G3NGD - now there's a great pseudonym! There's a separate topic out there about pseudonyms, and this one has a ring to it that shouts engineering and technology. Stepping back into the discussion at hand, I was really into electronics construction when the ZX81 came out. As a 12 year old who voluntarily stayed back after school for electronics tuition and computer programming which was quite progressive for a comprehensive in the Thatcher years!
Or words to that effect Back then I was just a weirdo, but I really didn't care and I stuck with it. I only found out the ZX81 was available in kit form after I'd been using it for some time, and remember feeling a bit deflated that I hadn't built my own. But the memories are flooding back! Remember fast mode? Useful to an extent, but I couldn't get away with it, the screen flickered every time you pressed a key.
And for some reason, nearly 40 years on, I remember the command "poke 0" - I used to use it every time I wrote a basic programme, it set memory location corresponding to the first line number of the programme to zero. And if you wanted to programme in machine code, because the 81 was set up for basic, you had to "hide" the code in a REM statement at the start of the programme, containing the same amount of characters as your machine code thinking about it now, it was to all intents and purposes an early Trojan Then you'd have to type the code in letter by letter.
Told you I was a geek Cutting out odd years It had so many similarities to ZX Basic you could pick it up in minutes. The geek was back! I wrote some cracking little personalised programmes with it to help my kids with their maths. Laurent Galea. I worked for a start-up called Electrak and wrote a program to forecast various component quantities in given installations for manufacturing runs.
I had the thermal printer for output but unfortunately that faded with time so I no longer have a copy. I had a black and white TV on my desk for a monitor, and when I was off one day, my boss 'borrowed it' to watch at home! It was a fantastic intro to programming which led to my running a small business using a Commodrore 64 with 2 disk drives attached.
Occasionally, I found loading and saving files to and from the ZX81 a problem, especially when interference was present. Don't let people use a Vacuum cleaner near the room at that time! The Printer paper was expensive and poor quality. Let us remember, the ZX81 was a good start for people to become interested in computing and the reason why it took-off. After writing many programs for the ZX81 computer, I decided to purchase a 'BBC B' Computer as it had more memory, more functions and a good disc-drive.
A great advantage of using computers in schools and colleges is the ability to give every student a different question. There is always a limitation on the number of questions given in the text book, occasionally the answers are wrong. Using computers, it is possible to give every student a different question and afterwards an immediate correct answer. I found that my students were so excited using my software that they wouldn't take their break and I couldn't leave them unattended in the classroom; Not ideal for me!
A list of my Education Software can be seen on my Website. Here, the screen size is smaller and the graphics origin is inverted. Also, the VDU Commands are not available. I still have a few rolls of printer paper, but it may have dried up a little over the years. I'm the one, too! Today I am a collector of the Sinclair computers, peripherals and software. It is really amazing what an industry it was! If you struggled to get into your Gmail this morning, it wasn't just you.
Unhappy users from Europe all the way to South Africa reported a significant outage. The issues kicked off at around 8. Interview New Zealand's Rocket Lab is set to launch another Electron rocket - a precursor to the rocketeer's first attempt at catching a descending booster. The launch, dubbed "Love at First Insight", is currently scheduled for no earlier than 16 November owing to an "out of family ground sensor reading" when the launch window opened yesterday morning and has the primary objective of popping a pair of Earth-observation satellites into orbit for Black Sky.
Also featuring on the launch is Rocket Lab's latest evolution of its recovery technology. Unlike SpaceX's crowd-pleasing propulsive antics, the first stage of the Rocket Lab Electron will descend by parachute and attempt a controlled splashdown into the ocean, making it the third ocean recovery if all goes well. The eventual plan is for a helicopter to snag the stage as it descends. This time, however, everything will be done except an attempt to catch the rocket.
Facing rising demand for high-end Linux boxes but also issues supporting the software on its high-end kit, HP is trying solve the problem for customers by using Windows as a universal shim. This feature extends to Redmond's WSL2.
HP is using this to enable customers who want to do fancy GPU-accelerated stuff with Linux apps on the more familiar familiar to HP, that is basis of Windows. On Call A reader takes us back to a bygone era, when Blighty's brass inhabited wood-panelled offices, and the air was thick with pipe smoke and WW2 anecdotes.
Welcome to On Call. Our story takes place in the s as the era of officers that served in the Second World War was coming to an end and computerisation was slithering into departments that had been hitherto resolutely manual. According to a brief from analyst firm Gartner, it's "an emerging networking solution that provides services for computational tasks by sharing computing resources from multiple edge sites" and "a new type of decentralized computing solution that optimizes the efficiency of edge computing.
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The ZX81's British character was emphasized; it was "designed by Sinclair and custom-built in Britain. This approach to advertising was driven by Sinclair's reliance on mail-order marketing. It came with a high up-front cost in terms of purchasing space in publications but it had the advantage of ensuring that all sales were firm and pre-paid.
A big splash on launch produced a large influx of cash at the outset of a campaign, though it did also depend on the advertiser having enough product to satisfy the initial surge in demand. The advertisements served an additional purpose of priming the market for over-the-counter sales by "getting the story across", as Clive Sinclair put it: "Not that big a proportion do buy on mail order, but they see the ads, and that helps to prepare them for buying when the item appears in the shops.
Sinclair himself became a focal point for the marketing campaign, putting a human face on the business, while Sinclair Research was portrayed in the media as a plucky British challenger taking on the technical and marketing might of giant American and Japanese corporations. As David O'Reilly noted, "by astute use of public relations, particularly playing up his image of a Briton taking on the world, Sinclair has become the best-known name in micros.
His "Uncle Clive" persona is said to have been created by the gossip columnist for Personal Computer World , [ 69 ] while the media praised Sinclair as a visionary genius or even, in the words of The Sun , "the most prodigious inventor since Leonardo.
Pricing was central to the marketing strategy, as it had been through Sinclair's career. Sinclair's prior experience in the calculator market had highlighted the fact that a product will be more profitable selling at for instance twice the manufactured cost than at three times.
He could have launched the ZX81 at a higher price, marketing it in a more traditional way as a premium product, but chose not to. In effect, he used the lower price to establish an unassailable lead before the competition moved in.
An essential part of Sinclair's marketing strategy was to use regular cost-cutting at strategic intervals to maintain market share. Ian Adamson and Richard Kennedy comment that Sinclair's approach was "to secure and extend [his] market lead and panic the competition. While most companies reduce prices when their products are in steep decline, Sinclair tends to discount shortly after sales have peaked.
The advantage of his approach is that vacillating customers are drawn into the fold while the product's promotion retains a commercial urgency, and the costings of the competition are thrown into utter disarray. This tactic proved highly successful. Despite the increased competition from much more capable computers, the ZX81 was still shipping in excess of 30, units a month even as late as July , more than two years after it had been launched.
The ZX81's distribution arrangements were an essential part of its success and marked a watershed in the way that computers were sold in the UK. Fortunately for Sinclair, an opportunity to do just that was provided by W. Smith, a venerable book- and magazine-seller and stationery chain.
The company had stagnated in the s and was looking for ways to revitalise its image and expand its product range. Smith's had begun selling audio and photographic equipment and calculators at the end of the s, with a modest degree of success.
In its marketing development manager, John Rowland, hit upon the idea of creating "Computer Know-How" sections in major branches to sell computer books and magazines. Most of the items on display were imports from the United States but their relatively high cost reduced their attractiveness to the casual buyer.
Selling the ZX81 over the counter was seen as something of a gamble and Rowland's colleagues were initially unenthusiastic about the scheme. The "Computer Know-How" sections were swamped with eager customers, overwhelming the staff who had been trained to demonstrate the machines; a Financial Times correspondent wrote of being "dazed and bewildered by the crowds of schoolchildren clustered round the ZX81 in your local branch of W. Sales of peripherals, software, books and magazines netted even more profit.
Other distributors soon joined the act. The British chain stores Boots, John Menzies and Currys began selling the ZX81 as soon as Smith's exclusive distribution deal expired [ 83 ] and a number of companies secured overseas distribution rights for the ZX81, which was being sold in 18 countries by March In February Timex obtained a licence from Sinclair to sell the ZX81 directly through thousands of retail outlets in the US, paying Sinclair Research a 5 per cent royalty on all Sinclair hardware and software sold by Timex.
The Japanese market's favourable reaction to the ZX81 led Mitsui to begin selling the ZX81 over the counter in large bookshops from September , with annual sales of 20, units predicted. The ZX81 was also sold for a while in duty-free shops at UK airports.
However, this fell foul of government export restrictions aimed at preventing the Soviet bloc countries from obtaining Western high technology goods. It was not uncommon for visitors from the Soviet Union and other eastern European countries to pick up gadgets in Western countries with the aim of transferring their technology to their own states' industries.
In the government ordered that the ZX81s were to be withdrawn from sale at airports. Reviews of the ZX81 highlighted the great value for money offered by the machine but noted its technical shortcomings. He applauded the improvements that had been made over the ZX80, such as a much better manual, display and string handling, and called the ZX81 "a very good first computer" that "will open the world of computing to many who would be denied access to it by cost.
He also found the ZX81 to be alarmingly unreliable, having to have his first two test machines replaced before getting one that worked properly. New Scientist's Malcolm Peltu commented that it was "great technical value for money particularly for computing enthusiasts" but thought that others were "likely to be bored very quickly by the basic system". He highlighted weaknesses in the manual and Sinclair's accompanying software, criticising them for "a misconceived design and sloppiness in execution which make the machine seem harder to use and more limited than it should" and questioned whether it might be more worthwhile to save up for a more powerful computer such as Acorn or Commodore's offerings.
Overall, he concluded, the ZX81 might have a limited value in helping to teach BASIC programming and overcoming psychological barriers to computing, but "the Sinclair systems have a long way to go before they raise the quality and level of understanding of the nature and use of computer-based information systems among computer unbelievers. While the editor of Personal Computer World was on holiday in May , his colleagues publicised the magazine's review of the ZX81 with a cover showing a chimpanzee with the machine above the strapline "Editor benchtests the ZX81".
The chimp returned in later issues to "benchtest" all of Sinclair's subsequent computers. The review, which was actually written by PCW staffer Dave Tebbutt, acknowledged that the machine had significant shortcomings but nonetheless represented "absolutely amazing value for money". He described the ZX81 as "a lovely product which will have enormous appeal to people wanting to find out more about computers, but without it costing them an arm and a leg" and concluded: "If you know nothing about computers and you want to enjoy finding out about them, then this machine offers a value for money way of doing just that.
Children will love the ZX81, there can be no question about that, and I suspect that more than a few people who are already familiar with computers will buy one, just to have a bit of fun. Paul Taylor of the Financial Times found the ZX81 to be "a powerful and flexible little computer ideally suited as a fun introduction to the mysteries of home computing" but cautioned readers about its limitations. It lacked ready-made software, the keyboard was not easy to use, it did not have sufficiently advanced graphics to be able to replicate arcade-style games and its built-in memory was inadequate.
Even so, he suggested, "the ZX81 is a unique British product, part toy, part puzzle, part learning tool and I think that, provided one accepts its limitations and recognises that any computer will only do what it is told to do, it is good value as an introduction to the hobby of home computing.
David Babsky described the ZX81 as "a wonderfully brainy little micro which won't let you waste your time and make a fool of yourself". The success of the ZX81 led almost immediately to enthusiasts producing a huge variety of peripherals and software.
Smith, for instance, was able to exploit a peculiarity of the ZX81; owners found that technically obsolete low-fidelity mono tape cassette recorders actually worked better as storage devices than higher-quality music systems. Smith's cashed in by buying up stocks of cheap "shoebox" cassette recorders in the Far East, sticking the W.
Smith logo on them and selling them with a generous mark-up as "data recorders". Over , were sold in eighteen months. The RAM pack was top-heavy and was supported only by the edge connector. It had a habit falling out of its socket at crucial points and crashing the ZX81, losing anything that the user had typed in.
Users turned to using sticky lumps of chewing gum, double-sided tape or Blu-Tack to cure what became known as the "RAM pack wobble" problem. It worked reasonably well at first but its output deteriorated rapidly after a time. Many peripherals aimed to remedy the ZX81's flaws and provide many new capabilities that Sinclair had not tackled.
Within only a year of the ZX81's launch, around independent companies had been established to manufacture and sell Sinclair-compatible hardware. Seventy exhibitors set up their stalls with only a few hundred visitors expected in a hall with a capacity of people.
In the event, more than 12, people turned up and the police had to be called to control the crowd. Thousands of people, many of whom had travelled long distances to get there, queued outside for up to three hours to get into the hall.
The exhibitors found themselves selling thousands of pounds' worth of software and hardware, "as fast as three pairs of hands on each stall could hand them over and stuff the fivers into improvised overflowing cash boxes. Thousands of ZX81 programs were published, either as printed listings that could be typed in or as ready-made applications that could be loaded from cassette tape. Existing companies jumped on the bandwagon as well, to profitable effect; Psion produced a series of ZX81 programs in close association with Sinclair, including a flight simulator, [ ] while ICL 's range of ZX81 programs sold over , cassettes in less than three months.
Its work on the ZX81 database program Vu-File led to Psion switching its focus to the development of personal digital assistants , which resulted in the launch in of the Psion Organiser, the world's first handheld personal computer. Enterprising programmers were able to produce games for the ZX81 using nothing more than text characters and the machine's limited number of inverse video graphical blocks.
Some ZX81 games achieved lasting fame, such as 3D Monster Maze , a tense first-person perspective game that involved the player escaping a labyrinth with a Tyrannosaurus rex in pursuit.
Written in a combination of BASIC and machine code , its innovative design led it to be hailed as the first home computer 3D game and a landmark in the history of computer and video games.
One of the more bizarre software products for the ZX81 came about as a result of music companies attempting to capitalise on the popularity of Sinclair's computers. Sinclair's licensing agreement with Timex enabled the American company to produce three clones or offshoots of Sinclair machines for the US market. The TS was launched in July and sparked a massive surge of interest; at one point, the Timex phoneline was receiving over 5, calls an hour, 50, a week, inquiring about the machine or about microcomputers in general.
It dispensed with the membrane keyboard and used a case similar to that of the ZX Spectrum, incorporating 16 kB of on-board memory. However, it was unsuccessful due to increased competition from rival US machines and the after-effects of Timex's botched marketing of the TS Although the TS had initially been a great success, Timex failed to provide the essential RAM pack upgrades to the market for two or three months after it launched the TS Consumers would take the machine home, plug it in and find that it would not do anything useful due to the lack of memory.
In addition, consumers' attitude in the US was quite different to that in the UK. Clive Sinclair told Informatics magazine in June that "our competitors thought that consumers didn't want to learn programming.
We [Sinclair Research] think they failed because of this and because of price. Consumers deserted the TS once its novelty value had worn off and, as publishers of programming guides found to their cost, the American public showed little interest in using the machine to learn about computer programming. American retailers were left with large stocks of unsold machines.
Burned by this experience, many were unwilling to stock the later Timex Sinclair machines in large numbers and the big chain stores dropped the Timex Sinclair line altogether. Some companies outside the US and UK produced their own "pirate" versions of the ZX81 and Timex Sinclair computers, aided by weak intellectual property laws in their countries of origin. In the ZX81 won a British Design award.
The computer was physically quite small measuring mm deep by 40mm high. The slim plastic case included a membrane keyboard and a single circuit board.
The entire machine weighs just grams. The ZX81 was discontinued in This exhibit has a reference ID of CH Transcriptions: Please attach transcriptions as a plain text file. Articles: Please attach any articles with embedded pictures as a PDF document. View all items.
Since opening at the end of , over 5, children have visited the Centre.
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