these days I was surprised two times because colleagues at work (not only men!) apparently weared a QL lable on their shirt ... there must be a fashion lable with a logo that looks very similiar to the QL's start screen...
Oh and btw I got aware of the fact that it is probably very unfair to name the QL "Sinclair's black box" ... as I did before ... I guess in 1984 Clive was the "frontman" of Sinclair research as it goes for publicity but I doubt if he really was the brain behind the QL project?
Is there an official "hall of fame" for the creators of the QL on the web? If yes it should (besides the hardware/software aspect) definitely also give some credit to the creator of the QL design. It is still amazing for me when I put a QL and SONY's PS2 together on a table - from a design aspect they fit perfectly as if they were from the same collection.
The industrial design for the QL was done by an 'in house' designer - Rick Dickinson - who trained at Newcastle University.
Sinclair Research was his first design job - he did the ZX81 and the Spectrum, prior to the QL.
As I teach design, I got to know Rick very well through admiring the industrial design work he was then doing for Sinclair.
He was helpful with some of my students who did a project on a personal computer - which was at the time when the Spectrum was being conceived.
Rick also did the Sinclair B+W Pocket TV.
The methodology of the design was always around the arrangement of the basic components and features, hence everything was small, compact and neat ... and always black :-) ... and it had to be produced for very low cost to sell at a low market price.
The designs still look modern ... hence your comparison with more recent Sony products.
Rick also designed the Amstrad 640 Portable PC, with a folding flat screen. One of the first available portables, or 'luggables', at the time.
If the technology that we have now for flat LCD screens, big hard drives, etc, were to be available to a 21st century Sinclair Research ... then we would have some innovative designs to tempt us all again :-) ... and be the cheapest, innovative, small sized, etc, around.
Yet, gone are the days when computers were designed and made in the UK..
In fact, apart from Apple, there is very little innovation in computer design. As most are still stuck with the 3 box thinking of Computer, Screen and Keyboard, that has made the PC dominant in the market.
I often think that the QL was almost there as a portable, with the computer and keyboard being the same unit.
By the way, an outside designer was brought in for the C5 project.
-- Malcolm Cadman _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.quanta.org.uk/mailing.htm
