Pretty incredible people were able to use this device for anything at all; the base version with 1kb of memory barely had enough memory to contain the screen
Well, the Atari 2600 had a whopping one hundred and twenty eight bytes of RAM. 128 bytes. Literally just 7 address lines worth of data. (The cartridge has 12 address lines)
I was all set to buy the $50 self-assembled kit when my dad stopped me and said don't buy that, it's a toy. He didn't know anything about computers but was right anyway. Later I got an Atari 8-bit. I'm sure I would have done lots with the ZX81 and eventually moved up to one of the Atari, C64, Apple II. Good times. I got to use a Xerox CP/M machine a little while later that was decidedly more business-like.
What a naive view! By the same measure, all computers are toys, and since there's something apparently wrong with toys, all computers are bad.
Or - perhaps this is too enlightened - toys are useful for learning, and we should not limit ourselves to things which are solely chosen for being the least like a toy.
Actually I think that was it! The size and keyboard wasn't even as good as a calculator of the day. I ultimately got the Atari 400 with membrane keyboard and my dad insisted I upgrade it with a third-party mechanical one that looked all-Frankenkeys sticking up out of the slim case. I liked the membrane keys, later Atari 400 manufacturing keys didn't come out as well as the early models--I had friends and stores' models to compare with.
Well my first computer was a secondhand C64 with lots of accessory's, i mean really a lot...a full blown c64 two disk-drives fast-load cartridge 100's of games joysticks everything!! My dad then say'd he needs a real computer an got a macintosh Lc2, and because he was old-school (one computer and one tv per household) i had to trash the c64, one would say an Lc2 is cool...yeah it was, but nearly zero games, all my friends with amigas and dos machines had more fun, i had myst, crystal quest and shufflepuck...and hypercard, photoshop and filemaker...oh and quark express...cool :(
EDIT: I forgot that i had IndianaJones3 too..what a cool game, probably even harder then myst.
I got the US version of this machine for Christmas 1982. The manual that came with it had all of the Z80 opcodes listed and briefly explained. I learned a lot from that little machine.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 42.1 ms ] threadOr - perhaps this is too enlightened - toys are useful for learning, and we should not limit ourselves to things which are solely chosen for being the least like a toy.
Maybe..but with a keyboard (no! the ZX81 had no keyboard) and optional floppy's.
EDIT: I forgot that i had IndianaJones3 too..what a cool game, probably even harder then myst.