Rick Dickinson was Sinclair's industrial designer - he designed the Psectrum, ZX81 and otherbthings. recently, he's posted a couple of images like this:



http://flic.kr/p/pk74Hi

This could just be an exercise in updating an old design, but I can't help thinking that there is more going on. The Ql wasn't the success that Sinclair hoped for, so reviving it just for a redesign seems odd.

I don't trust those lights - it'll kill us all!

Never knew the QL existed. Interesting that it had control and alt keys. We had two spectrums and neither has the rubbery keys. It was all-black, all-plastic. Microdrives were awesome over cassette tapes and I used to dream of having a rom expansion pack.

The QL was Sinclair's attempt at a 16 bit machine. Well, it had a Motorola 68000, but it used 8-bit busses. The keyboard was similar to the Spectrum + - plastic, probably like yours. It also used Microdrives - two were built in. It was a noble attempt at a business machine, but it was too little too late - by the. IBM & Microsoft were making inroads, and a small British company was just not going to compete.

The QL was certainly one of my favourite computers. Not so good for games, as I recall, but that could be because I used it for serious work type stuff.

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IIRC the Spectrum+ was release after the QL and inherited the QL's case/keyboard design.

I did like the QL - we used them at school. I think I might still have a Spectrum and a Spectrum+ in the loft (assuming they survived the house moves, and SWMBO didn't throw them in a skip).

I lent my QL to my kid brother who then GAVE it away to a friend of his, who was allegedly writing a book. Or doing college work. Or some other BS reason.

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