The anniversary of the ZX81 at 30 was portrayed in the press yesterday with quotes like 'running a power- station' a misquote to the computational power the '81 had. For me I bought the kit '81 as I was in electronics at the time, the bought version was £20 pound more, far too much in those days to extend to and the other alternative kit computer was the UK101 again in excess of £100 which was way out of my reach.
From an electronics point of view the ZX81 kit was disappointing, it required no real electronic skills other than soldering IC sockets, let down by that I programmed in space invaders (yes in 1K) from a book and I was hooked, but 1K was too limiting. I started saving up for the BBC Micro model A, got halfway there when out comes the Spectrum, this was too tempting and in colour so I got that.
I eventually produced a game called 'Play Your Cards Right' from the TV series (with sound) and got it accepted on to some Compuserve BBs of all things run by BT, but it wasn't called that then, the name escapes me for the moment. The game got copied/moved/bought out and appeared on a Codemasters compilation tape for the Spectrum awhile after, under somebody elses' name, I wrote to Codemasters about it but never received a reply, never got any money for it either, oh well.
By this time the Sinclair QL was being advertised and having owned two Sinclair computers already, additionally having seen two of the earlier ones at my work (MK 14 and ZX80, I just couldn't resist buying the QL, the rest it seems, is my history.
I was this close >< to getting a C5 as well
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