My first purchased computer was a ZX81. My second was a US variant of the ZX Spectrum called the Timex Sinclair TS-2068. Yep, back then the home computer market seemed so wide open, even watch companies were making them!
This was a great machine- it had a cartridge port, and was well appointed in every way the ZX81 was lacking.
This was also the machine where I learned that the ecosystem around a computer was at least as important as the specs. The TS-2068 excelled in all of the specs, but unlike the UK, there wasn't much of a community. My dreams of shelves full of game cartridges for this machine never came to pass- in fact I don't think we ever got a cartridge for it.
That's ok, I was writing my own software.
Some of you may remember the noise that modems used to make when negotiating a connection (it is kinda surprising that even that sounds ancient now) ... but these machines used a tape deck, and would record their programs out on audio tape. I remember entering programs from books and magazines line by line-- there were books like "100 games for the ZX Spectrum" and stuff like that. Even a special magazine printing format that came with a hardware accessory to let you read in the code in the magazine to avoid having to type it all out.
One of the great things about these machines was that millions of kids were exposed to programming. At that time, "computer literacy" meant programming, and it was obvious that you'd continue to need to program, because you'd always want your own variations of things, or at least to be able to script stuff.
I think its a real tragedy that schools have not taught kids this level of literacy. At my high school in the 1980s, I learned Pascal and LISP and would have learned BASIC if I hadn't already known it-- three languages coming out of high school. Every graduate of that school in my day left knowing at least the basics of pascal programming.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_2068
This was a great machine- it had a cartridge port, and was well appointed in every way the ZX81 was lacking.
This was also the machine where I learned that the ecosystem around a computer was at least as important as the specs. The TS-2068 excelled in all of the specs, but unlike the UK, there wasn't much of a community. My dreams of shelves full of game cartridges for this machine never came to pass- in fact I don't think we ever got a cartridge for it.
That's ok, I was writing my own software.
Some of you may remember the noise that modems used to make when negotiating a connection (it is kinda surprising that even that sounds ancient now) ... but these machines used a tape deck, and would record their programs out on audio tape. I remember entering programs from books and magazines line by line-- there were books like "100 games for the ZX Spectrum" and stuff like that. Even a special magazine printing format that came with a hardware accessory to let you read in the code in the magazine to avoid having to type it all out.
One of the great things about these machines was that millions of kids were exposed to programming. At that time, "computer literacy" meant programming, and it was obvious that you'd continue to need to program, because you'd always want your own variations of things, or at least to be able to script stuff.
I think its a real tragedy that schools have not taught kids this level of literacy. At my high school in the 1980s, I learned Pascal and LISP and would have learned BASIC if I hadn't already known it-- three languages coming out of high school. Every graduate of that school in my day left knowing at least the basics of pascal programming.