40 Years Ago: How Sinclair's QL Computer Outshined Apple's Macintosh

This week the Conversation ran an article titled "Mac at 40: User experience was the innovation that launched a technology revolution". But meanwhile, an anonymous reader shared this report from the Register:Two weeks before Apple launched the Macintosh, Sir Clive Sinclair launched his unprecedentedly powerful yet affordable Motorola-powered SOHO computer - starting a line of hardware and software that, remarkably, is still going. The QL remains a much-misunderstood computer. For its time, it was just as radical as the closely related machine that launched days later. Although it wasn't a smash hit, it wasn't the failure it's often deemed. A multinational licensed Sinclair's hardware, and several big-name companies sold versions of it around the world. The QL also inspired a dozen software-compatible successors, at least one of which is still manufactured today ... and not one but two versions of its unique operating system are still around as open source. Sinclair Research launched the QL on January 12, 1984, nearly two weeks before Apple Computer launched its new Macintosh computer on the 24th. Both machines had Motorola 68000-family processors, a mere 128 kB of memory, and just a pair of serial ports for I/O. Both launched with powerful bundled applications. Both had brutally cut-down specifications to make them price competitive, and both were big technological gambles on unproven technology, previously only available in vastly more expensive computers. Sinclair's bet was that multitasking would be the key differentiator. It was the first affordable personal computer to offer this. Today it's clear that Sinclair backed the wrong horse, but four decades ago, its mistake was understandable. Before the Macintosh, it was not at all clear that GUIs were the future... When the QL turned 30, The Reg published a detailed history, but a decade on, we thought it would be more interesting to look at the legacy of this pioneering machine - the many models of QL-compatible machines that appeared after Sinclair Research moved on to other things, and the descendants of its remarkable OS and their continued existence in the 21st century.

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