Sinclair Spectrum designer Rick Dickinson dies

The designer of the ZX80, ZX81 and Spectrum loses his battle against cancer in the US

Rick Dickinson, the designer of the fondly remembered Sinclair computers, has died in the US after a battle against cancer.

Dickinson designed the classic Sinclair home computers of the '80s, including the ZX80, ZX81 and ZX Spectrum - some of the best-selling early home computers.

He was also part of the team responsible for the machines' boxy appearance and distinctive rubber keys, choices made in an effort to reduce costs, as the design required far fewer components than traditional keyboards.

More recently Dickinson was said to be involved in a project from Retro Computers to release a modern handheld version of the Spectrum.

The ZX Spectrum in particular was a cornerstone of the '80s revolution in home computing, spawning a generation of bedroom coders and kick-starting the UK's IT industry.

Many thousands of games were produced for the device, many of which are still remembered and played today by nostalgic fans.

Some of these have even been rearchitected to work on modern mobile devices, proving the appetite for certain of the classics still remains.

In 2016 Sir Clive Sinclair, the founder of Sinclair Research, the firm behind the computers, said that coding skills had regressed across UK schools, as a result of underinvestment.

"In the 1980s, Britain was the world leader in coding for children, and the government should have put computing on the school syllabus then, not wait decades to do it," he told Computing at the time.

"I feel very sad that it happened that way. We could now still be a world leader, but many other countries have embraced coding and IT in their education systems considerably more than we have done."

The ZX80, ZX81 and Spectrum are currently on dispay at the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge.