Sinclair User

» see sinclairuser.com as it lived, on the wayback machine

~ the goodbye ~

The first issue of Sinclair User went on sale in April 1982, the same month Sinclair Research announced the ZX Spectrum. ECC Publications put it out monthly from London, aimed at anyone who owned a Sinclair machine, which in that first year still mostly meant a ZX81. John Sterlicchi edited issue one. Within a year the magazine had the subject it would keep for the next eleven.

EMAP took it over in September 1984. The circulation figure that survives is from July of that year: around 96,000 copies a month, at the peak of the British home computer boom, for a magazine about one manufacturer's machines. The early tone was hobbyist. Program listings you typed in yourself sat next to hardware reviews, and the adventure section was written by Richard Price in the voice of a character called Gordo Greatbelly. Andrew Hewson, who had founded Hewson Consultants, answered readers' technical questions in a column called How the Hell.

Under David Kelly from mid 1986 the magazine turned toward games and color printing. Under Graham Taylor it acquired a cartoon character called Kamikaze Bear and a voice pitched at younger readers. Games that scored well got a Sinclair User Classic badge, which publishers then reprinted on their own advertisements, so the magazine's judgment ended up selling the software it had judged.

~ the chronicle ~

~ the issue that never existed ~

Somebody at EMAP skipped a number. The magazine dated April 1990 went out as issue 98 rather than 97. Nobody corrected it, so every issue after that carried a number one higher than the count of magazines actually printed. That is why the last issue is numbered 134 and is the 133rd.

In April 1993 I was nine, in Turkey, and a British newsagent was not something that existed within a thousand miles of me. Sinclair machines did reach the country, mostly as clones, but a London monthly about them did not. What I read a few years later was in Turkish and about PC hardware, by which point the Spectrum was something older people brought up.

~ mr technical, aka specman ~

The masthead of the last issue preserves the house style better than any description of it could. Alan Dykes is listed as editor and Sara Pruce as art editor. Under the heading SU Crew the staff are given joke titles rather than job titles: Mr Checkout for Steve Keen, Mr Technical for Graham Mason, who is also credited as Specman. The adventure pages belong to Pete Gerrard and the Sorceress.

In May 1992 the former rival CRASH was notionally absorbed into Sinclair User. In practice this meant the Crash! logo appeared on the cover and very little else changed. The market left to consolidate by then was very small.

~ the last april ~

Issue 134 is dated April 1993 and does not open with a farewell. The announcement is buried in the blurb for the cover tape, where the staff are describing what they managed to fit on Fun 4: "although sadly this is SU's last ever issue, we've managed to squeeze an extra item onto the Fun 4 yet again." The tape carried a full game called Pizza Bar and the fourth part of Axe of Kolt. The reviews that month covered Nigel Mansell's World Championship and a Code Masters compilation.

There had been an American spin-off years earlier, Timex Sinclair User, for the market where the machines were sold under the Timex name. It did not last long. The British title ran for eleven years, which nothing else aimed at those computers managed.

sinclairuser.com today is SUMO, an unofficial archive run by one person, holding scans and transcriptions of the whole run. Its front page asks the original publishers to please not request a removal. The last update is dated September 2017. The magazine has been gone for three times as long as it ran, and the archive has been up for most of that.

@}-->--

              )
             (_)
            .-'-.
            |   |
            |   |
            |   |
            |   |
          __|   |__   .-.
       .-'  |   |  `-:   :
      :     `---'     :-'
       `-._       _.-'
           '""""""

« previous  ·  random  ·  next »