Who has seen the Sinclair ZX documentary?

[ukkid35]

[Gary C]

Thanks for that

I have just been restoring a couple of Grundy newbrains which were a Sinclair Radionics project before the ZX80 and they make the ZX80 look like such an efficient design let alone the Spectrum

Yes the limitations of the colour encoding scheme and the rubber keyboard did come in for criticism, but it hit its market head on.


I liked the times epitaph "He was a tenacious inventor whose career was a triumph of perseverance similar to that of many of Britain's greatest inventors, such as Sir James Dyson and Alexander Graham Bell, who are a reminder that failure is an essential prelude to success"

Edited by Gary C on Saturday 5th October 20:03

[ukkid35]

I class myself as part of the Sinclair Generation

Not sure whether that is good or bad, but without Sinclair my life would have been very different

[Gary C]

ukkid35 said:

I class myself as part of the Sinclair Generation

Not sure whether that is good or bad, but without Sinclair my life would have been very different

Same here. Had a ZX81 as my first computer.

However, it was an Acorn product that set me on my way. The BBC micro with its much more professional operating system, its structured language and its built in assembler meant that, even without a formal qualification in computer science, I got promoted from a craftsman into my first engineering job as a programmer on the control system for our nuclear reactors.

[camel_landy]

ukkid35 said:

I class myself as part of the Sinclair Generation

Not sure whether that is good or bad, but without Sinclair my life would have been very different

Same here...
...though I was more on the side of Acorn (another Cambridge outlet).

M

[Crasher242]

ukkid35 said:

I class myself as part of the Sinclair Generation

Not sure whether that is good or bad, but without Sinclair my life would have been very different

Same here, although in my case I went ZX80 (kit) --> ZX81 --> Commodore 64

[Dave Hedgehog]

Crasher242 said:

ukkid35 said:

I class myself as part of the Sinclair Generation

Not sure whether that is good or bad, but without Sinclair my life would have been very different

Same here, although in my case I went ZX80 (kit) --> ZX81 --> Commodore 64

I went ZX80 (kit) --> ZX81 --> Commodore Vic20 - C64 - Amiga 500 (with external drive and ram upgrade) - IBM PC

There was an Atari 800 in the mix as well at some point

[Bluevanman]

I was an Oric-1 user,we were the betamax of home computers lol

[Scarletpimpofnel]

Bluevanman said:

I was an Oric-1 user,we were the betamax of home computers lol

Agreed the ORIC-1 was a good bit of kit but I plumped for the (imo) superior Enterprise. It even came with a built in joystick!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305107573005?chn=ps&amp...

[Deep Thought]

Crasher242 said:

ukkid35 said:

I class myself as part of the Sinclair Generation

Not sure whether that is good or bad, but without Sinclair my life would have been very different

Same here, although in my case I went ZX80 (kit) --> ZX81 --> Commodore 64

I jumped in at Vic20 -> Commodore 64 -> Commodore 128d -> Amiga 500, then various Amigas after that.

It was, at 14, the arrival of the Vic20 pack with cassette player at £139.99 that set me off on my computing journey that took me in to IT in which I am still in some 40+ years later.

Granted not the "Sinclair Generation" but the Commodore rivalry ran parallel to it with the success of SInclair no doubt spurring Commodore to compete.

[Griffith4ever]

I remember the Commodore side being too expensive as a child - though I admired it with envious eyes. I had a ZX81, then a Speccie. I loved the Spectrum - most exciting present I ever received, along with the obligatory programs book that had a very simnple version of invaders in the back, in machine code, that took an age to type in, and never seemed to work. I "think" I eventually saw it working and it had just one invader?

I ended up writing games as a hobby - was even approached by a company to write a game for a breakfast cereal promotion - never happened - can't remember why. I also ended up in IT for most of my employed life.

[cpszx]

Another one here who would probably have had a much different career without the ZX81 in my life

Went onto Dragon32 with Microsoft Basic, instead of Spectrum or BBC, and always felt like the odd one out at school after that

[ThingsBehindTheSun]

I had a C64 but several of my school friends had spectrums. I have fond memories of going to my friends house after school and playing Scuba Dive, Jet Set Willy, Manic Miner, Chucky Egg, Renegade, Jet Pack, Sabre Wulf and Wheelie.

The loading sounds and watching the loading screen render take me back to being a 12 year old again. Spending my lunch hours reading my friends copies of Crash and Your Sinclair.

Like many others I doubt I would have ended up working in IT if it wasn't for the Spectrum.

[LeoSayer]

Another Sinclair user here.

I started with a ZX81 and spent many hours keying in basic code from a computer magazine in order to shoot some asterixes down. It's amazing what you can get fit into 1K and I learned a few techniques to make efficient use of memory. That only came about after many occasions where I would simply code:
10 PRINT "KEVS A TOSSER"
20 GOTO 10

I never had the money for the 16K RAM pack - a mate of mine seemed like royalty when he got that. I must have got through 5 ZX81s because they kept having faults and needed to be taken back to WH Smith for a replacement.

I moved onto a 16K Spectrum and bought that with an Asteroids game. I spent more time gaming from tapes than coding on that.

I didn't go into an IT career but my interest in IT clearly shone through and I ended up working for over 10 years as a business/data analyst in my employer's IT department. I ended up writing the SQL on many reports which I found pretty easy after the grounding I had in BASIC.

[Derek Smith]

I started with a home-built ZX-81, with the 1/2k plug-in RAM extension. Cool or what? From then, it was a straightforward transition to the ZX, which i had for some time. I loved it. Then various Amigas before going for a home-built Windows desktop with Win 94.

I wouldn't go so far as to suggest I never looked back, but I enjoyed building the things. I used to boast I had the same computer for 'n' years as I would update it every two years or so, but at Win 7 I built another from scratch, and another for Win 12, which I still buy things for, but now every year. It's set up for image/video work and has 26 TB internally and about 30 external HDDs. Each SSD and HDD cost about the same price as the 1/2k ZX-81 RAM extension.

My preferred Windows OS was 2000, but The ZX was the most fun.

[UpTheIron]

Christmas 1982 was probably the most important gift I've ever received as it spawned an interest in computing and without it I'd probably have ended on a completely different and likely less well paid career path.

Spectrum (16k, later upgraded to 48k), Amiga 500, Amiga 2000 and then a PC just before I went to Uni (486DX266). Also had a couple of Commodore PET's thanks to a teacher who recognised my enthusiasm for all things tech and also spent many hours using BBC Model B's and Acorn A3000's.

[politeperson]

ZX80 --> ZX81 --> ZX Spectrum --> University-->Booze, fags and birds, never touched a computer since(bit of a lie because I typed this).

[phil4]

ZX Spectrum -> Commodore +4 -> Atari ST before moving to PC for me.

Without them I very much doubt I'd have taken the career choices I did and be where I am now. No idea where I would have been though.

[Pugster]

cpszx said:

Another one here who would probably have had a much different career without the ZX81 in my life

Went onto Dragon32 with Microsoft Basic, instead of Spectrum or BBC, and always felt like the odd one out at school after that

That makes 2 of us! Dragon32 first of all before an additional Spectrum later on for the games. I've still got them in my loft somewhere.

They certainly put me on my path to making a living cranking out software.

[king arthur]

Scarletpimpofnel said:

Agreed the ORIC-1 was a good bit of kit but I plumped for the (imo) superior Enterprise. It even came with a built in joystick!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305107573005?chn=ps&amp...

Ah, so it was you that bought it!