1K worth of bugs?
On March 5, 1981, some thirty years ago, Sinclair Research launched their amazing ZX81 micro. It was marketed as the first mass market personal computer to retail for under £99 stg. Here in VAT-laden Ireland (how some things never change!) it was IR£149.
It has the dubious honour of being my first introduction to computers and brings back many happy memories of freezing winter days in the living room, trying to choose which two items I could plug into the two mains sockets. Problem was I had three items: the TV (to see what the computer was actually doing); the computer (obviously); and the heater that kept the room above absolute zero.
The computer/TV combo won every time and I bear frostbite scars to prove it.
For so many of us, the ZX81 created a new frontier that was most likely responsible for ruining my life. Had I not spent all those hours and years locked away with ZX Spectrums and Commodore 64s and Atari 800XLs and Amigas and Amstrads and Osbornes and PCs and Macs I might have a real job … or used my god-given natural talents in the worthy roles of confidence trickster or politician.
I have fond memories of the time I sent my postal order for a ZX81 kit to Sinclair’s English HQ in Cambridge, and Sinclair Research returned the cheque uncashed. As I lived “in a foreign country” and they didn’t do “exports”, they couldn’t sell it to me. How times, and customs rules, have changed, and what a lucky escape one unassembled ZX81 kit had.
While we took the photograph, the duck enjoyed looking for bugs inside the ZX81′s 4K ROM and 1K RAM, but preferred the slumbering snails she saw under the rock.
(Ireland, March 5, 2011)