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!