When the ZX81 came out I spent all my pocket money savings on it. First on the thing itself, later I would shell out for its 16K RAM extension.
Restoring software on the ZX81 using cassette tapes was so slow and cumbersome that it was quicker to restore it from my own memory. I had a little scrolling evasion game that I knew by heart, and I would type it in if I felt the need to play. Changing little aspects of that game (first different characters for the obstructions, then game mechanics) was what set me on the path of programming.
My brother somehow salvaged that first ZX81 from our parents' estate and it is now hanging framed on the wall next to me as I type this.
[–] Lio 1 day ago
If you went round this house he'd have to start it loading from cassette while you went out to play in the garden.
When you'd had enough pretending to be the A-Team you'd creep back, praying no one sneezed or farted lest the RAM pack wobbled and you have to start over.
I'd claim this was the Gen X equivalent of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch but if you told kids t'day they'd nare believe you.
Good times.
[–] flopsamjetsam 1 day ago
Later on, my friend's older brother had a Spectrum. All the local magazines had photos of the games, and it was incredible to play them and see them "for real". The rubber keyboard with pre-programmed BASIC keywords, later on a full-sized keyboard and some kind of expansion pack (with disk drives I think?). And his older brother showing me how crazy the memory layout for graphics was. Good times.
On the ZX81, I knew from reading computer magazines that Sinclair BASIC had this weird single-key input method and it was mandatory. So, I managed to type in some very short program from the manual, SAVE it (I already knew how important that was!) and then RUN it. And it worked.
As this was more than my uncle had managed so far, in weeks or months or ownership, he was deeply impressed, and conveyed this to my parents, which as I type it very belatedly occurs to me is maybe why they bought me a ZX Spectrum the next year.
I don't think he ever used it much more. He was the son of Arthur Doodson, known for his work in tide prediction:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Thomas_Doodson
Thom died 23 years ago. His wife was my auntie Valerie, a tiny bit famous in her own right for preserving Arthur's legacy. She remarried about 20 years later, and her husband David is still alive and still has that ZX81. I hope to get it off him some time.