One day it occurred to me that computers were so much cooler back in the day. I was an odd child yes, I used to enjoy trying to work out just how these things work… and it was fun, at-least back then.

I thought it would be neat to write a page on the computers I owned and what they meant to me. It was these primitive beasts that helped me get where I am today. Unfortunately my memory is a bit rusty and I need to try and find royalty free pictures of each if I can. Bear with me, it could take a while.

XXX: UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Ah… The era of the micro-computer. This is where it began for me.

• Spectrum 48K @ World of Spectrum

This unit was my very first contact with a computer. My Father had given me this, which I believe was given to him by a friend (perhaps an unwanted gift?).

The first thing you notice when approaching one of these was the rubbery keys, which were unlike conventional keys on keyboards I had seen previously (OK, granted my computer knowledge was not vast at the time, as I was about 5 years old). There was a funky little rainbow on one corner of the keyboard and a spectrum logo towards the top of the unit. It sported a whopping 48KB of memory, which in the the day really was plenty. When you power it up you saw a black screen, with a white border, then when it had booted (in about 2 seconds) a completely white screen with a solemn copyright message at the bottom of the screen. Did I mention the screen was a TV set? This was great for amateur computer enthusiasts across the UK, as it meant they could (and did) plug it into their parent's TV sets, henceforth annoying the crap out of anyone wanted to watch TV.

The first things I did with this box of magic was to play games with my Dad. Games came on standard audio cassettes, which you had to load with an external tape player. I always remember having to swap the jack cable around, when switching between loading and saving, because I had only one cable. To load you hooked up the earphone socket of the tape player to the mic socket of the spectrum and vica-versa for saving. Neat huh.

Anyway, me and my dad plodded through such classics as "jumping jack" and "Death Stalker" , frantically mashing those little rubber keys for hours on end. It was a lot of fun and these are fond memories of my childhood (boy that sounds sad).

We used to go to jumble sales and pick up games and hardware for the speccy for dirt cheap prices (it was already defunct by this time). A quid usually got you 2 or 3 games. We eventually got a joystick which you would use via a flimsy piece of junk that you slotted in the expansion slot on the back of the unit called the interface 2. The interface 2 was basically a board with two serial ports on, which you could plug joysticks in. The problem was, if you so much as nudged the computer while the intershite 2 was plugged in, it crashed. It was just no fun.

• Interface 2 @ World of Spectrum
• Slot machine games online

Amazingly the interface 2 had a game on it, which until now was unknown by me! I thought it was just a joystick port thingy. I wonder what game I had on it.

When I had loaded my first game, unknown to me, I had executed my first piece of program code. You pressed the “L” key, and the speccy displayed the word “LOAD”, then you typed two double quotes, meaning the next file on the tape. This key combination was the single most influential part of my life leading to a career (hey, do you think I am odd yet?). After a while curiosity got the better of me and I started playing with this programming shell. Each key on the keyboard was assigned to a BASIC command, so one key-press usually typed a whole command. The commands were written on the keys, along with about 4 other context sensitive alternative meanings for each key. You typed a line of code (beginning with a line number) and flumped (the noise of the rubber key depressing :P )the enter key. If you got lucky the code parsed and it appeared at the top of the screen, where you built up a program listing. If (like me), you sucked frequently, you got a flashing block question mark of doom and had the fun task of working out why your code didn't parse.

• Above image is me typing BASIC code in the FUSE spectrum emulator , which is free and open source, so you are free to relive my childhood

After messing about blindly for ages my Dad found the programming manual. The holy grail of the mysterious 48K BASIC language.

• ZX Basic Programming Manual @ World of Spectrum

• Scanned memory page on my Flickr
• Scanned functions page on my Flickr
• Larger scanned front cover on my Flickr

Now this manual, modern computer designers could learn something from! It was not only actual good documentation, but it was also written in a casual and fun manner, as if computers were not for industry (god forbid), but for leisure. As if that wasn't enough, it contained at the end information you just would not ever get in modern computer manuals. Diagrams of how the built in operating system allocated its memory, and various “POKES” which allowed you to manipulate the way the beast worked at a low level. Seriously this is a cool piece of text, which I even all these years later still have in my book-case.

Then came the magazines in WH-Smith, which my Mother (bless her) used to buy for me. There were several spectrum magazines floating around in the UK, but the one I collected was “Your Sinclair”, which had cover tapes sela-taped on the front (which ruined the magazine when you ripped it off). The tapes had mostly games on, but sometimes source code for various bits and bobs. Inside the magazine was games and hardware reviews, but my favorite part was the programming section. Sadly I used to type out long program listings line for line in order to run (for example) a fractal drawing program, which was only ever cool for 5 minutes. Never the less, I learned a lot about programming BASIC from this.

Another cool thing with these magazines, was that they had “POKE” programs, which were little stubs of basic which bit-fiddled registers of the spectrum allowing you to cheat. It was much like the action replay cartridges you used to get on the mega-drive and SNES, apart from some sad person had worked out all the memory addresses for you already

• Your Sinclair @ World of Spectrum (Sorry to deep link WOS, people would not find it otherwise)
• Your Sinclair, The Rock and Roll Years

Eventually I became good enough at this to make my own games, which was great fun for me (not my friends so much). I only wish I still had the tapes with my code on. No doubt it was the worst code I have ever seen

That was it, little Edward was a computer programmer.

Unfortunately one day, the keyboard matrix died and she gave up on me. Real shame. May she rest in piece.

A big thanks goes out to my Father for introducing me to computing and programming. Also I would like to thank my Mother for supplying me with further literature, which helped me further understand computing.

Luckily just about the time my 48K died, my Dad brought back from work a Spectrum +3, which was a whole 2 models up from the 48K, this time with 128K. The models inbetween the 48 and the +3, were the 128K (no plus anything) and the '128 +2', which had a tape drive built on the side.

• ZX Spectrum 128 +3 @ World of Spectrum

The trashy little rubber “my first computer” (literally) keyboard had been replaced with a more traditional full size keyboard. The keys no longer had keyword names on them and best of all, it had a disk drive (of sorts)!

XXX more…