Documentary - The Sinclair ZX80, ZX81, and Timex Sinclair 1000

Comments · 3.9K

• BR

  @bruceyboy7349 · 6 years ago (edited)

  My family couldn&apos;t afford much when I was young. I really wanted a computer for Christmas and the zx81 seemed the accessible choice. £50 was a shit load for my parents to pay. I opened my present on Christmas morning and was elated. Then my dad got up and opened a cupboard and pulled out another present. I instantly knew what it was. I pulled the wrapping paper off - it was a 16k ram pack. That cost them another 30 quid! I burst into tears because it was a lot of money for them.<br><br>40 years on and I&apos;ve been working in software development my whole life and have developed software in a range of industries ranging from art to safety in nuclear systems<br><br>This is all because of that cheap and not very useful zx81 ☺

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• YA

  @YassineSaïdi · 5 years ago

  Had to come here to pay my respects, as a tech enthusiast, to Sir Clive Sinclair, who died tonight at age 81. We lost a pioneer.

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• IA

  @ianofliverpool7701 · 5 years ago (edited)

  You should remember Sinclair designed the ZX80 with introducing children from poor family`s during a bad recession to computing and it did that

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• JG

  @jgrimsley2000 · 7 years ago (edited)

  The ZX81 was my first computer. I can remember losing hours of coding because the crappy card edge connector on the RAM expansion. A friend of mine and I spent weeks programming a Pacman clone (I use the term loosely. It was hackey and buggy) for it back in 1982. We gave everyone a copy of it at our ZX users croup. A few years ago, I was playing with a ZX emulator, and downloaded a ZIP file of a 100 programs. One of them was my attempt at a Pacman clone. I was thrilled to see that it was passed around and survived.

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• MI

  @miniroll32 · 7 years ago

  The ZX computers were what Ford Fiestas are to the car industry. Cheap, reliable, and often a first-time purchase. They&apos;re legendary here in the U.K.

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• ZU

  @zUltra3D · 6 years ago

  &quot;People realized they could buy the Sinclair unit for 50 bucks and then trade it in for a $100 credit on a Commodore&quot;<br><b>s t o n k s</b>

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• MA

  @martinalexander4777 · 7 years ago

  Like many in the U.K. I wrote my first program in basic on a Sinclair. &nbsp;It was Battle Ships and took me months and months of design and hard thinking. &nbsp;As a result I got my first job at 16 as a computer operator. &nbsp;A career in programming analysis and management lead me to becoming a Director of Information in the NHS. &nbsp;All because of a £99 investment. &nbsp;Simply fantastic machine.

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• AL

  @alexander3554 · 7 years ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jr7Q1yJOUM&amp;t=210">3:30</a> Putting the power jack into the wrong port will NOT fry something. The MIC and EAR port circuits each contain caps that will block DC power entirely. In fact, the actual ZX80 manual itself puts you at ease: &quot;if you do get it in the wrong jack socket you won&apos;t damage your ZX-80 even if you switch on the power. It won&apos;t work until you get the plug in the right socket, though!)&quot;

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• DA

  @davelister8244 · 6 years ago

  The ZX81 was my pathway into computers when I was 12, my father bought me one for Christmas with his redundancy money, he figured he&apos;d give his kid a chance. Here I am approaching 50 and a computer engineer. Great move dad. I can&apos;t speak for other countries, but in the UK these are iconic computers, writ large in our childhood memories and brilliant because it meant ordinary people could finally afford a &apos;real&apos; computer. Learning Z80 assembler, losing hours of work because you breathed too close to the RAM pack, listening to tapes screeching at high volume while you waited 15 minutes for a program to load, these are rights of passage into the world of computers that younger generations will never know.

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• AL

  @almerian · 7 years ago (edited)

  Now to put all this in (a European) perspective.<br>Back in the 1970&apos;s and the early 1980&apos;s, computers were a new thing. Only a very limited part of the population had any idea what you could do with a computer. The idea of having something like that in your house was at first a dream to that small part of the population, and the others did not even think about it. <br>Then came the time that you could build you own computer, this was very expensive and required knowledge. Then came some kit computers, even more expensive. Followed by the big three (Commodore PET, TRS-80, Apple II), these were also very expensive. Followed by the Atari 400/800 with revolutionary sound and colour graphics capabilities, equally expensive. There were others, also expensive.<br>Then came the Sinclair ZX80/81 offering capabilities equal to earlier kit computers and with BASIC and a proper manual at 1/20th to 1/10th of the price of other contemporary computers. Now that was a REVOLUTION. Sinclair put programmable computers in to the hands of curious ordinary people who could have never dreamed of owning one otherwise.<br>And it set an example and brought prices down across the line by opening up a huge market. Followed by the ZX Spectrum and VIC 20 and later the Commodore 64, cheaper and price reduced Atari&apos;s, Acorn Electron, MSX, Tandy&apos;s Coco and the Amstrad/Schneider CPC.

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• GR

  @GrantMeStrength · 6 years ago

  In the UK, you have to remember that not everyone could afford a computer - the ZX81 made it possible for almost every one to have one. It moved computing from a niche nerd activity, to an household pastime. They were sold in Boots and WHSmith! They introduced an entire generation to computers, and their impact cannot be overstated.

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• CA

  @carlcouture1023 · 7 years ago

  8-Bit Guy: &quot;The ZX80 is a terrible computer.&quot;<br>The UK: (๑°o°๑)

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