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SINCLAIR QL AND QL PRINTER
Sir Clive Sinclair had never envisioned the ZX Spectrum to become a gaming computer, as it mostly did. However, he did not give up and released, in 1984, a professional computer named Quantum Leap.
It had a Motorola 68008 @ 7.5MHz processor, 128K of extended memory, two microdrives (another idea Clive Sinclair studied and used endlessly) and, also, network capacity. The QDOS operative system could handle multitasking, it also had a BASIC interpreter (SuperBASIC) and came with a Psion office package.
Many issues delayed its delivery to clients for up to a few months and it had even more bugs found when using the computer. These problems created a lot of criticism regarding this model. Even though it was very avant-guard at the time and not that expensive, it only sold around 150,000 units and was suspended in 1985. It was officially discontinued in 1986, after the Amstrad deal went through.
Curiosity: Linux Torvalds, the inventor of Linux’s kernel, credited the fact that he had had a QL to influence his work on Linux.