your zx81 life story...

[Andy Rea]

Have you always been a zx81 fan? i had my first zx81, indeed my first computer way back in '81 complete with 16k rampack (the wobbly version of course ) a few years later i packed the zeddy away and moved onto a commodore pet, then vic 20, had the Vic for literraly ages before aquiring a spectrum +2 (amstrad version) this would be around the 90's by now i imagine, loved the speccy almost as much as i did that first day with the zeddy, got hold of a +3 and added external 3.5" drive spent a while writting a program to format it double sided 10sector/track a wopping 800K then spent many hours breaking into, deciphering loading routines and transfering tapes to disk, even wrote a few demo's (albeit pretty crap compared to what else was around) but having taught myself machine code, i used to write assembly on paper, code by hand, and then do the tedious poke program... before i even heard of emulators and cross assemblers let alone own a PC... but non the less i felt i had achieved something, then came the PC's and all sinclair was forgotten, then i came back to zx81 why? because i can build things and attach them to it, not much to break and can easily be fixed (except ULA, but i even built one of those too ! not an fpga jobby like Bodo, Karma dude but made from discrete logic and only attached to the zx81 by the 40 pins of the
ULA socket.) with the cross assembler i can writre code quickly and easily, assemble it without error, programming errors are enough to worry about LOL. and load it up within minutes unlike the old days. gosh i'm ranting... so much love for the zeddy despite having to pack it all away again for a couple of years, i have a collection 3x zx81 working, 1x zx81 broken, 1 sinclair printer, 1 alphacom printer, 1 ts1500 working again (thanks Rich for the keyboard membrane, at very reasonable prices) couple of broken spectrums, and a +3 modded to +3e. and still i keep on playing, experimenting with the zeddy and hope to do for a long time yet.

Whats your story ?

Reagards Andy

[Zschopower]

I bought my first ZX81 in 1982 as kit, when the price dropped under 100 Deutsch Mark. My main interest had been to learn about hardware and use it for ham radio.
I never used it for ham radio , but soldered some nice and small hardware projects. In 1991 I joined ZX-TEAM and published some of my projects in ZX-TEAM-MAGAZINe.
In the meantime I got a Memotech MTX512 with floppy-drives, but only used it as typewriter with memory. And then a I could get a pc XT with 10MB HD , which I used for packet-radio. But playing around with ZX81 was much more exciting. On pc I used ZX81 emulator XTender by Carlo Delhez.
After that I had a 386DX with Win3.1 and a 2400Bd modem connection, first to some bulletin boards and then to the Internet

I started with email first, then with connection to www, learned HTML to build a ZX81 Homepage in 1997?? and could get the URL http://www.zx81.de some time later. With the help of this and the newsgroup comp.sys.sinclair, I tried to find other ZX81 users groups worldwide and was a little bit disappointed about the results. Of course I could find some active individuals, but no more existing and active ZX81 users group, not even in Sir Clive's own country.
It seemed to me, everyone had upgraded to Speccy and was playing with color and music. IMHO two features, a true computer really does not need!

The only group I found, had been ZXirQLiveAlive! (ZQA!) managed by Abed Kahale in the USA, but they coverd all Sinclair and Timex machines with little interest in ZX81. (Some years later they folded. )
But this helped me to buy a huge lot of stuff, which I wanted to reactivate when I retire. Together with the help of my ZX-TEAM-friends and ebay, I'm the lucky owner of a lot of ZX81s and add-ons, ZX80, Jupiter Ace, ZX-Spectrum and QL (never used those two) and some other Sinclair items like frequency counter and multimeter.

Since 1997 I'm the organizer of our annual ZX-TEAM-meetings. For some years I had been the editor of ZX-TEAM-MAGAZINe.
Now I've retired since two years and have less time than ever

Sinclairy yours Peter
(or in ham-radio language: vy 81 es best ZX de DK4BF)

[Andy Rea]

But playing around with ZX81 was much more exciting.

Peter you hit the nail right on the head

73's G7TLA

[RWAP]

An interesting thread, this one...

I guess I got into the ZX81 at an early age (13). My brother had started doing computer science lessons at school from memory, and would come home, teaching me the basics of programming - I wonder what machines they were using at the time (if any)!

I took the plunge in 1982 and bought his ZX81 + 16K RAM pack off him, which gave him the money to put towards a Spectrum (it was also a combined Christmas / Birthday gift). He was still learning BASIC at school, whilst I decided the implementation on the ZX81 was too slow, so poured my way over Toni Baker's book on ZX80/ZX81 assembler, and any program listings I could find in magazines.

I did some machine code programming at the time, but could not afford an editor or assembler, so all the Z80 instructions were coded by hand on paper. I then progressed to having a DK'Tronics keyboard and case, and used that, screwed to a piece of wood so that I had a more stable base to type up listings on, as I sat hunched over the keyboard, the computer and black & white TV balanced precariously on the end of my bed.

At some point I had a shelf put up to stand the TV on, but the computer had to remain on my bed for a few years yet as my room was not big enough for a desk - fan heater on full blast as I tried to keep the room warm in the middle of winter with no central heating!

I also remember fondly the trips to the ZX Shop in a nearby town when we had both saved up enough money for my brother to buy Speccy games, and me to buy ZX81 games. We often copied the tapes for friends at school to try the game, and in those days, if you liked the game, you then bought your own copy (the ZX Shop did not have any working machines to try things on!).

At the age of 16, the QL was advertised, so I decided to take the plunge and buy one of these for myself, selling my old ZX81 to my school friend, so I could get a QL - and that was then his machine for about 2 more years - he fetched it out of his loft when we were both 21 or so - but it no longer worked, with quite a bit of rust inside!

That was the last I saw of the ZX81 unfortunately, until the days of the internet arrived - even though I was trading in QL software from 1986 onwards, there was no mention of the ZX81 at shows. I guess, I then only returned to loving the zX81 when I decided to launch these forums and get more membranes manufactured. Now I come and check out the forums every day!

As for the ZX80, I had never even seen one, let alone touch one, until I bought a bunch of Sinclair equipment about 5 years ago - that is the only one I have had in my hands. I did like the fake air ducts on the top - from the pictures, I always thought that the lump on the top of the ZX80 with those dark stripes was to aid air circulation - little did I realise they were just stick on black tape!

[Moggy]

I think the thing that made Me latch on to the zeddy was that the manner in which it operated reminded Me in some strange way of the technology of My youth ie ferrite core, relays and valves.
I always thought it had a sort of "mechanicalness" about it and the cottage industries that sprang up along side were, I believe, a fascinating if short lived phenomena of the period.
Looking at some old advertisements for add ons in mags from the time, I looked up the addresses on streetview and was amazed at how many were private back street residences as opposed to factory outlets.
My most treasured possesions now are my Hunter eprom and battery backed memory boards and memotech keyboards and z80 assembler which has saved me lots of time not having to cross assemble and convert p files for use on the real thing (not into emulators that much) , works for Me anyway, also the code inside the assembler rom is relocatable and as such now resides in the memory board as well.

The rarest thing I have is one of the earliest ULA's No 2C158E which ,I believe, makes the known examples issued, three in number.

It's funny to think that once Charlie gets His MMC device worked out it will Make My rom/ram boards obsolete.
A modern day memory device designed for a thirty year old computer superseding my thirty year old memory devices ironic!!
Can't wait to load My Forth compiler into that!!

[Moggy]

An interesting thread, this one...


....As for the ZX80, I had never even seen one, let alone touch one, until I bought a bunch of Sinclair equipment about 5 years ago - that is the only one I have had in my hands. I did like the fake air ducts on the top - from the pictures, I always thought that the lump on the top of the ZX80 with those dark stripes was to aid air circulation - little did I realise they were just stick on black tape!

Hi Rich You sold Me a zx80 a few years ago so thats two at least You've had in Your hands!!

Regards moggy

[RWAP]

Hi Rich You sold Me a zx80 a few years ago so thats two at least You've had in Your hands!!

Regards moggy

That was the one!

[swensont]

Back in 1980, Popular Science ran a short article on this new ZX81 from the UK. I found it interesting but left it at that. Then, in Oct. 1980, my senior year in High School, Popular Science ran a full two page add for the ZX81, in either kit form or built. Having money from a summer job, I sent off for the ZX81 and the 16K memory pack. It arrived the day before Thanksgiving and I spent the holiday weekend setting it up, reading the manual and trying a few things out. I bought a tape player for it, but it took me a while to realize that I had to hit both Play and Record at the same time to properly save a program.

I used the ZX81 for quite a while. I fixed the memory wobble issue by duct taping the system and the memory to a small piece of peg board. I eventually got the T/S 2040 printer (alphacom) since the original ZX printer did not pass FCC certification. I subscribed to Sync magazine, typed in the programs, converted programs from David Ahl's books (Computer Games), etc.

I even started my own software company selling ZX81 software. Got the business license, home business permit, the California resellers permit, the whole works. I attended one computer show and sold a couple of tapes. Not much beyond that.

I picked up a book on M/C programming and was lost. I got the Toni Baker book and that helped. I bought ZXAS but could not get it to work, so I hand converted from Assembly to hex and used a hex loader program. The process was slow and painful.

I eventually moved on to the T/S 2068, but it died after having it for less than a year. In April, 1986, I bought the QL (QL, printer, and monitor) and used it for my last two years of college. I used it until 1998 when I got my first Windows system.

It's been a few years since I've done any programming. I decided to back a bit and try my luck at ZX81 M/C programming. With an emulator, TASM and a real editor, it is so much easier this time.

Tim Swenson

[zx81jens]

hi users!

here is my story (short version):

it was my grandfather who told me and my cousin that computers are the future – that was told to us in the late 70´s. he was right (as usual). so we both get a ZX81 als a kit in 1982 for christmas with the 16k-RAM. my cousin was good in electronics and i was not. so his one worked the first time with the power on. my ZX81 was working with some help (and a new CPU) a few weeks later. i tried to program in BASIC and some programs (most of them games) were nice. i can´t found the tapes anymore – what a pitty… my cousin was interested in hardware – software was my part. so I do the programing.

one year later the Commodore 64 came to me (it was christmas again) and with that programing was over. i played a lot of games the next years (i never stoped).

after a short intermezzo with the ATARI ST (for my music) i bought my first WIN´95-computer. that makes things worst. the only positiv thing was email and the internet.

In 1999 i found my ZX81 in a shoe-box. power on and… it worked! what a computer!!! after looking for users in the www. i found the ZX-TEAM, make contact and from the year 2000 until now i don´t miss a meeting!!! *highlight* ...

my collection of homecomputers: different ZX81 with a lot of things – two ZX80 – a TL801 (italian ZX80/81-clone) – the ZX80-LEGACY (#4 of five prototyp´s) – a Spectrum 2+ - some Commodore 64, VIC 20, C16, C128, AMIGA – some Atari (VCS2600, VCS7800, Atari 800XL) – a Video-Genie I (TRS-80-compatible) – Schneider (Armstrad) CPC464 – Schneider Joyce – Tandy TRS-80 (not working) – Dragon 32 (not working) – ALTAIR 8800 prototype (#17 – I know what you think… sorry, it´s from http://www.brielcomputers.com – and not working at the moment) – a Apple I (also a Replica from Vince Briel who makes great stuff) – Apple Macintosh Plus - Apple G4 Laptop - Epson QX10 with a lot of software … that was it for the moment.

the ZX81 is a facinating computer and a good posibility to understand the world a bit more

many greetings
jens

[yerzmyey]

Hehe. So - I'm rather a NEW user of ZX81. I bought it some time AFTER I subscribed this forum, if I recall.
I mean I was using ZX Spectrum 48 since middle 80s but I was reading about ZX81 and from time to time I saw it in shops. It was very rare computer here, somehow.

But then I was a child and nobody wanted to buy me and my brother the second computer, hehe.

So I bought it now. And I don't regret.
I use ZX81 16K with tape/mp3-player.