me that he had thrown away such vast amounts of electronic waste that he was now banned at the local recycling facility. But, he confided with a smug smile, his wife now brought his old discarded computers to that same facility without him, leaving the staff there clueless. I made a mental note to myself that I must not end up like this, collecting old computers is not a harmless hobby, it seems.

 

Back home, I played around with the Sinclair QL for a while. The operating system wasn't too impressive, since I was accustomed to UNIX and Linux. Nevertheless, I played around with writing crude programs in BASIC and then storing them on the Microdrives. The seller was kind enough to include an original binder manual in perfect condition. Some day, I will have to try to get a hold of the office suite that was bundled with the Sinclair QLs back in the 1980s.

While the software on the Sinclair QL didn't manage to keep me interested for very long, I still think that the machine itself is an exceptionally aesthetical design. The matte black boxy shape, the way the keyboard is elevated in two levels, the petite Microdrives: it's perfection. It shows the talent and skill of someone who managed to take the best design trends of the 1980s and combine them into a single machine. Truly remarkable.