zx81 turns 30

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Fog
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2011/03/11 09:33:39 (permalink)

zx81 turns 30

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12703674

amongst many sites that mention it .


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    Beagle
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    Re:zx81 turns 30 2011/03/11 09:40:50 (permalink)
    The ZX81 was not the original.  That was after Timex bought the company from Sinclair.  The original (of which I still have one) is the Sinclair ZX80.

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    Anubis
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    Re:zx81 turns 30 2011/03/11 10:03:18 (permalink)
    I still have mine too.

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    Fog
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    Re:zx81 turns 30 2011/03/11 13:34:04 (permalink)
    Beagle


    The ZX81 was not the original.  That was after Timex bought the company from Sinclair.  The original (of which I still have one) is the Sinclair ZX80.


    I know that and I never said it was,  but well this is in reference to the 81 the 80 is a different beast i.e. no screen flicker for a start ;-) . I'd power your 80 up at least 1-2 times a year due to the caps.. the 80's go for £150+ here.. whereas the 81 goes for £10-40

    there is a new interface coming out for it which either allows you to use memory card with it etc.. zxpander

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvgdcpwpknY

    p.s. timex didn't buy sinclair they only licensed it for the US and maybe a few more countries. Amstrad bought out sinclair ( a rival UK electronics company)

    post edited by Fog - 2011/03/11 23:07:15
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    Bristol_Jonesey
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    Re:zx81 turns 30 2011/03/12 04:01:02 (permalink)
    Happy birthday to you
    Happy birthday to you

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    Kev999
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    Re:zx81 turns 30 2011/03/12 05:02:38 (permalink)
    My old 48K Sinclair ZX Spectrum (purchased in 1983) is still working.  It's not in my possession anymore, but another family member actually still uses it.

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    Fog
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    Re:zx81 turns 30 2011/03/12 09:12:12 (permalink)
    Bristol_Jonesey


    Happy birthday to you
    Happy birthday to you


    cheers
    #7
    craigb
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    Re:zx81 turns 30 2011/03/12 11:20:52 (permalink)
    You always remember your first 1k of memory...

     
    Time for all of you to head over to Beyond My DAW!
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    Fog
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    Re:zx81 turns 30 2011/03/12 15:55:43 (permalink)
    ah but it had 16k ram pack and the infamous "ram pack wobble"  , which was fixed by using blue-tak (like gum) to stop the wobble.

    like the vic20 had a ram pack :) ... BUT internally folks have boosted it up to 64k IRC.


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    Beagle
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    Re:zx81 turns 30 2011/03/12 20:59:39 (permalink)
    I also still have my Vic 20 and several game packs.

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    craigb
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    Re:zx81 turns 30 2011/03/12 21:40:20 (permalink)
    Fog


    ah but it had 16k ram pack and the infamous "ram pack wobble"  , which was fixed by using blue-tak (like gum) to stop the wobble.

    like the vic20 had a ram pack :) ... BUT internally folks have boosted it up to 64k IRC.

    Interesting...  The first Timex Sinclaire I used only had 1k and so did the PET.  These were both pre-issue models though...  The move to a Trash-80 with 4k of memory was big!  I remember those Heath-Kit, build-your-own-PC packages (which we always called "Heath-Drifts"), I remember mowing LOTS of lawns trying to earn enough money to get a Commodore 64 when they first came out (never made enough) and using the first Apple PC's because they had COLOR!
     
    Of course, all of these were huge improvements from having to use card readers (where the practical joke of the day was to rubber cement two cards together about 3/4 of the way into the box).
     
    I started using computers when I was pretty young in 1970.  I got to use my schools HP-2000 timeshare a lot to keep me out of trouble.  It was just a teletype with an acoustic coupler that you put the phone in and got 110 baud (a few years later, if you could whistle at 4,800hz, you could get them to connect at 300 baud - what you did was call, hear the first acknowledgement, whistle until you heard a higher acknowledgement, then shove the phone into the thing and quickly press line-feed then return repeatedly until it connected).  Fan-fold paper was gold.  We would use it four times:  Up and down on both sides.  When you wrote a game it had to let the user know everything they needed to succinctly and precisely because no one wanted to wait while the teletype printed things out.  If one guy had a good game of Star Trek, everyone wanted to read the printout...
     
    I still have somewhere a few of the programs I wrote back then, along with an HP-2000 user guide, some cards (never had to use paper-tape) and a couple 9" floppies just for fun (hey, those things could hold 80k back then!).  The first program I sold was in 1976 - a help system for the San Diego Unified School District.  Back then, just knowing a language verb that others didn't made you a king!
     
    *Sigh*  Now I feel old...

     
    Time for all of you to head over to Beyond My DAW!
    #11
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