uses for the zx80/81 outside of games

[Crayon21]

was the zx80/81 ever used for businesses or other areas of the workforce? is there any evidence of this? did magazines ever cover it?

[Lardo Boffin]

I got this industrialised ZX81 a while back:

https://www.sinclairzxworld.com/viewtop ... 002#p43002

[Lardo Boffin]

Also there is this thread:

https://www.sinclairzxworld.com/viewtop ... 464#p22464

And doubtless others.

[Moggy]

Early issues of Sinclair User magazine ran features on people who used Sinclair computers as computers rather than games consoles, from an Olympic pentathlete to a 70 odd year old female business owner who ran stock control and wages programs successfully on a ZX81.

Link to magazines.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/magazin ... clair_User

[1024MAK]

Some of my Zeddies came from a training collage. Unlikely they were only used for games.

Mark

[1024MAK]

Oh, nearly forgot. A UK TV station (Channel 4 IIRC) and a UK Electronics magazine used a ZX81 as the intelligent controller for a floor robot.

I’ll see if I can find a photo.

Mark

[Moggy]

I seem to vaguely recall that Anglian water used a ZX80 in some capacity re water sampling until relatively recent times.

As for myself I have EPROM programmers for the ZX81 and Spectrum and use my own zeddies for Forth, higher maths, cipher creation and audio file playing. My two speccies are for EPROM programming only as I have no interest in playing games on them.

[1024MAK]

Oh, nearly forgot. A UK TV station (Channel 4 IIRC) and a UK Electronics magazine used a ZX81 as the intelligent controller for a floor robot.

Yes, it was for Channel 4 and the magazine was "Electronics - The Maplin Magazine" .

Channel 4 ZX81 Controlled Robot

Here's a link to a pdf of the relevant copy.

Mark

[GCHarder]

See this link...

https://www.sinclairzxworld.com/viewtop ... ory#p13604

ZX81 used in academic research

And

https://www.sinclairzxworld.com/viewtop ... and#p17762

Industrial use, although this is a TS1500.

Greg