Hello from North Carolina
Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 12:17 am
Bought my T/S ZX-81 in the SF Bay Area (California) when it was advertised as a kit for $99.99 in Scientific American. Was so excited about this little gem that I joined the EBZUG (East Bay ZX-81 User's Group), became a regular, and ended up writing a book with Gary Phillips (Timex/Sinclair User's Encyclopedia), which came on the market just when Timex announced they were discontinuing sales of the ZX-81 
I still have all the gizmo's: memory add-on, upgraded keyboard, as well as several software-PROM add-ons. It's all in a box in the attic.
Also got the TS1000 (Spectrum).
Not sure what to do with all this, including lots of newsletters from EBZUG, some 30 tapes with software (once upon a time), and 20 copies of my book!
I'm 65 now, and have fond memories of those bygone days. I did two years of digital electrical engineering at Stanford University from 1976 to 1980, even though my bachelor's was in economics and my masters in statistics. Loved the simplicity of the Zilog chipset, the 8080 assembly language, and chip clock rates that peaked out at about 2 MHz! I never did learn what a "pull-up" resistor was, but got to design operating systems and CPU's from NAND chips. It was all very magical.
Now, I spend my efforts using computers to make the world a better place for those not given so many opportunities as I had. I recently gave a talk at the local high schools, pulling out an 8" floppy (that held a whopping 128kb), and asking if anyone had any idea what I was holding...
Nice to connect with folks who know what Sinclair Computer was...
I still have all the gizmo's: memory add-on, upgraded keyboard, as well as several software-PROM add-ons. It's all in a box in the attic.
Also got the TS1000 (Spectrum).
Not sure what to do with all this, including lots of newsletters from EBZUG, some 30 tapes with software (once upon a time), and 20 copies of my book!
I'm 65 now, and have fond memories of those bygone days. I did two years of digital electrical engineering at Stanford University from 1976 to 1980, even though my bachelor's was in economics and my masters in statistics. Loved the simplicity of the Zilog chipset, the 8080 assembly language, and chip clock rates that peaked out at about 2 MHz! I never did learn what a "pull-up" resistor was, but got to design operating systems and CPU's from NAND chips. It was all very magical.
Now, I spend my efforts using computers to make the world a better place for those not given so many opportunities as I had. I recently gave a talk at the local high schools, pulling out an 8" floppy (that held a whopping 128kb), and asking if anyone had any idea what I was holding...
Nice to connect with folks who know what Sinclair Computer was...
