The SINCLAIR Computers

How Amstrad carried on the Sir Clive’s legacy

Lord Sugar knew how he wanted the Spectrum to look well before he picked up the phone to talk to Sir Clive Sinclair about buying Sinclair’s brand and products. The entrepreneur got one of his designers to sketch it before tasking workers in Brentwood, Essex, to take delivery of a Speccy, open it up and list the components so that he could estimate how much it would cost to manufacture.

Armed with this knowledge, he was convinced he could cut costs and make a healthy profit on Sinclair’s machines. So after a bit of back and forth a deal was struck and the Spectrum was soon his.

It was at that point that Amstrad realised it had another asset on its hands: former Sinclair Research engineer Richard Altwasser, who had only recently started working for Lord Sugar’s firm. Richard Altwasser understood the inner workings of the Spectrum and he got on with modifying the basic chip design, improving the sound and producing a new PCB layout.

Before long, the tape-based Spectrum +2 was born, adopting a better keyboard and a similar design to the CPC 464. Selling for £140 in 1986, it sold 250,000 in the first year and it was followed by the three-inch disc based Spectrum +3. Initially retailing for £249, this included AMSDOS on a

64K ROM, although the computer wasn’t entirely compatible with 48K hardware and software.

Both systems ended up being made in the Far East rather than the UK to save money. But Lord Sugar says Amstrad also solved a major problem. “The returns rate of the Spectrum was horrific. The stuff was coming back in greater numbers than they sold,” he says. “I don’t know why, but obviously there were technical issues.”

Thankfully for Speccy fans there was never any consideration given to removing the Sinclair name, “I think much of the value was the brand,” says Roland Perry, “We just production-engineered them to be affordable and reliable.”