I think you misunderstand. The Sinclair model was to design something as cheaply as possible using insane engineering workarounds to shave every last possible penny off the price. Then to package it with better-than-average industrial design and sell it through a marketing blitzkrieg.
Sinclair came to give a talk at our college and explained this was a deliberate and calculate strategy. He sketched a graph showing that maximum profit for his way of working was around a margin of 50%. Unlike most engineers, he was thinking in business terms throughout - while also appreciating the engineering challenges.
It was an excellent strategy for his market, which was mostly nerds and engineers who appreciated low cost access to advanced tech.
Compare the HP and TI calculators with the Sinclair models for context.
There was an engineering-led tradition at HP etc which produced leading edge no-compromise products, but they were sold at leading-edge no-compromise prices. The HP-65 cost the equivalent of >$4000 in modern money.
When you bought a Sinclair calculator you didn't just buy a plastic package with a TI chip inside. You bought the chance to feel a part of a British engineering tradition of cut corners and minimal solutions which nonetheless still sort-of-mostly worked.
You would read about the various hacks and cost saving tricks and think "That's really clever. How does that work, exactly? I wonder if I could that?"
That was the core of the Sinclair branding. It was the ethic that created the ZX series and gave developers and bedroom entrepreneurs a start. It was a scene, and it was the reason he was so influential when more conventional calculator companies - of which there were very many - weren't.
> When you bought a Sinclair calculator you didn't just buy a plastic package with a TI chip inside. You bought the chance to feel a part of a British engineering tradition of cut corners and minimal solutions which nonetheless still sort-of-mostly worked.
Americans: You have the 'nerd' and the 'hacker', but we have the 'boffin' and the 'bodger'. I'm probably the latter.
Sinclair came to give a talk at our college and explained this was a deliberate and calculate strategy. He sketched a graph showing that maximum profit for his way of working was around a margin of 50%. Unlike most engineers, he was thinking in business terms throughout - while also appreciating the engineering challenges.
It was an excellent strategy for his market, which was mostly nerds and engineers who appreciated low cost access to advanced tech.
Compare the HP and TI calculators with the Sinclair models for context.
There was an engineering-led tradition at HP etc which produced leading edge no-compromise products, but they were sold at leading-edge no-compromise prices. The HP-65 cost the equivalent of >$4000 in modern money.
When you bought a Sinclair calculator you didn't just buy a plastic package with a TI chip inside. You bought the chance to feel a part of a British engineering tradition of cut corners and minimal solutions which nonetheless still sort-of-mostly worked.
You would read about the various hacks and cost saving tricks and think "That's really clever. How does that work, exactly? I wonder if I could that?"
That was the core of the Sinclair branding. It was the ethic that created the ZX series and gave developers and bedroom entrepreneurs a start. It was a scene, and it was the reason he was so influential when more conventional calculator companies - of which there were very many - weren't.