Heartland

Ah, the memories...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17776666

Auntie Beeb wrote:The thin Bauhaus-inspired design was sleeker than anything else on the market

Could be talking about

I cut my teeth on a ZX81, but its limitations (1K RAM!) meant that the Spectrum was the first computer that you could really do anything on. Anyone who writes computer code and who is "of a certain age" will almost certainly have started on a Speccy.

My first computer

Endless Hours spent looking at a TV screen with red/blue, yellow/blue stripes moving up, hoping to not get the dreadful TAPE LOADING ERROR.

Also endless hours with Manic Miner, Invaders, Harrier Attack, Jetpac, Cookie, Chuckie Egg, Automania, Lords of Midnight, Tapper, Formula 1, etc

QAOPM

never had a speccy.

my personal history of computing, in the following order:

zx81
dragon32
texas ti99-4a
atari 800xl
c64 for a long time
amiga 600 & then a 1200
PC - 486 dx2/66
PC - pentium
PC - pentium 3
macbook core 2 duo
macbook core i5

lots of them, some ace, some awful (dragon 32, ffs ) and some incredible (my new i5 macbook)

markfiend wrote:I cut my teeth on a ZX81, but its limitations (1K RAM!) meant that the Spectrum was the first computer that you could really do anything on. Anyone who writes computer code and who is "of a certain age" will almost certainly have started on a Speccy.

Did you not have the 16k RAM-pack for the 81? Very very dodgy connections between the pack and the computer, we had to keep it attached with blu-tac and prayer otherwise the connection would flicker and the entire thing would go t!ts up. I think we sent the computer back to Sinclair about 15 times over 3 years - finally sold it(!) and replaced it with an Amstrad 6128. With the 3.25" disk that no-one else had, and operating system that no-one else used - yeah, we really knew how to choose a computer back then!

EvilBastard wrote:Did you not have the 16k RAM-pack for the 81?

Oh yeah. I'd forgotten about that thing. I think mine burnt out a chip after one too many "wobbles" on the dodgy connector (as you describe).

As I recall, though, someone did manage to squeeze a playable Chess into the native 1K ZX81 (in machine-code, not BASIC).

I should know, Google is infallible: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=zx81%201k%20chess

I always thought that these were the epitome of cool, although having read the Wiki I'm beginning to wonder



We had a flight sim program for the 81 which was quite good - fondly recall long winter evenings with the book of programs that you could key in - lunar lander, butterfly. My primary school had an 81 that one of the teachers learned to program - they even bought the case that had the proper keys on it instead of the keyskin. It was ace - there was a game called Kingdoms (forerunner to SimCity or Empires), and a TT "simulator" where you had to key in a number from 1-9 for the speed that you wanted to take a particular part of the course, with tyre, road, and weather variables, and you either crashed, went through (and you'd get a time for the section), and if you went too slow then you'd get a comment about not being brave enough to be on the course! Fun times...

A friend of mine got the QL with a microdrive built in. It was horribly prone to failure. Story of Sinclair's life really.

I never had Spectrum, i started from Commodore C-64 and after that i had Amiga 500.

I think I played Kingdoms! But I started out on an Amstrad C64 with authentic green-scope monitor, looked like something off Red October

We had a C64, which meant we looked down on Spectrum owners. It was a bit like whether you watched BBC or ITV.

stufarq wrote:We had a C64, which meant we looked down on Spectrum owners. It was a bit like whether you watched BBC or ITV.

Which was which?

C64 was the way to go, it was that or the Amiga 1040 ST in my time.

Of course, I had the beige 'bowler hat' C64 with a Final Cartridge 3, the white affair looks too modern

By the way, still have a C64, but unfortunately enough, it IS the white affair

IZ.

Back when programming was fun...

Never had a Spectrum but I still have some C64 assembler book lying around somewhere; today's monstrous, often badly designed frameworks 'n stuff are just so boring and tedious to use.

It's been 25 years or so since I programmed something on the C64= but I'm sure I still remember some PEEK and POKE codes by heart...

IZ.

I still play some Speccy games (via an emulator). You can get almost everything ever released (but not the "ULTIMATE" titles unfortunately) from http://worldofspectrum.org/

Ultimately (see what I did there Mark?) it was the creativity that the budget limitations of the spectrum seemed to generate that won the C64 v Spectrum debate for me. Especially that one particular company. Knight Lore, he geeks out loud. Hang on, I've just lost track of what year it is...

Heh. Indeed.

And agreed on all fronts.