Hello from Germany

Introduce yourself to your fellow forum members - what was your journey into the Sinclair world?
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Brimbard
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2021 8:12 pm

Hello from Germany

Post by Brimbard »

Hello,

becoming 60 early next year I have the luxury of being already in early retirement.
My main hobby is currently my grand daughter who became 3 a few days ago. :)

But since there is still plenty of time available I wanted to get back to my first computer love which was a ZX81. I got one borrowed from a friend in the late 80ies. This is what I started programming with. Being very short on money at that time and without today's internet I was limited to literature I got by chance. Due the limitations of the small machine I soon discovered the need to look into machine code and then I got hold of the article "Klartext für den ZX81" ("plaintext for the ZX81" https://archive.org/details/klartext-fur-den-zx81). That was talking about programming in machine code (not assembler!) Very interesting but also very tedious to use especially when you had to use a tape player every time it crashed. Then I found a program showing hi-res graphics which totally blew my mind.

So much that I still think about it more than 40 years later! :D

But I somehow started my professional life in chemistry which was not too bad (and allowed my early retirement ;) ). But starting a family brought many other priorities so I lost this subject out of sight. I continued doing a little programming (Pascal, PHP, Java, Python) but only as a hobby never professional. At least this gave me a good understanding on how computers work which helped in my career even if I stayed outside IT.

The hardware had all been gone over the years, so I re-started my adventure with the ZX81 using the EightyOne emulator in connection with FASM-ZX. This is again a mind blowing experience: "What has happened in all those years?" :o

It is so easy now to enter assembler code (and mix with Basic). If it crashes just correct your code and start again. :D

While I am making progress it seems I may run into issues which eventually may not root in my personal programming skills. This is where I hope this forum may help.

cheers
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1024MAK
Posts: 5102
Joined: Mon Sep 26, 2011 10:56 am
Location: Looking forward to summer in Somerset, UK...

Re: Hello from Germany

Post by 1024MAK »

Hello and welcome to our forum Brimbard!

:D :D :D

I hope you enjoy this forum :D

If you can’t find what you are looking for, please do ask. We do obviously suggest using the search box first.

We will certainly try to help with any questions you may have.

Mark
ZX81 Variations
ZX81 Chip Pin-outs
ZX81 Video Transistor Buffer Amp

:!: Standby alert :!:
There are four lights!
Step up to red alert. Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb :!:
Looking forward to summer later in the year.
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mrtinb
Posts: 1906
Joined: Fri Nov 06, 2015 5:44 pm
Location: Denmark
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Re: Hello from Germany

Post by mrtinb »

Welcome.

And if you like help with the ZX81 in German, there is a forum for it as well.

https://forum.tlienhard.com/phpBB3/
Martin
https://zx.rtin.be
ZX81, Lambda 8300, Commodore 64, Mac G4 Cube
Spinnetti
Posts: 253
Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2020 11:29 pm

Re: Hello from Germany

Post by Spinnetti »

Welcome, your story is almost exactly same as many of us! German forum already linked is a good one. Me and my friend (we both have a Sinclair collection now) hand coded machine language back then too. Difficult for us, but we both have professional IT careers because of it.
Zeddy: ZX80, ZX81/ZXpand, TS1000/ZXpand, TS1500/Zxpand+
Speccy: 48k, +, +2, +3, TS2068, "Bare Metal" Pi, Next KS2, IF1/Microdrives/Vdrive/Light Gun/VGA-Joy
QL: Minerva/QL-VGA/Custom PSU
C5: 24v, LiFE battery, Disc brakes
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