Ian Robertson Sinclair

DIMZ0:F.A%=0TO3STEP3:P%=Z%:[OPTA%:LDA#22:JSR&FFEE:LDA#7:JSR&FFEE:LDX#0:.loop LDAmess,X:JSR&FFEE:INX:CPX#19:BNEloop:RTS:.mess EQUS "I Preferred the BBC":]:NEXT:CALLZ% (BBC BASIC is available for programming in Windows(tm) - is Spectrum basic?) This was always the problem with Mr. Sinclair's products - brilliant but more of a concept idea than practicable - I mean can anyone remember using Reverse Polish in a calculator (The Cambridge)? Then there was the C5…

In the 80s having spent most of my disposable income on the 16kB Ram Pack for my Z80, the previous year, I inherited a battered Spectrum 3 a few years later. Apart from memories of re-writing old BASIC games to deal with the Spectrum's peculiarities, (it's a shame that no one teaches BASIC anymore - or do they? - as it was a great introduction to computer languages that almost anyone could get their head around), I recall staying up till all hours playing "Slightly Magic" with its theme tune that, once heard, stays with you forever. And, "Gift of the Gods" - I never did find out what the object of that one was. Ten years ago, I downloaded a Spectrum emulator and all the old games I could find - I'm sure they're all out there online somewhere, still, if anyone else wants to do the same. (Don't have a joystick so it's 6,7,8,9 & 0 or whatever on the keyboard, if I recall.) I think it's time to give "Slightly Magic" another go. I hope the walkthrough is still online as I never could remember how to get on that damn shelf.

(all due to to my parents at the time wanting me to have the best in technology...)

“Them” evenings sitting alone in bedroom, taking breaks to type in massively long programs from my own BBS and gaming magazines, only to find that after 4 hours of typing (no easy feat on them horridly small rubbery keyboards) the damn thing didn’t fucking work!!! Though I do take claim that a lot of them I worked out what the error was and was able to fix it with a couple of changes. They should forget about these Raspberry PI things, and get some old spectrums into schools to help teach kids the art of programming. The Spectrum 48k is my Madeleine - through it I'm now remembering the details of the houses we put it in, the furniture it sat on, the games I made, the failed leaps of Dizzy, catching the cabbages in Jetpac, the Pythonesque boot of Manic Miner. I remember, as well, getting 3D Construction Kit which even now strikes me as a remarkable piece of programming for a 48k machine. Twenty years later I’d be sitting in my study still drawing buildings in CAD all day every day just like I started doing there…

What I did learn is not to fear the command line interface and not fear other operating systems. Because these early devices didn’t do much you were forced to mess about with them and the worst that could happen was it still did nothing, there was no fear of breaking it unlike modern computers. Today I have a proper home network, a hardware rack with several servers (switch, freeNAS, Synology, self-hosted systems, etc.), Ethernet and WiFi, XP, Vista, W7, WIN10 machines, media centre- the list goes on, I can virtualise environments, I can modify BSD code from my Linux laptop and other wonders- but for me, 40 years on today, it all started looking at that flashing cursor on the Spectrum. And for that, Thank You Mr. Sinclair, and Thank You Mom and Dad.

If anyone remembers Chaos, you can get it on the Android store. Not 100% accurate, but 8 wizard chaos the best you are going to get this side of a tape deck and is excellent on a tablet.

If you’re in geek mode, there’s a minority sport where people (I won’t say who) attempt to scratch build a working computer from old Commodores and Spectrums by using small form factor motherboards (as used in the Intel Atom platform) then emulating the operating system to run old games- and new games, there are still games being written for the Spectrum, even today. With something like the Raspberry PI it’s possible to take a broken Spectrum (which are relatively cheap) and fit the Raspberry into the case, then virtualise the OS. It would be even easier with a Commodore as the case is bigger and with modern technology you could use it as a Thin Client connecting to a server.

The 48K, probably in 1983, then the Commodore 64 and after that it was IBM compatible- which in a way returned to the ‘kit-bashing’ ethos of early enthusiast computing where you built the thing yourself, getting a sound card to work was a challenge in itself and fixing the CPU to the motherboard was heart in the mouth stuff. And all those joys of overclocking and dial-up modems.

Lack of loading music never really bothered me as I usually went downstairs to make a brew when my Speccy was loading. Mind you I had my fingers crossed that the bugger would actually load!



NB: I found this book among others ZX-Spectrum-related in the attic along with my own ZX Spectrum (vide photos above). I’ll be revisiting all these books in the months to come. I’ll be having a blast!



Basic Book Review Computer Science ZX Spectrum… (altro)