In honour of the #zx81 40th bday I got mine out the attic. I modified it heavily to have external keyboard, programmable character generator and easy access to swap the ROM. I killed it trying to upgrade to 48k RAM but I haven't the heart to dispose of my first computing love!
In those days I obviously had no fear cutting into the case and soldering stuff on the motherboard! I'm not that brave any more.
It is a cast off relay keyboard - easy to wire up to the ZX81. I don't recall where it came from, but I don't think it ever had a 1 key as was common on typewriters back then (you just used l instead).
Oh, I had absolutely no idea about that. I naively assumed the current number row was original. You've sent me down a rabbit hole that so far includes using f and L to produce a £ too, thanks!
For others like me the qwerty page¹ has some info, and some examples of original layouts without a 1 key².
https://mobile.twitter.com/njcw/status/1368566103933337603
In honour of the #zx81 40th bday I got mine out the attic. I modified it heavily to have external keyboard, programmable character generator and easy access to swap the ROM. I killed it trying to upgrade to 48k RAM but I haven't the heart to dispose of my first computing love!
In those days I obviously had no fear cutting into the case and soldering stuff on the motherboard! I'm not that brave any more.