Old Tech - New Tech - ZX81

No my friends...that's not a picture of a Door wedge, it's actually a Computer and in 1982 it was at the forefront of home computing! Oh, ok...by modern standards, it really has no other use...other than to be a Door wedge, but it brings back some good memories.

My eldest Brother had decided to join the Navy and off he went at 16/17, leaving myself and my other Brother who is a couple of years older. For his Birthday in 82 (I think), he got a surprise...the mighty Sinclair ZX81!

I kid you not, this was a big deal...no longer did we have to bother our Stepdad anymore with "Can we play on the Computer please?" Only to be met with a stern and miserable face...in fact looking back, it's probably why he bought it, so we didn't bother him. Anyway, this was it...we had our own...or should I say my Brother did! He then had to put up with me saying "Give us a go, give us a go":-)


We'd seen the advert in a magazine and I seem to recall it was on 'Tomorrows World', but not too sure. Well, this was it, I can still remember my Brother setting it up on the floor in the Bedroom, connected to a portable TV...it didn't matter too much about the quality of the tv as the ZX was in black and white and didn't have sound. It had a huge memory of 1k...yes, that's right...not a gig or meg...just 1000 bytes of memory!

You'd be surprised though, how much you could do with it, but by modern standards it was crap. At this time there were a few other Computers on the market and what you could do is buy magazines that had programs printed out. You'd get the mag, spend and hour typing it in and sometimes they even worked! The downside though was that when you turned the Computer off...it all went and you'd have to start again! Oh, didn't I mention that...sorry, you couldn't store anything!

There was one game we used to play for ages that we typed in...a kind of Pitfall, but with a stick man and black blocks and gray blocks...pretty naff when I think of it, but we had hours of fun. BASIC was already built in, so no need to load in and we could program to our hearts content...though I've got to be honest, I wasn't that good at it...mainly because he was mean and wouldn't let me play on it...lol

Then again, I was still young and had my Action Men to play with...and believe me, it was more fun to tie a line from the Bedroom window, down to the Shed door, attach a keyring and let my Action Men go from the window...but making sure I pulled the string from his back...he'd glide down at the speed of sound, shouting "Enemy Tanks approaching" ;-)



This didn't last, as I was about to get my very own Computer...The "Laser 200"...What?...err...yeah, you might not have heard of this one!

Old Tech - New Tech

Computers! Yes, those big pieces of plastic that we sit in front of, pretty much every day...of course, if you're Mac based, well...there's a little less plastic, but the sentiment is the same. We're almost like modern day Gunslingers, with our Mobiles and Laptops, closely at our side...ready to swing into action at a moments notice. You know, it's quite funny when you walk into your local Saloon, pass through the swinging doors...err..ok, maybe not, but you see it all over...

People thrusting Mobile phones into other peoples faces (or their own) and taking pictures that are then sent straight to Facebook or some other account. The behaviour has changed...I don't seem to remember people taking out Polaroids into Pubs and Clubs...so why? Going back to the start of the post, I mention 'Computers' and will go through my journey of using them from a Kid, what I used them for and where they took me.

My first use of a Computer, was the one you can see above...A Sharp MZ80K. My Stepdad (at the time) used to work for the Jag and 'did something' with Computers...I guess the first foray into CAD. Anyway, this was before my School even had Computers! He (RIP) was a nerd, a geek and anything gadgety, he bought it. One day, delivered to the house back in 1980 (I think), came a load of heavy Parcels...It was here...the Computer he'd been talking about for ages, with my Mum saying it was a complete waste of money, but us kids couldn't wait to see it.

Nobody in my School had one, we were the first family to have one in our area, I felt such a snob, even at the young age of 8! Of course, it wasn't our Computer...it was his...and it was made known! After being unboxed and being amazed, saying "wow...it uses tapes!". I was very impressed. It was all set up, ready to turn it on...me nearly peeing myself in anticipation...He then got the manuals out! :-(

They were huge, in ring binders and almost half the size of me!...nearly an hour later (it felt like that) he turned it on..."Beep...then a single white block flashing"...err...Is that it? Ahh, of course, I didn't know, but you had to load in "BASIC" before it would do anything or you could write 'Machine Code' (001100110 etc). Tape was put in, loaded after 20 mins or so and then...it still didn't do anything. My Stepdad turned to myself and my brother and said "You have to program it to do something". Gotta' say, that didn't really mean too much to me, but then he loaded in the Games...Ha hah...That's more like it! Chess!

There were loads more Games like Space Invaders, Ten Pin Bowling and even a Star Trek game...My Brother and I loved it. There was a 'not so good side' in that my Stepdad wouldn't let us use it when he wasn't around and all the BASIC and game tapes we're locked away in a Military style foot locker (I kid you not). One day though...we had a plan! The Space Invaders game, didn't run on BASIC, it was pure Machine Code...which happened to be printed out into a ring binder...so what did we do? Lasting about 3 or 4 hours, we input Binary Code straight into the Computer, with me reading it out and my Brother typing it in...Yes, for nearly 4 hours we typed in '000110001000 etc...and at the end of this, thinking we could play for a few hours before he got home...it didn't work! :-(

Over time, the School got some BBC Computers, but I had the upper hand...why? Because he used to make us do programming lessons after School...So if you want to know or are slightly interested, where it all started for me...it was here:

10 PRINT "Hello World";
20 GOTO 10

RUN

:-)

Then came our own Computers...next up, the ZX81!