Clive Sinclair, the inventor of the UK’s first mass-market home computer has died. Despite his great successes, his long career was a triumph of perseverance over repeated failure. On occasion his inventions were before their time. In the 1980s he conjured up the C5, an electric three-wheeler, which proved a commercial disaster and later an e-bike, but they anticipated a trend that is now becoming commonplace.
He was born 30 July 1940 in Richmond, England (no birth time), into a family of engineers, excelled at maths at school but did not go to university. He had an incredibly obstinate chart with a Sun Pluto conjunction in Leo with his Sun and Mars in Leo square Jupiter Saturn in Taurus and his Mars square Uranus in Taurus – dogged determination would be ingrained in his DNA. He had the creative Uranus trine Neptune of his generation and in his case it sextiled onto Mercury in Cancer – so he would have ‘eureka’ moments of insight. Sitting amongst all this enduring Fixed planets was a jitterbug Moon and Venus in Gemini which would keep him constantly on the move.
His get-it-together 5th harmonic was strong as was his leaving-a-legacy 17H.
Isn’t it strange looking at old tech from the 70s which at the time seemed so futuristic to my young eyes? I remember slide rules GD and to this day, have no idea how to use one! They were just going out when I was at secondary and I remember my parents thinking that this was the beginning of the end of civilisation because children would no longer be able to do mental arithmetic.
Oh yes, CS definitely had an eye for pretty young women and I believe he met his second wife, 30-odd years his junior at ‘Stringfellows’ where she worked as a pole dancer. His Leo emphasis doesn’t surprise me at all, given that he seemed to enjoy his celebrity status, dancing girls and a showbizzy atmosphere in general. I think it’s interesting that you pointed out he has a marked absence of planets in universal signs and a strong personal sign emphasis, hence his inventions which were certainly ahead of their time in some respects never really reached a wider audience.
Very interesting recollections VF.
A younger wife would certainly fit his Gemini moon-venus while probably putting his Taurus Saturn and Leo Pluto happily in control of the relationship.
That’s so interesting, I would have expected a lot of Aquarius, not Leo! Thanks Marjorie
(Sorry, out of topic)
Can someone or Marjorie tell me which planet represents vaccines? Is it Neptune? Mars (needle)?
Thanks!
Thanks Marjorie.
Seems like his Taurus-Leo planets needed something in the Capricorn-Aqua signs to get a feel for what the world would buy. His inventions were “form follows function” and just lacked a good look to make them more marketable. That foldaway bike pictured just wouldn’t attract anyone, yet it’s not that far off the escooters you do see these days. I wonder if with his Libra north node he needed a good business partner to help with the aesthetics.
Noting that his 80s heyday coincided with the Uranus in Sag era which I associate with the hipster generation. They’d probably have lapped up his inventions for their quirkiness.
I still have the Sinclair pocket calculator that saw me through my school days – I wonder if it’s now worth a few bob! He was a local celebrity when I was a child and I went to school with one of his children. You did used to see the odd C5 being driven around my home city in the 1980s. I recall he was a bit of an eccentric and was one of the first people with a giant, wall-sized TV. That Gemini Venus doesn’t surprise me because in his day he was a bit of a ‘ladies man’. RIP.
VF – you’ve fired up my inner nerd! I can’t believe there’s a whole website about this stuff … http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/sinclair1.html
It appears I had a Texet 880 with its little red LED numbers. Had to press the buttons until they sort of clicked. The whole calculator debate was going on in schools around this time – some parents totally against them. Such a typically British resistance to progress – just because they’d learned with slide rules and log books (whatever they are). After my Texet, progressed onto a couple of Casio models that the school told us we had to have.
Interesting about Sinclair being a ‘ladies man’. Sun/Mars/Pluto in Leo would go well with the Gemini venus/moon. Taurus can be sexual too although with a Jupiter/Saturn/Uranus conjunction, I’d imagine it would be pushing forward then pulling away. Never got that sense Sinclair was doing his inventing solely for the money unlike say, Alan Sugar who he apparently eventually sold the Sinclair computing to.