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 From : Sergej Antonov                       2:465/250      12 May 2002  12:23:22
 To : all
 Subject : Sinclair
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 http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/sinclair/clive_ns0699.htm
 
 === Cut ===
 Sinclair wants to take Intel to task
 (Interview in Network Solutions magazine, June 1999)
 
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 Clive Sinclair set the IT World spinning during the 1980s with his sub-?100
 computer. He talks to Robert Juman Blincoe about his desire to start a portable 
 PC revolution, and to teach Intel a lesson in the process.
 Sir Clive Sinclair doesn't suffer fools gladly and this includes the processor
 developers at Intel. He's also not keen on customer choice being stifled in the 
 computer market and roundly condemns over-priced, over-powered machines. But
 he's not calling the rest of the IT giants incompetents.
 
 It is in this climate that the man who ignited the personal computer market with
 sub-?100 machines in the early 1980s is planning a return to the business. He
 claims he can bring out a portable machine within two years that will be less
 than half the price of whatever is on the market at the time. It will also
 deliver the performance that corporates and consumers want.
 
 The processor is key to this. Sinclair has very strong ideas about how chips
 should have evolved, and though it is doubtful that Intel will be called to
 account for not doing things his way, he has long thought that the chip giant
 has dragged processor development, and the desktop PC, off in a wrong and
 power-wasting direction. This view, combined with the appearance of Linux and
 exciting leaps in display technology, has spurred him to consider re-entering
 the computer business.
 
 He sees his return, or the arrival of someone else with a similar vision, as the
 salvation that the market needs. The dominance of Microsoft Windows and Intel
 processors is one that concerns Sinclair. He hopes the US Department of
 Justice's case against Microsoft and its control of the software market will
 lead to PC suppliers unbundling of Microsoft's products from their systems and
 allowing customers to choose which software they want. Of course, this still
 leaves Intel processors dominant. He said the lack of consumer choice bothers
 him, and that the overblown, memory-sapping software, combined with overpowered,
 over-priced processors, is a problem.
 
 "It really needs something like a dedicated Linux machine to break the mould "
 he said. "I think the situation is frightening. The manufacturers should be
 forced to unbundle. People shouldn't be effectively obliged to pay for having
 Microsoft software. There ought to be a choice - one price for Microsoft and one
 price for Linux."
 
 "Linux looks like one way in - a Trojan horse. Apparently it's a good operating 
 system and a lot of software suppliers are now supporting it. They wouldn't do
 that if they didn't have a lot of confidence in it. I think it will be very
 interesting to do a Linux machine. The standard PC is expensive because of the
 Intel chip. It is elaborate and consumes a large amount of power. The software
 is also very demanding of memory."
 
 The machine Sinclair has in mind could be considered a reworking of the Z88, the
 last computer he developed. The portable Z88, released in 1988, did not achieve 
 the kind of sales its inventor had dreamed of, but he's obviously still fond of 
 its concept. The technology he's now waiting for will give him the chance to
 resolve the issues that made the Z88 fail: "It wasn't the success I'd hoped for 
 partly because of the limitations of display and because it was completely
 non-standard. That's still a possible route to take if it's good enough, but if 
 you can use an OS that's out there, then at least you've got an audience that's 
 familiar with it. Linux looks to me as if it might be the one."
 
 Which One Will He Choose?
 
 Though he's obviously well disposed to Linux, Sinclair won't rule out other OSs.
 "Others are interesting. Psion's is also well-known and very successful," he
 said. His approach to researching any new project is exacting. He
 enthusiastically hunts down the solutions to the problems he thinks exist. He
 demands precision and accuracy from all accounts of developing technology. His
 knowledge of electronics lets him know what is and isn't possible. If you've not
 done or seen things his way, you'd better be able to justify why not. If you're 
 telling him something new, you'd better give the whole story.
 Before Sinclair created his ZX80 and ZX81 home computers, he wrote about
 complicated self-build machines or the more pricey systems from Tandy and Apple.
 Sinclair's budget computers boosted the PC market beyond recognition, giving
 rise to a new generation of people who went on to work in every aspect of the TT
 industry- games developers, corporate information strategists, internet
 visionaries and joumalists. This was the generation introduced to programming,
 touch-insensitive keyboards, and temperamental 16K RAM pack upgrades.
 Sinclair has been looking at the computer market with a view to using current
 and up-and-coming technologies to create a low- cost alternative to Wintel
 machines. A suitable OS and display technology, combined with a low-price,
 powerful processor, and he'd be in business. The ARM chip, forecast to be used
 in 70 per cent of all cellular phones produced next year, is an example of the
 kind of processor Sinclair thinks will help smash the prices of Wintel machines.
 "ARM is an option as it's a low-cost processor with a high performance.
 Processors are always coming along, but it looks attractive."
 
 Sinclair was not immediately converted to Linux when enthusiasts started
 spreading the word about the OS. That's not his way. He gave industry analysts a
 good grilling and has been evaluating it since. He won't commit to saying the OS
 is definitely going to feature in his machine, but it's certainly in his mind.
 
 Not subscribing to the retail scene
 
 Sinclair will sell his new device by mail order,the way he's launched everything
 that he's invented, from the ZX8O to the Zeta bicycle motor and his miniature
 radio. He said his inventions create their own market, which isn't necessarily
 the kind of product retailers want to stock. However he doesn't subscribe to the
 idea that retailers are assisting the Microsoft/Intel power base in keeping PC
 prices high.
 
 "The retailers don't have much choice,they just sell what's provided. They don't
 determine the product, really. It's a Wintel-defined product and all
 computer-makers make clones of them. They don't give a hoot about the design,
 they just sell what's there. They don't know what's possible, what's not
 possible. They don't have a clue.
 
 "Intel is desperately trying all the time to keep people using very expensive
 and complex processors. It's what they supply and what makes them money. It's a 
 shame, but you can't blame them."
 But what he can blame them for, he said, is leading computer development down a 
 single processor design path. "Years ago, Sinclair Research was looking at
 parallel processing machines and that's the way things should have gone." "The
 whole business of having one chunk of silicon as a processor and other great
 chunks of silicon as the memory is a desperately inefficient use of the silicon.
 The memory and processing ought to be merged. Instead of having one processor
 here, and having your memory there, with loads of wires connecting them and
 slowing everything down, you've got one piece of silicon. And all over that
 piece of silicon, you've got blocks of processors and blocks of memory."
 
 "You might have, say, 100 processors in the amount of silicon you've got in a
 present-day machine, but all linked to their memory. Not only would they be
 faster, because they're all on the same piece of silicon, but there's 100 of
 them, so you've probably raised the processing speed of the machine 200 to 300
 times."
 
 This set-up would offer amazing performance for speed-absorbing problems such as
 speech input and complex display generation in real time, said Sinclair. He
 added that Intel knows all about parallel processing because it produces
 parallel- processing machines, and he doesn't believe the direction it has
 chosen is some conspiracy to hold computing back just to make more money, but
 he's annoyed by it. "God knows what Intel is playing at. It's not a conspiracy, 
 just profound incompetence."
 
 He then backtracks slightly, but said he thinks Intel is just making too much
 money from the way it is doing things. He suggested it is going to take some
 external player to make it change its ways. The challenge might come from the
 games markets and the developments that console manufacturers have made in
 making machines that can handle complex graphics in real time.
 
 "Sony Playstation II is going to shake people up because the performance is so
 striking. When you've got a Playstation II, which makes a Pentium III look
 pathetic, people are going to say: `Hang on a second,this games machine makes my
 computer look weak. What's happening here?' And that's just Playstation II,
 which in itself is not really pushing the boundaries."
 
 "Because the games market is so huge, somebody could design the sort of silicon 
 I'm talking about - multiprocessor silicon that will blow your socks off."
 Sinclair is confident his machine will undercut the market when it arrives for
 these very reasons, and the manufacturers will be unable to chase his pricing
 because they're too locked into the Wintel way of doing things. "Their costs are
 tied. The reason the machine I propose will be cheaper is because it will use a 
 lot less memory, use a much lower-cost processor, much simpler power supply and 
 a lower-cost operating system. "It will be lower in cost because of the
 fundamentals. The people who make com- puters at the moment work on very narrow 
 margins, so they can't cut their prices with- out going out of business."
 
 Sinclair's interest in creating a new computer seems academic as well as
 commercial. His knowledge of what Microsoft and Intel have created between them 
 is probably based on exhaustive research as opposed to first-hand experience. He
 doesn't bother using computers himself very often. "The opinion I get is that
 computers are very frustrating for people. They drive me round the bend -
 they're such awful machines." He laughs at this. He knows what computers can do 
 - and what they would allow him to do - but it's still not enough for him. All
 his design work is mathematical, so he uses a calculator. He said it assists him
 with his sums far better than computers can and has no interest or use for the
 graphical display a PC would give him. If a computer needs to be used, he'll get
 someone else to do the work for him. He said his own creations haven't been
 quite so annoying, though. "They were nice and easy to use, but they were really
 only a thing to learn computers on."
 
 === Cut ===
 
 /sly fox
 --- GoldED+/W32 1.1.5-20020105
  * Origin: ( fox ) (2:465/250)
 
 

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