Happy Birthday ZX Spectrum!

[The Succubus]

....noes, not a forum poster, but a piece of technology that changed the course of my entire life.

While other kids were out there playing football in the sunshine, I sat indoors looking at a glowing screen. While other kids were listening to the musical abominations that passed for 80's chart music, I was listening to a series of beeps and whistles that are permanently seared into my brain, synonymous with "Tape Load Error". While other folks stare at computers and wonder what the heck all the funny buttons are, I thank this little computer with rubber keys for my first introduction into programming.

Happy birthday, Speccy! :smallbiggrin:

[factotum]

I probably owe my earlier career as a programmer to one of those little beasties...awesome machine whose like will likely never be seen again.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Ah. I cut my teeth on the ZX81, which almost forced me to learn Z80 machine code (I won two school prizes - for the first I requested a brace of Z80 machine code books, and the second I requested Lord of the Rings). Then I went on to the Commodore 128.

Still, the Speccy was a good computer in its day - I had one friend who wrote a complete space-based war game on his spectrum. And the Sinclaur community was full of people who were determined to find out exactly what you could do with these little computers.