ZX81 remembered

[Golgo]

On BBC tech website. Good read: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12703674

[vanpeebles]

Yeah good stuff. The ZX81 was a big success and is often overshadowed by the speccy so it's nice to see it get a mention. 3D Monster Maze ftw!

[englishbob]

I sent a link around the office via email this morning, because I am always banging on about how wasteful computers are "these days" with memory.

To put it into perspective the email I sent, with just the link, a subject line and 3 people on the To: field, was 4K in size.

[Brad]

Those were the days. How about a chess game with most of the rules (en passant, castling and queening not supported) and AI in 672 bytes?

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~uzdm0006/scans/1kchess/

[vanpeebles]

It quite mad when you think in the space of 4 years or so they went from the zx80, zx81, ZX Spectrum then the QL.

[merf]

i had a huge 16k rampack for mine, needed a velcro fastner to stop it wobbling and losing the 100s of lines of code you typed in from a magazine to get a game.

JK Grey software if I recall, the forerunners of the 3d shooter craze with 3d Monster Maze, long before ID, Bungie or Infinity Ward were out of nappies.

[Dirty Sanchez]

My first computer was a ZX81. I really wanted a TRS80 and later a BBC. I lost one of my fingers at school (careless I know) with the compensation money (the school were negligent) I applied to the court for £129 for a ZX81. Later had the 16K ram pack (which was frazzled at a later date after taking the casing off to prevent it overheading and a fly landing on it and shorting it out).

Great machine, great memories. Real computing.

[Ady]

Check out these ZX81 demos to see what talented coders are doing with it now:

[aticatac]

I picked up a couple of ZX81`s with ram paks some years ago in a box lot of retro gaming stuff,i think each item has a problem of some sort,with the ZX81`s i think its the keyboard/membraine.
Those videos are awsome,if they had zx81`s switched on in WH Smiths with a demo like that back in the day they would of sold a lot more units lol.


Game Polls

[Wil]

i had a huge 16k rampack for mine, needed a velcro fastner to stop it wobbling and losing the 100s of lines of code you typed in from a magazine to get a game.

I had a Memopak 32k rampack on the back of mine that was held on with velcro. Such a great time for computing and the games were pretty good too - Mazogs, the Psion adventures.

That whole time in the UK, before the really big businesses muscled in on everything, was good. Small UK devs (even as small as 1 person) could make a difference. Sure, the games are bigger, flashier and better (well, for the most part) now but I still don't get that buzz I got in the early '80s with the '81, Speccy and C64.

[vanpeebles]

I think as well the attitudes of the computer sellers helped too, once they had sold you one, someone else could do just about anything to it. Replacement cases, keyboards, huge add-ons, expansions etc.

I once read that at the height of the Sinclair days a new company was formed nearly every 24 hours.

[Mad Gear]

I had a ZX81, was my first computer too. Also had the 16k Rampack with the obligatory velcro fastener. I never had many games (there wasn't a great choice really) but do remember 3D Monster maze and a couple of super annoying text adventures.
I still had it in the box with all the manuals etc and stuck it on ebay about 5 years ago got a decent amount for it iirc.

[vanpeebles]

I love the loading and refueling scene on that.