Thanks for watching everyone! If you're wondering about the impact of this machine outside of the UK - check out the wiki page on the Timex-Sinclair 1000 - (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_1000) - This is interesting: "Timex claimed to have sold 600,000 TS1000s in the US by early 1983, and other companies imported localized versions of British software.[1] It sold for US$99.95 in the US when it debuted, making it the cheapest home computer at the time; it was advertised as "the first computer under $100". This pricing initiated a price war with Commodore International, who quickly reduced the price of its VIC-20 to match and later announced a trade-in program offering $100 for any competing computer toward the purchase of a Commodore 64. Since the TS1000 was selling for $49 by this time, many customers bought them for the sole purpose of trading them in for a Commodore 64." - Influential indeed - but not for the reasons Sinclair wanted :)
Your calculation of the memory free to use for programs (106 bytes), is not entirely fair. Because the screen's memory use depends on how many characters are on screen, and how far they are from the left of the screen. I.e. the screen memory is used like a sparse array. If you'd plot a character in the middle of a line, the line in memory would consist of a bunch of space characters, followed by the character you plotted, and an end-of-line character (I think, don't know exactly anymore ;)). And then the next screen line would immediately follow after that.
@@peterdevroomen1989 Yep, that's why I say it's good to use the screen sparingly :). The figures were just meant to illustrate just how little 1k really is :)
The ZX81 was the 1st computer I ever own, thanks to my parents. We bought it in kit because it was cheaper and my father built it, God bless his soul. I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for this computer.
@@TheRetroShack mee too! Pestered my dad for around a year until he gave in and bought a Microdigital TK85 made in Brazil which was a 16kb clon of the Timex Sinclair 1500. I'm fifty years old now and a information systems engineer.... thanks to this little machine
I remember building my ZX81 as it was yesterday. I remember the late nights, tuning in BBC on the radio and record the programs they were sending for the ZX81 over AM. I remember the hundreds of hours typing in assembler and then lying in my bed letting the speech synth I've built read all hex codes while I validated to see if I've made some typos. ZX81 was my first true "computer love".
@@gu4xinim We also had software of flexible records that came on magazine covers. And the magazines had software listings to type in. It was a great way to learn coding as a youngster and great fun. Also brilliant for getting some games if you had no money like me.
I spent almost the entire school summer holidays in 1981 learning how to program and use this machine. I'd spent entire days sat in front of a portable black and white TV, writing programs, (mostly games of some description or other), and saving them on a little cassette recorder. Happy days.
My first computer.. 11 years old and my Middle school just got hold of a Research machines 380z. I was staggered by this machine and attempted to spend as much time as possible on it when allowed. just before Christmas 81 - already had my Christmas list nailed and a friend told me about this ZX81 computer. 70 quid in WH Smith. 20 quid above my Christmas allowance. I tried so hard to persuade my mum to forget about the original Christmas list and get me a ZX81 instead, despite it being more expensive. I've had never spoken so eloquently, nor since. I got zx81, and I got the memorex 16k Ram upgrade (more stable than the sinclair ram pack) and WH Smith cassette recorder, although I didn't get the Ram pack and cassette as a surprise until later in the morning. However, up at 4am, computer set up and linked to telly by 4.30. By the time the rest of the house started to rise at 7am, I had learned enough Sinclair basic to code a simple 5 card hi-lo game in 1k. I remember my brother being impressed. What I could do with 16k. Awesome times...
My first computer as well. Saved up for months and finally got mine in Currys for £50! Never looked back as My whole career in IT/programming started with the ZX81. Thank you Sir Clive and the rest of the folks Sinclair Research.
During my youth, I was surrounded by Sinclair products and still am :-). The school had the first ZX80 and I completed my Computer Studies A-Level with the ZX81. Thanks to Sinclair, I have had a very successful career as a mainframe and then PC software analyst and developer. Happy Birthday ZX81.
I remember my dad taking me to buy my first ever computer, which was one of these. I was 8 at the time and it still ranks up there in one of the most memorable and happiest moments of my life, and I was absolutely hooked on the ZX81 and Spectrum for the next several years. So grateful for him understanding just how big a role the computer was about to take in the world and buying me that first machine and a book on learning basic... There is no way I would have had the interest and then the career I have if it was not for the ZX81 and my dad's foresight to enter the world of computers at the perfect time (and not buy an Xbox equivalent of the time - the Atari 2600 or something! lol). Great times - Oh and please do follow up with a second video on the 32k ram upgrade! I may be tempted to upgrade one of my units...
Great video. The ZX81 was my first computer, bought for my 14th birthday, followed a few months later by the 16K ram pack for Christmas. The joys of loading from and saving to tape, low res black and white display and no sound. But it opened up a whole new world to a generation. Can't believe it was 40 years ago.
@@TheRetroShack a 16k upgrade is simpler and 16k was 'the norm' back in the day, the extra 16k, which varies where it is in the memory map depending which mod is used/how its done, is not easy to use, as cant be used for machine code, if in the 32768-49151 area unless you do the M1NOT mod, and not ever if in the 49152-65535 area as this is used for display 'execution'
In high school I did a week of "work experience" at British Aerospace, and the engineer looking after me helped me build (on an old school wire wrap board) a GPIO interface to plug into the RAM expansion edge connector of my ZX81 and I used it to control a simple skid steer robot. Must be around 35 years ago 😱
I got mine secondhand in 1983, the 16K Ram pack could be very securely fixed in place with.... velcro. I had it for a year and got... a 48K Speccy. Now? Well, I graduated in Computer Science, and have nearly 30 years in tech under my belt. The £45 from my post office savings that my mum withdrew to pay for it was a great investment in life. Thanks to the ZX81 and ZX Basic. A very happy 40th birthday... and thank you.
Awesome vid. Took me back to when I got mine in 81. I was learning BASIC on paper at school computer club, we had a Research Machines beast but we had to take turns an couldn’t save our work. My dad bought me mine off a neighbour second hand. Once I learned how to use the “inkey$” command I wrote a VERY basic space invader program, had the shooter, an alien flying across the top and bullets. However, in 1k if you shot a bullet when more than a third of the way across the screen it never made it to the top. I learned how to be efficient with code which started my career in IT. These days it seems you just need to throw more ram or processing power at issues, if designers and developers these days had to use the ZX81 maybe apps would be more efficient and hardware would be less expensive. Excellent vid, keep the nostalgia going...
The ZX81 was the start of my computing journey - my mum used to park an 11 year old me in WH Smiths to play with the display model there whilst she did the shopping. She did eventually buy me my own one, which was possibly one of the happiest days of my life. 😂
I’ll join the “My first computer at the age of 11” brigade. But part of the inspiration for me to buy this was when a parent brought in a ZX80 to our primary school of 70 kids to show us a real life computer. I was so overexcited by the idea of seeing a computer that I must have misbehaved, because the teacher, as a punishment, decreed that I would not be allowed to see the computer demonstration. I was absolutely gutted and I doubt that the teacher could ever have realised how much of a blow that actually was that I would still be thinking about it 40 years later! Anyway, I managed to beg for a ZX81 when that came out a short while later and later saved hard for an original ZX Spectrum. Ahhh, the memories!
I had one...with 16k ram pack and printer. I still have it and it still works! Broke it out years ago to demonstrate to my daughters just how good their PC was and that they should stop griping because I wasn’t upgrading the video card. Really got good when I loaded a miraculously still capable tape to play chess! That was 15 years ago....I know the computer still works but doubt the tapes work. I don’t have a tape recorder to test them anymore. Great machine though and I plan to use it as a technology demonstrator for my grandkids too!
That’s the ticket! Flaming kids these days! Don’t know they’re born. We used to live in a shoebox in the middle of the road! You had a shoebox??? Luxury! :) Ahhh... Monty Python :)
I was the proud owner of a Sinclair ZX Spectrum which I bought way back in the early part of 1983, which a gentleman brought from UK. It was fabulous. Of course I had to use my TV as the monitor. One day I fiddled with it in the same year and its character generator failed. I contacted the makers, who asked me to send it there, but the red tape was too much. I still have it.
My friends father went to visit england and bought back the kit model. I watched him create it! I used to buy computer magazines to type in the games. All I wanted was space invaders to play! He bought 16k ram back, remember the wobble!!! He bought a dktronics keyboard case for it with an extra 16k of ram. You could change character sets with it and create your own. The hours I spent typing in machine code! Oh the memories
I remember you could change the character set. I changed it to the character set of the ZX80 - which was slightly different - because I liked that one more.
What a trip down memory lane. Brilliant video. The ZX80 and ZX81 were fantastic computers. I spent a lot of hours typing, debugging, learning, and the best lesson of all... conservation of resources. In those days memory and CPU were limited and you needed to think about everything you did. Not like the big iron machines of today... "Oh I'll just throw another 32gb of RAM in so I can do something". I really miss those days and the joy of discovering some new secret POKE command or finding a new way of doing something and saving 10 bytes of RAM. I remember my parents buying me a ZX printer and them getting annoyed when there were pieces silver coated till roll paper all over the place.
xmas 1983 we were going to buy a ZX81 but a neighbour told us to buy a zx spectrum instead, we did, the rest is history. it wasnt until a few years ago i finally got my first "zeddy" now i have 2, and quite a few games etc on tape...and books.
Thanks for this great video. So nostalgic, and chock full of interesting info. Like many others, the ZX81 is was my first step towards a computing career (though it was the C64 which really boosted it a few years later). The early 80's were such a special, exciting time. it seemed like every week brought a new computer, and every day new games we'd never seen before. An incredible time to live through. I got my ZX81 in 82, from WH Smiths when it dropped to £50 pre-built, and before the Spectrum was released. I really wanted a Spectrum, but couldn't afford one, being a 16 year old in sixth form, and my family weren't very well off, so I had to make do. I taught myself to program in BASIC on it, and wrote some very nifty 1k games that were probably better than some of the published ones. I can remember typing in listings from books, and playing them with my school friends, and hanging around computer shops after school, looking at the latest software. At one point I had to take it back to the shop for repair as it wouldn't save. I eventually got a Memopak 16k RAM pack (no wobble on that one), and thought I'd never fill up the memory, but I did shortly afterwards. Eventually I sold it, in mint condition, for £25 so I could get a C64, a decision I later regretted. I recently bought a refurbed ZX81 with the modern ULA, and 32K onboard (as well as a rubber key Spectrum), and I've been having fun playing around with BASIC, and playing games like 3D Monster Maze and Mazogs. I have another more battered issue 1 ZX81 with some problems that need fixing that I plan to get up and running, but currently it's on display on my bookshelf with a Memopak 16k plugged in to remind me of the old days.
Fantastic little documentary! This is the first video I've seen that clearly explains the price advantage this computer had over all its competitors at the time, and how that difference gave so many people a headstart in computing. Also, of course I'd love to see the RAM expanded. I don't know if anybody has done it, but more RAM -> Bad Apple demo, and who wouldn't want to see that 👍
@@TheRetroShack I liked the demo primarily because it's been written for just about every system you can think of, and it shows the differences in capability of each one. Very interesting.
Interesting. I would like to see you do the upgrade. Just to see what it was capable of. Just think 1 year later Sinclair came out with a 48K machine. What a difference 1 year makes.
I loved my Zx 81. I bought it from a school friend for £10 in 1983 and it came with the infamous ram pack and some software. It was a brilliant introduction to the exciting world of computing.
Indeed it was! Easy to dismiss these days, but back in the day, this was all many people could afford, and it did change the computing landscape, at least in the UK.
@@TheRetroShack Completely. We had a Spectrum and then a Commodore 64 as family computers, but these simple machines were a brilliant introduction. I would spend hours typing a program in for the Ram pack to wobble and I would lose the whole afternoon’s work before I got to save it 😂
Bought mine in WH Smith. I was 15. A life changing day! People laugh at how underpowered it is now but they forget the context. Compared to anything else I'd experienced- calculators and digital watches, primitive video game consoles- this was a powerhouse.
@@ian_b same here , March 84 they did them including the 16k ram for £39.99 I remember typing stuff in out of the manual on the black n white portable in the kitchen
I usually call this thing the Timex Sinclair 1000... but I’m an American... such a blinking weird computer, but I absolutely adored and treasured the time I had with it. I had the RAM expansion and the little thermal printer. Went on to the Commodore 64 after that.
The diminutive ZX81 was my first computer back in 1981, and 3D Monster Maze (JK Grey Software!!) was the first FPS like game I played. Scared the hell out of me at the time - almost as much as the ram pack wobble. Moved on to a 16k Spectrum (upgraded with memory chips to 48k and a "Fuller" joystick port), followed by an Amstrad CPC464 with colour monitor. Then on to an Amiga 500 (expanded with a 512KB upgrade), and then traded up to an A1200 - which I heavily upgraded (12MB ram, internal 65MB hard drive, external 250MB Archos drive, Blizzard 40mhz '030 accelerator, external 2nd floppy, multi-sync monitor and a printer.) Eventually, had to give in and move to windows :-( But loved that little ZX81, had so much fun with it!!
The ZX81 was my first computer, built from a kit by my Dad when I was still at primary school. I don't know where I got the idea that I wanted a computer from, because nobody I knew had a computer then, maybe I'd seen something on TV. So I asked my Dad about it, and he showed me an advert for the ZX81 in Wireless World magazine (he was a TV repair engineer so read it every month) and he said something like "this has just come out, how about one fof these?". He also took me to see one of his work colleagues (who was a bit of a boffin) who had his ZX81 hooked up to a big machine that he used to track satellites with! Anyway, You can't imagine the excitement as my Dad was building my ZX81, and then eventually that first turning on and seeing that black and white cursor. Yes, the 'ram pack wobble' was a pain but we manged to pretty much eradicate it with some sticky pads which minimised the amount of movement between the ZX81 and the ram pack. My Dad also built me a big wooden box which housed the ZX81 and power supply, with a proper keyboard on top, and with a power switch built in. Later on when I got a Spectrum we also built a keyboard for it, from an old terminal keyboard that we bought at a local computer fair, which we spray painted and then hand soldered wiring to every switch in rows and columns to mimic the 'matrix' layout you see on the membrane keyboard. It was a big metal thing with loads of spare keys, so I ran the wires to some of these extra keys and had a working num pad, cursor keys and a dedicated delete key (normally, you had to press caps shift and the zero key to get the delete function, but by running wires from both of these to my delete key I had a single press delete key). I think I did something similar so that you could get into 'extended mode; with a single key press rather than several presses (I can't remember which keys exactly). It also had a latching-type switch that I wired to be a caps lock key. I've still got that keyboard and it has so many good memories for me, although my original ZX81 and it's wooden box have long gone (I think my brother gave it away to one of his mates sometime in the late 80s). I do have another ZX81 but I don't think that is the one my Dad built, I can't remember exactly where that one came from. Anyway, this video brought back lot of great memories, so thanks!
Walking into WHSmiths in the 80's and seeing ZX81's and ZX Spectrums, good times...And how small was that ZX81 circuit board?! Not much bigger than a modern Raspberry pi.
Indeed, and the coding prowess to produce games in only 1K, amazing...Plus I personally think anything that Rick Dickinson designed looked amazing. From the ZX81 to the Spectrum Next.
The ZX81 was on my list of "must have" vintage computers until last year, when I finally bought one. :D Whilst the machine itself is amazing for what it is, that's nothing compared to the things that many talented coders managed to make these little things do!
Takes me back to my first computer. I remember having loads of "fun" typing up listings meant for my friend's Vic20 and making them work on the ZX81 (minus sound, colour and graphics). Ah, the simple joys of youth! I also remember it was my maths teacher who persuaded my parents to splash out the £70 (which they could ill afford) claiming it would be a good investment. It led to my career so, thanks Mr Turner, and to his fake company 'Erminesoft', under the guise of which we attended computer shows in London. Happy memories. Ah, just also remembered that my friend with the VIC20 (hi Darren if you are out there) was a bit jealous when I got the 16k ram pack as the VIC20 only had 4k IIRC.
@@zapod20 (oops, posted with the wrong account). Thanks for the correction. Yes, wobble was a big deal though I did manage to get a case with a proper keyboard into which the mainboard fitted along with a rampack so no problems for me after I got that. I can't remember the brand and it probably cost almost as much as the ZX81 but it kept me going for a couple of years before I moved on to a Dragon32 (just before they went bust sadly). In the end that died (inside a year) and Dixon's could not repair (no replacements available) so they gave us the money back to spend on any other computer and my mum (a teacher by then) subbed the difference to get a beeb on the condition I did support for her classroom including writing educational stuff. Lots of maths test programmes followed.
@@andyjdhurley Ha ha no worries! The '3.5k' is burned into my memory if only being such an odd number for computer ram. The teacher that ran my school's computer club entrusted me with the only Vic20 for a whole weekend. A whole weekend with a computer with a real keyboard! (later I'd be entrusted with the Apple II and *gasp* disk drives lol!). I had a 48k Spectrum, followed by a QL(yes) and then jumped onto the Acorn bus with an A3000. Good times.
I had one as a 15 year old kid. Purchased in WH Smith. I learned to program (quite well) and later became an electrical/electronic engineer. Nearing the end of my career now but cant help thinking that little machine had a big role in starting it all off.
Definitely add that internal 32K RAM! I would also put heatsinks on the chips and swap out the 7805 and heatsink for a modern switching voltage regulator. One of the best add-ons you can get for the ZX81 is the ZXpand+ which adds 32K RAM, an SD card slot, a joystick port, AY sound, and a reset button!
@@TheRetroShack haha glad to be of service! These vintage computers deserve the best modern add-ons so they can be shown and used to their full potential
The ZX81 was my first computer, (1982). It is still a great machine to program. I've installed an internal 16K RAM chip in it, it was an easy mod, as was the composite mod using a 555 IC and 2 transistors to generate the back porch signal.
I remember the whole setu well. A cheap portable TV, a cassette deck and the 16K RAM pack that suffered from the wobble of death. I upgraded that later to a 64K ack but you had to use Peek and poke commands to use the whole of it. I think I used it solidly for 6 years and it didn't wear out. Not even the rubber stick-on keypad I bought for it. 40 years. Happy times.
My first ever computer, a kit build ZX81. Hugely frustrating to use at times but hard to overstate how amazing was to own a computer of my own. Fond memories of shopping for ZX81 cassettes in WH Smiths, less fond memories of the RAM pack wobble and typing out a program from a magazine only for it not to work because of an error in the printed code!
The ZX81 was my first computer, I quickly ran out of memory with only 1K so bought a 16K ram pack and very soon after that I used all that up, but in the process I learned Sinclair Basic and could see what all the fuss was about. I was a bit late to the scene so mine was very much a second hand model. By the time I had hit the 16K limit the Spectrum came out and I was able to get a 48K one and that did me for quite a few years I had hours of fun playing the Hobbit and Elite on that as well as typing in many magazine games and started writing my own basic programs on it. I used to work for TSB Bank and the Bilborough Branch in Nottingham was probably the first TSB branch to have a computerised advertising display above the tills showing the details of the Bank's latest products so that customers had something to watch whilst waiting in the queue! After getting a QL and then an Atari ST (always wanted an Amiga but could never quite afford one) I finally switched to Windows PCs and became an IT Consultant and developer still to this day! So thanks to the ZX81 I switched from Banker to Developer to Consultant. I am about to retire and will spend my retired years repairing old Amigas and Classic Macs. Possibly a Spectrum or two as well.
40 years... Made me 19 when I got it! Got the kit, learned how to build a PC. By 22 I was working in the computer industry and working around the world, especially in America. Good times and good money working in the I.T industry early on, because of how hard it was. Today the software is so simple, I.T. workers don't earn today what I was earning 30 years ago!
My first computer. My father bought it thinking he might be able to use it for accounting or something, but I played 3D Monster Maze instead. I don't think I've ever seen one without the 16k rampak.
This was my first computer and for memory expansion it got the better fitting Memotech 16k expatiation. I also got four Maplin kits for it in form of a full sized keyboard, Hi-Res graphic card 3 channel sound and a 3 way port expansion. In fact I still have all of it and the last time I tried it still all works. The one press function key on the keyboard does cause the machine to crash after a few presses, still haven't got to the bottom of why. Good thing is the original two key press still works with no problem. I would be interested in seeing the internal memory expansion done.
I started with a ZX81, then a 48k ZX spectrum, then a +3, then onto much bigger things with a Commodore Amiga 500 (I still own this), a Commodore Amiga 1200 (which I foolishly sold to get the money to buy my first PC.) Then my first PC with an AMD K6-2 processor ........ oh, what memories.
Really dig your video. Thank you for this interesting retrospective and refurb. And I would really appreciate if you do get around to making a video of the ZX81 with the internal 32KB RAM expansion.
Like many others, the ZX81 was my first computer, soldered together from the kit. I was well past my school days but used it for a while until I got a Spectrum, and then a Spectrum + etc etc. Learned BASIC on there. Nice video. Sold my ZX81 a long time ago, and my Speccies. (But I have a Spectrum Next earmarked for me for this summer :) )
Looking back it's funny to think how disappointed I was in the ZX81. My father had had a falling out the the frankly useless IT department where he worked; an argument that culminated in him saying his 13 year old son could do what he requested on a home micro what they claimed they couldn't deliver on a many-million pound mainframe. Anyway they called his bluff and presented him with a BBC B + CUB monitor + dual 80 track FDD which he brought home with a rather sheepish look on his face... ...after making a delighted me understand it was on loan from work for an indeterminate period of time and was there any chance I could deliver on his hasty claim? I'm no programming whiz but after my dad had sat me down to explain what was required I coded the software in BASIC over a weekend for a demonstration that Monday which caused a lot of red faces. The silly thing was I only hacked it together as a demo expecting the 'professionals' to do a much better version or at most I'd be asked to tidy it up... But no, the 'professionals' seemingly couldn't do with all the tools at their disposal what a 13 year old had done on a Beeb over a weekend. The various managers who had seen the demo were so impressed they just bought a bunch of Beebs on which to run it and just used what I had done - they were still using it a good 10+ years later on the same old hardware when my father retired! I should point out that I had done nothing special - the software simply had to keep track of a fleet of vehicles; what was available, outstanding issues, who had them, where, when, how, long, etc... hardly rocket science. That IT department really was that useless... or likely that lazy. So what's that got to do with the ZX81..? After about 12 months said IT department remembered they had a BBC on loan to my father. In a fit of petty revenge they insisted it be returned. My father tried to requisition another, usually a formality, but for some reason the IT dept refused! Lovely people! Out of the kindness of their limited finances my parents bought me a ZX81 by way of a replacement - a gesture for which I will always be grateful, but when you've had the use of a BBC B + all the trimmings for 12 months an unexpanded '81 just isn't going to cut it. Epilogue: A few years later my father's work was looking at getting some decent 'communication desktops' for all the secretaries. I think the idea was to bring everything together in to one device to streamline their work - a laudable plan. Anyway one of the senior IT bods seemingly had a bit of a thing going with ICL, you know that UK IBM wanna be that wasn't. The contract for all these computers was going to add up to a big kick-back for him if he could persuade the powers to buy ICL... ...By this point my father had built up a bit of an underground reputation as being computer-savvy as a result of advice from me in the face of said crappy IT department. So he was passed one of these computers for an opinion. He brought it home to me for a look - it was an ICL OPD (one per desk). Basically a Sinclair QL in a fancy case complete with microdrives and a phone bodged on to the side. Oh my, what a spectacular pile of garbage it was!. It couldn't do most of what was expected of it, it was slow, rubbish, didn't have proper networking, the software was unusably buggy, and worst crime of all in my eyes it couldn't even run QL software as it ran ICL's own horror of an OS - a typical ICL POS in other words! I told my father his work shouldn't touch them with a ten foot barge pole and maybe getting a bunch of PC's with suitable upgrades would be better, preferably not ICL ones. Yes, his work had a hugely expensive mainframe with loads of highly expensive terminals all over the place but for some inexplicable reason non-IT employees were bared from using them even though everything that was required could have been run and administered centrally. My father told me that as far as he could tell the 'IT' equipment was for the 'IT' bods to play with and if anyone needed a computer for real work it was largely up to them to sort themselves out! Happily the OPD's were bought anyway as the IT head had a large kick-back riding on it in spite of my father passing on said warnings. Not one of the secretaries used them for more than a couple of days and the whole lot went in to land fill - just short of a thousand machines, along with supporting hardware and software licences. The head of IT lost his job over that and later IT was farmed out to an off-site IBM datacentre at vast expense while all the on-site equipment just gathered dust. For any wondering this wasn't some multinational, but one of the larger London Councils - yep, local government making good use of tax payers money! Um, I'm not sure why I felt the need to pass on that tenuous link to the ZX81. If anybody read it I hope they enjoyed my ramble down memory lane.
I've never seen an epilogue in a RUclips comment before! Ha, the BBC B was vastly superior to a ZX81. It cost about 8x as much to be fair. An 80 track FDD must have been another £200... and the filesystem ROM was another £100 wasn't it? You were lucky to have free use of it all for so long. I guess you can consider it payment for that weekend project that that council found useful for a decade.
We used to hold the Sinclair ram pack in place using bits of matchstick! More frustrating was keying in programs from specialist magazines, find they were buggy, and having to do it all again when the corrections came out!
My first computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000, handed down to me. About a year later I got an Atari 1200XL and never looked back -- I still have and use it, to this day -- so I have a tiny soft spot for the TS1000. (The whopping 2K of RAM ours had in it probably helped make it a bit more palatable.)
The ZX81 was such a pain! I could never get it to load from tape, and it was hard to type on. But it was fun!!! The manual was excellent to start us off learning programming skills and it was affordable. So yes, highly influential.
The trick to good tape loading was a phosphor bronze triim tool and adjusting the head azimuth for max treble. You did it quickly during the header preamble..
My first 'proper' computer and one I still have (currently gathering dust under my bed). I remember going into shops and seeing the demo units running the 'hello world' routine, only those two words were often replaced by something suitably offensive!
When I got a 64K Memotech expansion, I ended up upgrading the heatsink on the regulator with a piece of a copper since it seemed to cause the machine to heat up. too much. The expansion was, like all Memotech stuff, a poem in black anodised extruded aluminium, that profiled to the back of the ZX81, and didn't wobble (it might have come with velcro pads, or I got some from somewhere, since it has pads now.
I won a bike in a draw in a local paper, which turned out to be a a ladles shopper bike - bit of a disappointment for an 11 year old boy. My uncle said he would buy it so with the money I got a ZX81 direct from Sinclair. That was hugely exciting and I spent many hours on it, typing in listing from books and magazines and making my own programs. I did O level Computer Studies on it, submitting a listing on about 8 feet of silver ZX printer paper. I know I got a replacement keyboard to help with that, and I remember engineering my own anti-ram-pack-wobble solution. Strangely I just can’t remember what happened to it. I guess I must have sold it or given it away when the Spectrum ‘new hotness’ arrived, making the ZX81 obsolete overnight.
My own "affordable" computer at that time was the Radio Shack Pocket Computer (later called PC-1), which also had 1K of RAM but only a 24-character (1 line) display.
Yes! Great machine but as you said the wobbly RAM pack needed a frame or some sturdy blu tack.I remember mine like it was yesterday. Kick started my software engineering career.
1987: I becoming a proud owner of a brand new ZX Spectrum 48K, the rubber version - also 1987: Whitesnake "1987" 2020: I becoming a proud owner of a Spectrum Next
@@TheRetroShack When my friends asked me in 80s, what is a home computer for and why thy should get one, I always failed to fully describe the joys of writing programs.
I had a ZX81 as a kid, then upgraded to a Commodore 16 as they dropped down to £49.99 but I really wanted a speccy. Now I play speccy games on my Chromebook, perfect.
Please upgrade this little machine. My first computer in 1983 was a TS1000. No Shortage of RAM with 2K of memory. I used to TS1000 for calculations other students had to do with a non programmable calculator. Saved me hours of time. Later a got a ZX Spectrum, QL and Atari ST1040, before surrendering to W95 in 1995. Started collection micro’s in 1998, but thats a diffrent story. Still love the TS1000 that started it all
Yep, left the replacement ULA inside as the original ULA didn't work even with the new Z80 :( Composite mods are available and it looks like that ram upgrade is going to happen too :)
In most cases the input to the UHF can is basically a composite signal so it should be fairly trivial to do, did something similar with almost all my 80s computers as the picture was always so much better (provided your TV has a composite in of course but once the scart connector arrived they all sort of did). Not with the ZX81 though as my 'monitor' was just a b/w portable TV with a green polythene sheet over it and only had UHF in.
@@TheRetroShack Was the new Z80 needed? I know you likely didn't show everything you did in the final edit, but I was thinking, "oh, a quick bit of contact cleaner and back in the socket for another try"!
I owned one as well......it was so slow and video was sooooo bad, it convinced me to spend the $2000 for a new Apple IIe with accessories so in the desk drawer the ZX81 went
Ah, the 16K memory of doom. I ended up glueing it solid to the back of the machine. This was my first computer when I was just 12 years old. Did my first physics simulation, simple two body in 2D on it.
The ZX 81 was the first computer I had an experience with. I never owned one but my friend did. But it lead me to getting a ZX Spectrum 16k that I then upgraded buy buying 32k of ram from a News Paper advert. The ZX Spectrum was the first book I ever read.
A relative's son brought one of these around for me to play with. Remember strugling with the keyboard and it did lock up a few times during use but loved it. Got my own computer the following Christmas, not a ZX81 though.
@@TheRetroShack I got William Shatner's recommendation, second hand. My cousins Vic 20 which he'd only had about six months but decided he wasn't into that sort of thing.
Very interesting. I'd already been a computer engineer for 10 years when the ZX80 came out. I bought the kit version for £79.95 IIRC. This got me into BASIC and Z80 machine code. During my association with the ZX80 I wrote a book on Z80 machine code and published a project to interface the machine with a WW2 Creed 7B teleprinter! I eventually became an official Sinclair/Amstrad service centre and freelance programmer in QBASIC, VBA and DataEase. I built a test rig comprising of a ZX80 nailed to a piece of wood and fitted with a reed switch keyboard, which I nicked from work. I had a whole bucketful of faulty Z80s from these machines. Those RAM packs (and other plug-ins) were the cause of most faults on all ZXs, especially the Spectrum, the locating key used to come out and so the connectors became misaligned and the power shorted out.
My first computer, bought it with my brother's and my money. Greatest computer ever built! (because it was my first). Don't forget i had checkers in 1K (Thansk to Rodney Zaks) and of course the Jeff Minter games. He's the GOD of computer games!
Over this past couple of weeks since making the video, I've kind of come to love the little thing myself! Kind of disappointed I missed out on it first time round :( - I was a 16k Speccy owner as first computer :). Thanks for watching and commenting.
The ZX81 was my first computer it had been out for a while and I got it from WH Smiths for £45 almost a weeks wages for me back then. You say there is not much you can do with 1k but I remember I used to get a magazine that always had a number of 1K games you type in yourself. I did get the evil 16k ram pack and remember the frustration of it moving and crashing everything just before you saved half an hours worth of typing.
This was my family's very first computer. We had the the 16k RAM pak and also the printer. It's the machine I played my first computer game on - Space Invaders!
Ι did my Computer Studies O-level on a ZX-81. People talk about Apple 2 chsnging the world, but think of how many more people had the chance to learn about computing using the ZX-81.
My very first computer was the Timex Sinclair 1000 (with the dreaded 16k RAM Pak), on the left side of the pond. I have one that I picked up at a HamFest sitting under my desk that I want to restore. PLEASE do consider showing the upgrade to 32k RAM. I had the light pen accessory, and first learned Z80 machine code programming on the TS1000. I and my Ex- learned to hate Mr Sinclair as it was the seed of a 35+ year career in IT.
@@TheRetroShack Hope you enjoy having fun with it and if you make a video on it I will very much look forward to that. The TRS80 is made myself get more into programming and advanced computing science. Plus I remember playing a space game a very early adventure type game I wish I could remember the name of it, it was a little like the Elite game on Acorn only nowhere near as advanced.
I can't celebrate the 40th birthday/release date of my ZX81 until November. It's a USA model and they didn't release it here until November 81. My TS-1000 (Timex Sinclair) has his 40th birthday/anniversary in just over a year, as it was released in the USA in July 1982. As for the 1K of RAM, at least the TS1000 has 2 whole K of RAM!!! ;-) I do have the chip to do the 16k internal upgrade, so will do that at some time... Great vid from a ZX fan in the USA.
@@TheRetroShack While I never looked into it, I was told there was a mod that allowed the memory mapped I/O of the Z80 to be accessible from the edge connector. It was why until the late 90s you'd still come across the occasional ZX81 controlling greenhouses - temperature reading and motor actuation being only part of it.
The edge connector on the back exposes all the signals from the Z80 processor, as well as a few signals specific to the ULA, so there's really no limit to what you can do with it - well aside from the memory.
@@TheRetroShack I was clever enough to build an I/O board for my ZX Spectrum, based on an Intel 8255 PPI chip. I then designed another add-on board to this which was an EPROM programmer which I then used to program an EPROM with the ZX Spectrum ROM image (with bug fixes) and a few extra routines (like HEX/DEC conversion) using the small amount of free space in the ROM image.
Oh, and I'd like to see the 32K expansion. I seem to recall having to issue one (or two) poke statements to get the Memotech 64k to have the full whack available.
I've just had a look inside my ZX81 - a non-working example, before it arrived with me it appears somebody has made a dogs dinner of trying to do a 'composite video' mod and failed miserably. Anyway, it's an issue 1, but there are a couple of differences. All the chips except for the ULA are made by NEC. Also, the memory appears to be two smaller chips, one soldered onto IC4b, and one in the normal spot - but it's a smaller chip. It seems all the traces are there for either version. I'm guessing it's a standard Sinclair thing, where demand outstripped supply so they ended up getting whatever they could! Interesting video, though - and happy birthday ZX81!
If it wasn't for an HP programmable calculator, this would have been my first foray into BASIC and computing. I had a TIMEX 1000 tough, as it was branded in the US, though I bought it here in South Africa somewhere in the mid 80's. My next one was the 48k ZX Spectrum. What nostalgia this has generated! Thanks
My mum bought me the ZX80 kit when she spotted the advert for it in one of the newspapers she was working for, she had it delivered at her office and kept me in the dark until bringing it home that day and wow I was super super gobstruck and it was a kit for experts. The ZX80 however was fraught with problems ranging from overheating and burning a hole in my bedrooms new carpet to components dying from heatdeath as the units got mega hot. I graduated to the ZX81 when it came out and it was like a supercharged machine compared to the ZX80, my favourite game being Mazog's on the '81 and then the Spectrum arrived and wow this time it was mega awesome and never looked back and I even got a couple games published in one of the mags, one being a fairly cool randomising maze game like Mazog's and the other a sad platformer type thing kinda like Joust but very slow and painful it being in basic lol
Happy to see other RUclipsrs celebrating the anniversary! I had such a good party, all alone on my own (not only) due to Corona, celebrating the ZX81 to the max! I’m so happy to share my happiness with you folks! #ZX81IS40 It would be great if we all use this hash tag in the video title. Happy Birthday Zeddy!
I got mine in 1984 it was a WH Smith Special Deal £39.99 got you the zx81 and the memo tech 16k ram pack I actually now owned a computer ,something that would have been unheard of several years earlier . I could now type in programs from the manual and it would do my bidding .it was amazing
My first computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000 that I traded somebody (in Juneau AK. USA) for a Sanyo ghetto blaster with removeable speakers. However, I didn't learn coding until I got my mitts on a Commodore 64 computer somewhat later on.
Good video. I have a wavy line issue one board but instead of a single ram chip it has two. It’s still only 1k though. Could there have been a difference between issue one kit and ready made versions?
Good question - I don't think I've seen one with two ram chips although there's definitely a slot for it. Perhaps it was more common though - I'll do a little digging. :)
I've always thought that using the same connector for power as the cassette in/out was a recipe for disaster! That being said, I always wanted a ZX81... I might see what I can find on eBay :-)
@@TheRetroShack Check out the recent Hackaday badge, which pays homage to it but is an all-new design. I thought I saw something similar for Defcon, but might be mistaken.
You have just made me feel incredibly old... but at least I'm typing this on a computer attached to a 55" OLED - so I don`t have to squint as much as I did all those years ago - and at least my games work... I'm looking at you 3D Monster Maze, 3 days of typing in and not a blink at the end of it. LMAO.
Yes, put Moore's law to work and up the internal ram. Actually, making a new larger case with a nice mechanical keyboard would be nice. Then, interface an SD card and port CP/M to the machine. NOW you'd have something!
You make exceptional videos. Great speaking voice. I would love to see you do a video on the VIC-20. Or maybe even the TI-99/4A. Not sure how popular they were over there but they are two computers often overlooked.
Thanks for watching everyone! If you're wondering about the impact of this machine outside of the UK - check out the wiki page on the Timex-Sinclair 1000 - (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Sinclair_1000) - This is interesting: "Timex claimed to have sold 600,000 TS1000s in the US by early 1983, and other companies imported localized versions of British software.[1] It sold for US$99.95 in the US when it debuted, making it the cheapest home computer at the time; it was advertised as "the first computer under $100". This pricing initiated a price war with Commodore International, who quickly reduced the price of its VIC-20 to match and later announced a trade-in program offering $100 for any competing computer toward the purchase of a Commodore 64. Since the TS1000 was selling for $49 by this time, many customers bought them for the sole purpose of trading them in for a Commodore 64." - Influential indeed - but not for the reasons Sinclair wanted :)
Your calculation of the memory free to use for programs (106 bytes), is not entirely fair. Because the screen's memory use depends on how many characters are on screen, and how far they are from the left of the screen. I.e. the screen memory is used like a sparse array. If you'd plot a character in the middle of a line, the line in memory would consist of a bunch of space characters, followed by the character you plotted, and an end-of-line character (I think, don't know exactly anymore ;)). And then the next screen line would immediately follow after that.
@@peterdevroomen1989 Yep, that's why I say it's good to use the screen sparingly :). The figures were just meant to illustrate just how little 1k really is :)
The ZX81 was the 1st computer I ever own, thanks to my parents.
We bought it in kit because it was cheaper and my father built it, God bless his soul.
I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for this computer.
Thanks for sharing! A heart-warming and familiar story - there are a lot of people it seems who owe their career to these little computers :)
I remember going with my dad to future shop in vancouver and buying the timex sinclair 1000. I taught myself basic. Simpler times...
@@TheRetroShack mee too! Pestered my dad for around a year until he gave in and bought a Microdigital TK85 made in Brazil which was a 16kb clon of the Timex Sinclair 1500. I'm fifty years old now and a information systems engineer.... thanks to this little machine
Same here
+1
I remember building my ZX81 as it was yesterday. I remember the late nights, tuning in BBC on the radio and record the programs they were sending for the ZX81 over AM. I remember the hundreds of hours typing in assembler and then lying in my bed letting the speech synth I've built read all hex codes while I validated to see if I've made some typos. ZX81 was my first true "computer love".
Thanks for sharing :). Do you still have it?
This is cool. Never thought about radio broadcasted software before. Thanks for sharing!
@@gu4xinim We also had software of flexible records that came on magazine covers. And the magazines had software listings to type in. It was a great way to learn coding as a youngster and great fun. Also brilliant for getting some games if you had no money like me.
@@TheRetroShack I'm afraid not. I sold it and bought a Commodore VIC-20.
@@bsvenss2 Me too. Still have my Vic-20 though!
I spent almost the entire school summer holidays in 1981 learning how to program and use this machine. I'd spent entire days sat in front of a portable black and white TV, writing programs, (mostly games of some description or other), and saving them on a little cassette recorder. Happy days.
Glad this brought back happy memories :)
My first computer.. 11 years old and my Middle school just got hold of a Research machines 380z. I was staggered by this machine and attempted to spend as much time as possible on it when allowed. just before Christmas 81 - already had my Christmas list nailed and a friend told me about this ZX81 computer. 70 quid in WH Smith. 20 quid above my Christmas allowance. I tried so hard to persuade my mum to forget about the original Christmas list and get me a ZX81 instead, despite it being more expensive. I've had never spoken so eloquently, nor since. I got zx81, and I got the memorex 16k Ram upgrade (more stable than the sinclair ram pack) and WH Smith cassette recorder, although I didn't get the Ram pack and cassette as a surprise until later in the morning. However, up at 4am, computer set up and linked to telly by 4.30. By the time the rest of the house started to rise at 7am, I had learned enough Sinclair basic to code a simple 5 card hi-lo game in 1k. I remember my brother being impressed. What I could do with 16k. Awesome times...
Thanks so much for sharing - this is why I do this and love this community!
@@TheRetroShack Love your vids. Brings back many happy memories. Keep 'em coming..
@@bobfish7699 Thanks - I'll do my best :)
My first computer as well. Saved up for months and finally got mine in Currys for £50! Never looked back as My whole career in IT/programming started with the ZX81. Thank you Sir Clive and the rest of the folks Sinclair Research.
@@paddycoleman1472 Awesome :)
During my youth, I was surrounded by Sinclair products and still am :-). The school had the first ZX80 and I completed my Computer Studies A-Level with the ZX81. Thanks to Sinclair, I have had a very successful career as a mainframe and then PC software analyst and developer. Happy Birthday ZX81.
Thanks for sharing! I'll be having a little slice of cake over the weekend in celebration ;)
I remember my dad taking me to buy my first ever computer, which was one of these. I was 8 at the time and it still ranks up there in one of the most memorable and happiest moments of my life, and I was absolutely hooked on the ZX81 and Spectrum for the next several years. So grateful for him understanding just how big a role the computer was about to take in the world and buying me that first machine and a book on learning basic... There is no way I would have had the interest and then the career I have if it was not for the ZX81 and my dad's foresight to enter the world of computers at the perfect time (and not buy an Xbox equivalent of the time - the Atari 2600 or something! lol). Great times - Oh and please do follow up with a second video on the 32k ram upgrade! I may be tempted to upgrade one of my units...
Thanks for watching and for sharing your story - Amazing how many people attribute this little machine to the start of their IT career :)
Great video. The ZX81 was my first computer, bought for my 14th birthday, followed a few months later by the 16K ram pack for Christmas. The joys of loading from and saving to tape, low res black and white display and no sound. But it opened up a whole new world to a generation. Can't believe it was 40 years ago.
Makes you feel a strange mix of happy, sad and old doesn't it? :) Thanks for watching!
1st computer I ever had. Had just left school as they where starting being used. Was amazed at what could be done. Get the 32k upgrade done.
Yes, looks like the consensus is to do it :)
@@TheRetroShack a 16k upgrade is simpler and 16k was 'the norm' back in the day, the extra 16k, which varies where it is in the memory map depending which mod is used/how its done, is not easy to use, as cant be used for machine code, if in the 32768-49151 area unless you do the M1NOT mod, and not ever if in the 49152-65535 area as this is used for display 'execution'
In high school I did a week of "work experience" at British Aerospace, and the engineer looking after me helped me build (on an old school wire wrap board) a GPIO interface to plug into the RAM expansion edge connector of my ZX81 and I used it to control a simple skid steer robot. Must be around 35 years ago 😱
Glad this brought back happy memories :)
I got mine secondhand in 1983, the 16K Ram pack could be very securely fixed in place with.... velcro. I had it for a year and got... a 48K Speccy. Now? Well, I graduated in Computer Science, and have nearly 30 years in tech under my belt. The £45 from my post office savings that my mum withdrew to pay for it was a great investment in life.
Thanks to the ZX81 and ZX Basic. A very happy 40th birthday... and thank you.
Thanks for sharing! And it's amazing how many people have commented saying that they owe their entire career to this lovely little machine :)
Awesome vid. Took me back to when I got mine in 81. I was learning BASIC on paper at school computer club, we had a Research Machines beast but we had to take turns an couldn’t save our work. My dad bought me mine off a neighbour second hand. Once I learned how to use the “inkey$” command I wrote a VERY basic space invader program, had the shooter, an alien flying across the top and bullets. However, in 1k if you shot a bullet when more than a third of the way across the screen it never made it to the top. I learned how to be efficient with code which started my career in IT. These days it seems you just need to throw more ram or processing power at issues, if designers and developers these days had to use the ZX81 maybe apps would be more efficient and hardware would be less expensive. Excellent vid, keep the nostalgia going...
The ZX81 was the start of my computing journey - my mum used to park an 11 year old me in WH Smiths to play with the display model there whilst she did the shopping. She did eventually buy me my own one, which was possibly one of the happiest days of my life. 😂
Glad the video brought back happy memories :) :)
@@TheRetroShack wobbly RAM packs certainly resonated!
I’ll join the “My first computer at the age of 11” brigade. But part of the inspiration for me to buy this was when a parent brought in a ZX80 to our primary school of 70 kids to show us a real life computer. I was so overexcited by the idea of seeing a computer that I must have misbehaved, because the teacher, as a punishment, decreed that I would not be allowed to see the computer demonstration. I was absolutely gutted and I doubt that the teacher could ever have realised how much of a blow that actually was that I would still be thinking about it 40 years later! Anyway, I managed to beg for a ZX81 when that came out a short while later and later saved hard for an original ZX Spectrum. Ahhh, the memories!
Thanks for sharing and so sorry you still carry the scars from that encounter!
I had one...with 16k ram pack and printer. I still have it and it still works!
Broke it out years ago to demonstrate to my daughters just how good their PC was and that they should stop griping because I wasn’t upgrading the video card.
Really got good when I loaded a miraculously still capable tape to play chess! That was 15 years ago....I know the computer still works but doubt the tapes work. I don’t have a tape recorder to test them anymore. Great machine though and I plan to use it as a technology demonstrator for my grandkids too!
That’s the ticket! Flaming kids these days! Don’t know they’re born. We used to live in a shoebox in the middle of the road! You had a shoebox??? Luxury! :) Ahhh... Monty Python :)
I was the proud owner of a Sinclair ZX Spectrum which I bought way back in the early part of 1983, which a gentleman brought from UK. It was fabulous. Of course I had to use my TV as the monitor. One day I fiddled with it in the same year and its character generator failed. I contacted the makers, who asked me to send it there, but the red tape was too much. I still have it.
Thanks for sharing - lot of love for these machines :)
My friends father went to visit england and bought back the kit model. I watched him create it! I used to buy computer magazines to type in the games. All I wanted was space invaders to play!
He bought 16k ram back, remember the wobble!!! He bought a dktronics keyboard case for it with an extra 16k of ram. You could change character sets with it and create your own. The hours I spent typing in machine code! Oh the memories
Glad you enjoyed it :)
I remember you could change the character set. I changed it to the character set of the ZX80 - which was slightly different - because I liked that one more.
Happy birthday, little ZX81. You were my first computer. From that day we met on December 25th, 1982, I knew it was the start of something special.
Ah you great big softy you! I hope you have many happy years left together :)
What a trip down memory lane. Brilliant video. The ZX80 and ZX81 were fantastic computers. I spent a lot of hours typing, debugging, learning, and the best lesson of all... conservation of resources. In those days memory and CPU were limited and you needed to think about everything you did. Not like the big iron machines of today... "Oh I'll just throw another 32gb of RAM in so I can do something". I really miss those days and the joy of discovering some new secret POKE command or finding a new way of doing something and saving 10 bytes of RAM. I remember my parents buying me a ZX printer and them getting annoyed when there were pieces silver coated till roll paper all over the place.
Thanks very much and glad you enjoyed it :) I had the printer for my spectrum and can still remember the noise it made :)
xmas 1983 we were going to buy a ZX81 but a neighbour told us to buy a zx spectrum instead, we did, the rest is history. it wasnt until a few years ago i finally got my first "zeddy" now i have 2, and quite a few games etc on tape...and books.
Addictive little tikes aren’t they - I’ve loved messing around with this one the past couple of weeks :)
Thanks for this great video. So nostalgic, and chock full of interesting info.
Like many others, the ZX81 is was my first step towards a computing career (though it was the C64 which really boosted it a few years later). The early 80's were such a special, exciting time. it seemed like every week brought a new computer, and every day new games we'd never seen before. An incredible time to live through.
I got my ZX81 in 82, from WH Smiths when it dropped to £50 pre-built, and before the Spectrum was released. I really wanted a Spectrum, but couldn't afford one, being a 16 year old in sixth form, and my family weren't very well off, so I had to make do.
I taught myself to program in BASIC on it, and wrote some very nifty 1k games that were probably better than some of the published ones. I can remember typing in listings from books, and playing them with my school friends, and hanging around computer shops after school, looking at the latest software. At one point I had to take it back to the shop for repair as it wouldn't save.
I eventually got a Memopak 16k RAM pack (no wobble on that one), and thought I'd never fill up the memory, but I did shortly afterwards.
Eventually I sold it, in mint condition, for £25 so I could get a C64, a decision I later regretted.
I recently bought a refurbed ZX81 with the modern ULA, and 32K onboard (as well as a rubber key Spectrum), and I've been having fun playing around with BASIC, and playing games like 3D Monster Maze and Mazogs. I have another more battered issue 1 ZX81 with some problems that need fixing that I plan to get up and running, but currently it's on display on my bookshelf with a Memopak 16k plugged in to remind me of the old days.
Thanks for sharing - it’s always nice to hear that these videos bring back good memories :) :)
Fantastic little documentary! This is the first video I've seen that clearly explains the price advantage this computer had over all its competitors at the time, and how that difference gave so many people a headstart in computing.
Also, of course I'd love to see the RAM expanded. I don't know if anybody has done it, but more RAM -> Bad Apple demo, and who wouldn't want to see that 👍
Glad you enjoyed it! Lovely little machines :). Going to look up that Bad Apple demo... :)
@@TheRetroShack I liked the demo primarily because it's been written for just about every system you can think of, and it shows the differences in capability of each one. Very interesting.
@@josephkarl2061 Looking now - very interesting indeed!
Interesting. I would like to see you do the upgrade. Just to see what it was capable of. Just think 1 year later Sinclair came out with a 48K machine. What a difference 1 year makes.
From the comments, it looks like the upgrade is going to happen :)
The ZX81 was my first computer and I loved it to bits.
Lot of love for these little machines :). Thanks for watching!
This was my first computer, I spent many many hours programming on a zx81. i WOULD LIKE TO SEE MORE !
From the number of views and comments.- it looks like there'll be another episode :)
I loved my Zx 81. I bought it from a school friend for £10 in 1983 and it came with the infamous ram pack and some software. It was a brilliant introduction to the exciting world of computing.
Indeed it was! Easy to dismiss these days, but back in the day, this was all many people could afford, and it did change the computing landscape, at least in the UK.
@@TheRetroShack Completely. We had a Spectrum and then a Commodore 64 as family computers, but these simple machines were a brilliant introduction. I would spend hours typing a program in for the Ram pack to wobble and I would lose the whole afternoon’s work before I got to save it 😂
I can remember the day my parents took me to Dixons to buy one like it was yesterday!
Glad the video brought back happy memories :)
Bought mine in WH Smith. I was 15. A life changing day!
People laugh at how underpowered it is now but they forget the context. Compared to anything else I'd experienced- calculators and digital watches, primitive video game consoles- this was a powerhouse.
@@ian_b Agreed!
@@ian_b same here , March 84 they did them including the 16k ram for £39.99
I remember typing stuff in out of the manual on the black n white portable in the kitchen
I usually call this thing the Timex Sinclair 1000... but I’m an American... such a blinking weird computer, but I absolutely adored and treasured the time I had with it. I had the RAM expansion and the little thermal printer. Went on to the Commodore 64 after that.
I’ve had a bit of fun with it this last week or two,. Very quirky but a real nostalgia kick :)
The diminutive ZX81 was my first computer back in 1981, and 3D Monster Maze (JK Grey Software!!) was the first FPS like game I played. Scared the hell out of me at the time - almost as much as the ram pack wobble.
Moved on to a 16k Spectrum (upgraded with memory chips to 48k and a "Fuller" joystick port), followed by an Amstrad CPC464 with colour monitor. Then on to an Amiga 500 (expanded with a 512KB upgrade), and then traded up to an A1200 - which I heavily upgraded (12MB ram, internal 65MB hard drive, external 250MB Archos drive, Blizzard 40mhz '030 accelerator, external 2nd floppy, multi-sync monitor and a printer.) Eventually, had to give in and move to windows :-(
But loved that little ZX81, had so much fun with it!!
Similar to me - Spectrum 16k - Spectrum 48k - CPC 464 - Atari 520ST - Amiga 500 - Amiga 600 and then onto the horrible world of the PC.. :)
The ZX81 was my first computer, built from a kit by my Dad when I was still at primary school. I don't know where I got the idea that I wanted a computer from, because nobody I knew had a computer then, maybe I'd seen something on TV. So I asked my Dad about it, and he showed me an advert for the ZX81 in Wireless World magazine (he was a TV repair engineer so read it every month) and he said something like "this has just come out, how about one fof these?". He also took me to see one of his work colleagues (who was a bit of a boffin) who had his ZX81 hooked up to a big machine that he used to track satellites with! Anyway, You can't imagine the excitement as my Dad was building my ZX81, and then eventually that first turning on and seeing that black and white cursor. Yes, the 'ram pack wobble' was a pain but we manged to pretty much eradicate it with some sticky pads which minimised the amount of movement between the ZX81 and the ram pack.
My Dad also built me a big wooden box which housed the ZX81 and power supply, with a proper keyboard on top, and with a power switch built in. Later on when I got a Spectrum we also built a keyboard for it, from an old terminal keyboard that we bought at a local computer fair, which we spray painted and then hand soldered wiring to every switch in rows and columns to mimic the 'matrix' layout you see on the membrane keyboard. It was a big metal thing with loads of spare keys, so I ran the wires to some of these extra keys and had a working num pad, cursor keys and a dedicated delete key (normally, you had to press caps shift and the zero key to get the delete function, but by running wires from both of these to my delete key I had a single press delete key). I think I did something similar so that you could get into 'extended mode; with a single key press rather than several presses (I can't remember which keys exactly). It also had a latching-type switch that I wired to be a caps lock key. I've still got that keyboard and it has so many good memories for me, although my original ZX81 and it's wooden box have long gone (I think my brother gave it away to one of his mates sometime in the late 80s). I do have another ZX81 but I don't think that is the one my Dad built, I can't remember exactly where that one came from.
Anyway, this video brought back lot of great memories, so thanks!
Thank you so much for sharing your story and glad the video brought back some happy memories :)
Walking into WHSmiths in the 80's and seeing ZX81's and ZX Spectrums, good times...And how small was that ZX81 circuit board?! Not much bigger than a modern Raspberry pi.
Yep - I was seriously quite impressed with Sinclair when I made this. You can see how the price and performance just took the market by storm :)
Indeed, and the coding prowess to produce games in only 1K, amazing...Plus I personally think anything that Rick Dickinson designed looked amazing. From the ZX81 to the Spectrum Next.
@@stephenelliott7071 ...to the Spectrum Next too :)
@@TheRetroShack yes the Next is my Next Spectrum ;)
@@stephenelliott7071 Good man!
I remember standing in WHSmiths computer department and playing with a demo ZX81 and knowing I had to have it!
And hopefully you did! :)
@@TheRetroShack Yes and so started my addiction to gadgets and depleting my bank account!
The ZX81 was on my list of "must have" vintage computers until last year, when I finally bought one. :D Whilst the machine itself is amazing for what it is, that's nothing compared to the things that many talented coders managed to make these little things do!
Absolutely - never ceases to amaze me!
Takes me back to my first computer. I remember having loads of "fun" typing up listings meant for my friend's Vic20 and making them work on the ZX81 (minus sound, colour and graphics). Ah, the simple joys of youth!
I also remember it was my maths teacher who persuaded my parents to splash out the £70 (which they could ill afford) claiming it would be a good investment. It led to my career so, thanks Mr Turner, and to his fake company 'Erminesoft', under the guise of which we attended computer shows in London. Happy memories.
Ah, just also remembered that my friend with the VIC20 (hi Darren if you are out there) was a bit jealous when I got the 16k ram pack as the VIC20 only had 4k IIRC.
Colour and sound are soooooo overrated :) :)
Ahem. 3.5k for the VIC20. Ram Pak wobble was real - I built a frame out of Meccano to stop it after one too many misadventures. Did it help? Lord, no.
@@zapod20 Innovative approach though! :)
@@zapod20 (oops, posted with the wrong account). Thanks for the correction. Yes, wobble was a big deal though I did manage to get a case with a proper keyboard into which the mainboard fitted along with a rampack so no problems for me after I got that. I can't remember the brand and it probably cost almost as much as the ZX81 but it kept me going for a couple of years before I moved on to a Dragon32 (just before they went bust sadly). In the end that died (inside a year) and Dixon's could not repair (no replacements available) so they gave us the money back to spend on any other computer and my mum (a teacher by then) subbed the difference to get a beeb on the condition I did support for her classroom including writing educational stuff. Lots of maths test programmes followed.
@@andyjdhurley Ha ha no worries! The '3.5k' is burned into my memory if only being such an odd number for computer ram. The teacher that ran my school's computer club entrusted me with the only Vic20 for a whole weekend. A whole weekend with a computer with a real keyboard! (later I'd be entrusted with the Apple II and *gasp* disk drives lol!). I had a 48k Spectrum, followed by a QL(yes) and then jumped onto the Acorn bus with an A3000. Good times.
I had one as a 15 year old kid. Purchased in WH Smith. I learned to program (quite well) and later became an electrical/electronic engineer. Nearing the end of my career now but cant help thinking that little machine had a big role in starting it all off.
Amazing how many people put this machine at the start of their IT careers! :)
Definitely add that internal 32K RAM! I would also put heatsinks on the chips and swap out the 7805 and heatsink for a modern switching voltage regulator. One of the best add-ons you can get for the ZX81 is the ZXpand+ which adds 32K RAM, an SD card slot, a joystick port, AY sound, and a reset button!
Blimey! That’s a lot of extra stuff! It’s the likes of you that feed mŷ addiction to pimping these retro machines out! :) :)
@@TheRetroShack haha glad to be of service! These vintage computers deserve the best modern add-ons so they can be shown and used to their full potential
The ZX81 was my first computer, (1982). It is still a great machine to program. I've installed an internal 16K RAM chip in it, it was an easy mod, as was the composite mod using a 555 IC and 2 transistors to generate the back porch signal.
I remember the whole setu well. A cheap portable TV, a cassette deck and the 16K RAM pack that suffered from the wobble of death. I upgraded that later to a 64K ack but you had to use Peek and poke commands to use the whole of it.
I think I used it solidly for 6 years and it didn't wear out. Not even the rubber stick-on keypad I bought for it. 40 years. Happy times.
64k on a ZX81 - I can't imagine saving that size program down to tape :) :)
@@TheRetroShack I don't think I ever used anything like all of it. This seems hilarious now when a one-paragraph word document needs more!
My first ever computer, a kit build ZX81. Hugely frustrating to use at times but hard to overstate how amazing was to own a computer of my own. Fond memories of shopping for ZX81 cassettes in WH Smiths, less fond memories of the RAM pack wobble and typing out a program from a magazine only for it not to work because of an error in the printed code!
Ahhhhh the memories :)
The ZX81 was my first computer, I quickly ran out of memory with only 1K so bought a 16K ram pack and very soon after that I used all that up, but in the process I learned Sinclair Basic and could see what all the fuss was about. I was a bit late to the scene so mine was very much a second hand model. By the time I had hit the 16K limit the Spectrum came out and I was able to get a 48K one and that did me for quite a few years I had hours of fun playing the Hobbit and Elite on that as well as typing in many magazine games and started writing my own basic programs on it. I used to work for TSB Bank and the Bilborough Branch in Nottingham was probably the first TSB branch to have a computerised advertising display above the tills showing the details of the Bank's latest products so that customers had something to watch whilst waiting in the queue! After getting a QL and then an Atari ST (always wanted an Amiga but could never quite afford one) I finally switched to Windows PCs and became an IT Consultant and developer still to this day! So thanks to the ZX81 I switched from Banker to Developer to Consultant. I am about to retire and will spend my retired years repairing old Amigas and Classic Macs. Possibly a Spectrum or two as well.
Thanks for sharing your story - it's always great to read how these little machines were the pebble that started the rockfall :)
40 years... Made me 19 when I got it! Got the kit, learned how to build a PC. By 22 I was working in the computer industry and working around the world, especially in America. Good times and good money working in the I.T industry early on, because of how hard it was. Today the software is so simple, I.T. workers don't earn today what I was earning 30 years ago!
40 years indeed.. Makes me feel old too! And so many people attribute their careers to these little machines :)
My first computer. My father bought it thinking he might be able to use it for accounting or something, but I played 3D Monster Maze instead. I don't think I've ever seen one without the 16k rampak.
Thanks for sharing - it looks like I'll be doing that 32k RAm installation at some point :) No need for the wobbly pack of death :)
3D Monster Maze was AWESOME back then...! "Rex lies in wait... Rex has seen you!"
This was my first computer and for memory expansion it got the better fitting Memotech 16k expatiation. I also got four Maplin kits for it in form of a full sized keyboard, Hi-Res graphic card 3 channel sound and a 3 way port expansion. In fact I still have all of it and the last time I tried it still all works. The one press function key on the keyboard does cause the machine to crash after a few presses, still haven't got to the bottom of why. Good thing is the original two key press still works with no problem.
I would be interested in seeing the internal memory expansion done.
Thanks for sharing :) And the memory upgrade is happening :)
I started with a ZX81, then a 48k ZX spectrum, then a +3, then onto much bigger things with a Commodore Amiga 500 (I still own this), a Commodore Amiga 1200 (which I foolishly sold to get the money to buy my first PC.) Then my first PC with an AMD K6-2 processor ........ oh, what memories.
You sold your Amiga 1200???? Aaaargh! Well, keep watching for something special later in the year about a 1200 ;)
Really dig your video. Thank you for this interesting retrospective and refurb. And I would really appreciate if you do get around to making a video of the ZX81 with the internal 32KB RAM expansion.
From the comments so far - it looks like it's on the cards :)
Like many others, the ZX81 was my first computer, soldered together from the kit. I was well past my school days but used it for a while until I got a Spectrum, and then a Spectrum + etc etc. Learned BASIC on there. Nice video. Sold my ZX81 a long time ago, and my Speccies. (But I have a Spectrum Next earmarked for me for this summer :) )
Thanks for sharing :) And believe me, you’re going to love the Next :)
This was great fun! My dad had a ZX81, and I programmed the one and only video game I ever made on it. My family got a TS1000.
Glad you enjoyed it :)
Looking back it's funny to think how disappointed I was in the ZX81.
My father had had a falling out the the frankly useless IT department where he worked; an argument that culminated in him saying his 13 year old son could do what he requested on a home micro what they claimed they couldn't deliver on a many-million pound mainframe. Anyway they called his bluff and presented him with a BBC B + CUB monitor + dual 80 track FDD which he brought home with a rather sheepish look on his face...
...after making a delighted me understand it was on loan from work for an indeterminate period of time and was there any chance I could deliver on his hasty claim?
I'm no programming whiz but after my dad had sat me down to explain what was required I coded the software in BASIC over a weekend for a demonstration that Monday which caused a lot of red faces. The silly thing was I only hacked it together as a demo expecting the 'professionals' to do a much better version or at most I'd be asked to tidy it up... But no, the 'professionals' seemingly couldn't do with all the tools at their disposal what a 13 year old had done on a Beeb over a weekend. The various managers who had seen the demo were so impressed they just bought a bunch of Beebs on which to run it and just used what I had done - they were still using it a good 10+ years later on the same old hardware when my father retired!
I should point out that I had done nothing special - the software simply had to keep track of a fleet of vehicles; what was available, outstanding issues, who had them, where, when, how, long, etc... hardly rocket science. That IT department really was that useless... or likely that lazy.
So what's that got to do with the ZX81..?
After about 12 months said IT department remembered they had a BBC on loan to my father. In a fit of petty revenge they insisted it be returned. My father tried to requisition another, usually a formality, but for some reason the IT dept refused! Lovely people! Out of the kindness of their limited finances my parents bought me a ZX81 by way of a replacement - a gesture for which I will always be grateful, but when you've had the use of a BBC B + all the trimmings for 12 months an unexpanded '81 just isn't going to cut it.
Epilogue:
A few years later my father's work was looking at getting some decent 'communication desktops' for all the secretaries. I think the idea was to bring everything together in to one device to streamline their work - a laudable plan. Anyway one of the senior IT bods seemingly had a bit of a thing going with ICL, you know that UK IBM wanna be that wasn't. The contract for all these computers was going to add up to a big kick-back for him if he could persuade the powers to buy ICL...
...By this point my father had built up a bit of an underground reputation as being computer-savvy as a result of advice from me in the face of said crappy IT department. So he was passed one of these computers for an opinion. He brought it home to me for a look - it was an ICL OPD (one per desk). Basically a Sinclair QL in a fancy case complete with microdrives and a phone bodged on to the side. Oh my, what a spectacular pile of garbage it was!. It couldn't do most of what was expected of it, it was slow, rubbish, didn't have proper networking, the software was unusably buggy, and worst crime of all in my eyes it couldn't even run QL software as it ran ICL's own horror of an OS - a typical ICL POS in other words! I told my father his work shouldn't touch them with a ten foot barge pole and maybe getting a bunch of PC's with suitable upgrades would be better, preferably not ICL ones. Yes, his work had a hugely expensive mainframe with loads of highly expensive terminals all over the place but for some inexplicable reason non-IT employees were bared from using them even though everything that was required could have been run and administered centrally. My father told me that as far as he could tell the 'IT' equipment was for the 'IT' bods to play with and if anyone needed a computer for real work it was largely up to them to sort themselves out!
Happily the OPD's were bought anyway as the IT head had a large kick-back riding on it in spite of my father passing on said warnings. Not one of the secretaries used them for more than a couple of days and the whole lot went in to land fill - just short of a thousand machines, along with supporting hardware and software licences. The head of IT lost his job over that and later IT was farmed out to an off-site IBM datacentre at vast expense while all the on-site equipment just gathered dust.
For any wondering this wasn't some multinational, but one of the larger London Councils - yep, local government making good use of tax payers money!
Um, I'm not sure why I felt the need to pass on that tenuous link to the ZX81. If anybody read it I hope they enjoyed my ramble down memory lane.
Thank you so much for sharing - that was a wonderful read! Nothing like a good ramble :)
I've never seen an epilogue in a RUclips comment before!
Ha, the BBC B was vastly superior to a ZX81. It cost about 8x as much to be fair. An 80 track FDD must have been another £200... and the filesystem ROM was another £100 wasn't it? You were lucky to have free use of it all for so long. I guess you can consider it payment for that weekend project that that council found useful for a decade.
I can remember visiting my local microbrewery in 1990, only to discover that the temperature control for the vats was a ZX81.
That's amazing :) Who'd have thought that the ZX81 was still controlling things that late on in its career? :)
@@TheRetroShack Remember Chernobyle ....
My first computer, upgraded it on day 1 to full keyboard and 64k ram pack, did the same with a spectrum a few years later.
Nice! Got to love that ingenuity :)
Loved the near death experience at 8:10 when you tested voltages around the regulator. Be careful with probe slips 🤣
Yep, I leave those mistakes in as a warning to others ;)
We used to hold the Sinclair ram pack in place using bits of matchstick! More frustrating was keying in programs from specialist magazines, find they were buggy, and having to do it all again when the corrections came out!
Ah! I remember well the dark days of the multiple re-type only to find it was a bug corrected the following month in the mag :)
My first computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000, handed down to me. About a year later I got an Atari 1200XL and never looked back -- I still have and use it, to this day -- so I have a tiny soft spot for the TS1000. (The whopping 2K of RAM ours had in it probably helped make it a bit more palatable.)
Never seen a 1200XL in the flesh - must find one!
The ZX81 was such a pain! I could never get it to load from tape, and it was hard to type on. But it was fun!!! The manual was excellent to start us off learning programming skills and it was affordable. So yes, highly influential.
I've really enjoyed using it over the past week :)
The trick to good tape loading was a phosphor bronze triim tool and adjusting the head azimuth for max treble.
You did it quickly during the header preamble..
My first 'proper' computer and one I still have (currently gathering dust under my bed). I remember going into shops and seeing the demo units running the 'hello world' routine, only those two words were often replaced by something suitably offensive!
It was a right of passage when I was a young man - go into Dixons and make the computers say the rudest thing you could think of then walk away :)
When I got a 64K Memotech expansion, I ended up upgrading the heatsink on the regulator with a piece of a copper since it seemed to cause the machine to heat up. too much. The expansion was, like all Memotech stuff, a poem in black anodised extruded aluminium, that profiled to the back of the ZX81, and didn't wobble (it might have come with velcro pads, or I got some from somewhere, since it has pads now.
Memotech certainly had style that’s for sure!
The Memotech expansion modules did indeed include velcro pads to prevent the RAM pack wobble.
I won a bike in a draw in a local paper, which turned out to be a a ladles shopper bike - bit of a disappointment for an 11 year old boy. My uncle said he would buy it so with the money I got a ZX81 direct from Sinclair. That was hugely exciting and I spent many hours on it, typing in listing from books and magazines and making my own programs. I did O level Computer Studies on it, submitting a listing on about 8 feet of silver ZX printer paper. I know I got a replacement keyboard to help with that, and I remember engineering my own anti-ram-pack-wobble solution. Strangely I just can’t remember what happened to it. I guess I must have sold it or given it away when the Spectrum ‘new hotness’ arrived, making the ZX81 obsolete overnight.
Thanks for sharing - I love hearing how people got these machines, it really takes me back to my own childhood :)
My own "affordable" computer at that time was the Radio Shack Pocket Computer (later called PC-1), which also had 1K of RAM but only a 24-character (1 line) display.
I saw one of those advertised on eBay last year and still regret not nabbing it! :)
defo install that extra memory.. just think next year will be 40 years of the speccy..
Already thinking what I can line up for that one :) Want to do something really special as the Speccy was my first (computer) love :)
@@TheRetroShack good plan stan..
@@TheRetroShack Yes indeed. We need something very special for the anniversary of the beloved (and rightly so) Speccy.
@@SpeccyMan I’ll do my best! :) :)
Yes! Great machine but as you said the wobbly RAM pack needed a frame or some sturdy blu tack.I remember mine like it was yesterday. Kick started my software engineering career.
There’s a lot of credit to these machines for people’s start in IT careers :)
13:00
Honestly I like seeing old machines fully outfitted, so if it's not in another video I haven't gotten to yet then I vote for ram upgrade.
1987: I becoming a proud owner of a brand new ZX Spectrum 48K, the rubber version
- also 1987: Whitesnake "1987"
2020: I becoming a proud owner of a Spectrum Next
Awesome aren't they? :) :) :)
@@TheRetroShack When my friends asked me in 80s, what is a home computer for and why thy should get one, I always failed to fully describe the joys of writing programs.
@@liquidsoap5850 It's the joy of creation!
@@liquidsoap5850 I can't think of anything more satisfying than seeing an idea you have in your head come to life on the screen.
I had a ZX81 as a kid, then upgraded to a Commodore 16 as they dropped down to £49.99 but I really wanted a speccy.
Now I play speccy games on my Chromebook, perfect.
We do live in a fantastic time when emulators for all these old machines are readily available :)
Please upgrade this little machine. My first computer in 1983 was a TS1000. No Shortage of RAM with 2K of memory. I used to TS1000 for calculations other students had to do with a non programmable calculator. Saved me hours of time. Later a got a ZX Spectrum, QL and Atari ST1040, before surrendering to W95 in 1995. Started collection micro’s in 1998, but thats a diffrent story. Still love the TS1000 that started it all
Ah - the dreaded fall to the dark side - Windows! I was a victim myself, falling from the heady heights of an Amiga 500 plus... :)
You have left the ULA replacement inside, but was the old ULA really damaged? Is composite-mod (I know it is only B&W) possible in this computer?
Yep, left the replacement ULA inside as the original ULA didn't work even with the new Z80 :( Composite mods are available and it looks like that ram upgrade is going to happen too :)
In most cases the input to the UHF can is basically a composite signal so it should be fairly trivial to do, did something similar with almost all my 80s computers as the picture was always so much better (provided your TV has a composite in of course but once the scart connector arrived they all sort of did). Not with the ZX81 though as my 'monitor' was just a b/w portable TV with a green polythene sheet over it and only had UHF in.
@@andyjdhurley Yep I’ve taken a look and it looks easy enough :)
@@andyjdhurley Yep, the composite conversion looks simple enough so I'll probably do that as well :)
@@TheRetroShack Was the new Z80 needed? I know you likely didn't show everything you did in the final edit, but I was thinking, "oh, a quick bit of contact cleaner and back in the socket for another try"!
I owned one as well......it was so slow and video was sooooo bad, it convinced me to spend the $2000 for a new Apple IIe with accessories so in the desk drawer the ZX81 went
At least it was part of your journey :) :)
Ah, the 16K memory of doom. I ended up glueing it solid to the back of the machine. This was my first computer when I was just 12 years old. Did my first physics simulation, simple two body in 2D on it.
Glad it brought back memories for you :)
The ZX 81 was the first computer I had an experience with. I never owned one but my friend did. But it lead me to getting a ZX Spectrum 16k that I then upgraded buy buying 32k of ram from a News Paper advert. The ZX Spectrum was the first book I ever read.
A relative's son brought one of these around for me to play with. Remember strugling with the keyboard and it did lock up a few times during use but loved it. Got my own computer the following Christmas, not a ZX81 though.
Colour me intrigued :) What did you get?
@@TheRetroShack I got William Shatner's recommendation, second hand. My cousins Vic 20 which he'd only had about six months but decided he wasn't into that sort of thing.
@@AndyHewco Nice! If it’s good enough for Kirk, it’s good enough for me :)
Very interesting.
I'd already been a computer engineer for 10 years when the ZX80 came out. I bought the kit version for £79.95 IIRC.
This got me into BASIC and Z80 machine code. During my association with the ZX80 I wrote a book on Z80 machine code and published a project to interface the machine with a WW2 Creed 7B teleprinter! I eventually became an official Sinclair/Amstrad service centre and freelance programmer in QBASIC, VBA and DataEase.
I built a test rig comprising of a ZX80 nailed to a piece of wood and fitted with a reed switch keyboard, which I nicked from work.
I had a whole bucketful of faulty Z80s from these machines. Those RAM packs (and other plug-ins) were the cause of most faults on all ZXs, especially the Spectrum, the locating key used to come out and so the connectors became misaligned and the power shorted out.
Thanks for sharing! DataEase!! I used to create helpdesk systems using DataEase - absolutely loved it :)
@@TheRetroShack Until they brought out the Windows version, 6.0.
Was my first ever computer! So exciting at the time!
Yep, people these days seem surprised that this could be exciting - but it sure was :) :)
Just subscribed !!! Thanks for great and calming content . All best from Croatia.
You're very welcome! :)
My first computer, bought it with my brother's and my money. Greatest computer ever built! (because it was my first). Don't forget i had checkers in 1K (Thansk to Rodney Zaks) and of course the Jeff Minter games. He's the GOD of computer games!
Over this past couple of weeks since making the video, I've kind of come to love the little thing myself! Kind of disappointed I missed out on it first time round :( - I was a 16k Speccy owner as first computer :). Thanks for watching and commenting.
The ZX81 was my first computer it had been out for a while and I got it from WH Smiths for £45 almost a weeks wages for me back then. You say there is not much you can do with 1k but I remember I used to get a magazine that always had a number of 1K games you type in yourself. I did get the evil 16k ram pack and remember the frustration of it moving and crashing everything just before you saved half an hours worth of typing.
This was my family's very first computer. We had the the 16k RAM pak and also the printer. It's the machine I played my first computer game on - Space Invaders!
Such a lot of love and good memories for this machine :)
Ι did my Computer Studies O-level on a ZX-81. People talk about Apple 2 chsnging the world, but think of how many more people had the chance to learn about computing using the ZX-81.
That's what I love about the ZX81 story - in a nutshell it was 'here you go everybody, you can now afford a computer!' !
Was 10 when it launched and this video brought back fond memories
Glad you enjoyed it :)
My very first computer was the Timex Sinclair 1000 (with the dreaded 16k RAM Pak), on the left side of the pond. I have one that I picked up at a HamFest sitting under my desk that I want to restore. PLEASE do consider showing the upgrade to 32k RAM. I had the light pen accessory, and first learned Z80 machine code programming on the TS1000. I and my Ex- learned to hate Mr Sinclair as it was the seed of a 35+ year career in IT.
Thanks for watching - as soon as I get the ZX81 up and running again, I'll get that 32k in there :)
Oh yeah I started out on the TRS80 had an 80 and 81 such great memories and to be around at that time.
Just nabbed a TRS-80 and looking forward to getting to know it :)
@@TheRetroShack Hope you enjoy having fun with it and if you make a video on it I will very much look forward to that. The TRS80 is made myself get more into programming and advanced computing science. Plus I remember playing a space game a very early adventure type game I wish I could remember the name of it, it was a little like the Elite game on Acorn only nowhere near as advanced.
I can't celebrate the 40th birthday/release date of my ZX81 until November. It's a USA model and they didn't release it here until November 81. My TS-1000 (Timex Sinclair) has his 40th birthday/anniversary in just over a year, as it was released in the USA in July 1982.
As for the 1K of RAM, at least the TS1000 has 2 whole K of RAM!!! ;-)
I do have the chip to do the 16k internal upgrade, so will do that at some time...
Great vid from a ZX fan in the USA.
Welcome to the channel and glad you enjoyed the video :) Make sure to wish your ZX happy birthday from us! :)
Can you imagine if it had gpio connectors you could interact with? Hello Pi, Hello Arduino! In 1981?
I guess if you were clever enough you could get some interaction through the edge connector :)
@@TheRetroShack While I never looked into it, I was told there was a mod that allowed the memory mapped I/O of the Z80 to be accessible from the edge connector. It was why until the late 90s you'd still come across the occasional ZX81 controlling greenhouses - temperature reading and motor actuation being only part of it.
The edge connector on the back exposes all the signals from the Z80 processor, as well as a few signals specific to the ULA, so there's really no limit to what you can do with it - well aside from the memory.
There are videos of guys running CNCs with ZX81s. The edge connector is quite capable.
@@TheRetroShack I was clever enough to build an I/O board for my ZX Spectrum, based on an Intel 8255 PPI chip. I then designed another add-on board to this which was an EPROM programmer which I then used to program an EPROM with the ZX Spectrum ROM image (with bug fixes) and a few extra routines (like HEX/DEC conversion) using the small amount of free space in the ROM image.
Oh, and I'd like to see the 32K expansion. I seem to recall having to issue one (or two) poke statements to get the Memotech 64k to have the full whack available.
Due to popular demand, the 32k pack is going in :)
Great choice! Totally agree with it as the first viable, cheap home computer.
Thanks for watching :)
In Sweden we had the ABC-80 at that time, some 10x more expensive. Good video!
Thanks very much - glad you enjoyed it :)
I remember selling that one (in the Netherlands) a good machine with a teletext video chip. I did like the sound chip, with pre-defined sounds.
I've just had a look inside my ZX81 - a non-working example, before it arrived with me it appears somebody has made a dogs dinner of trying to do a 'composite video' mod and failed miserably. Anyway, it's an issue 1, but there are a couple of differences. All the chips except for the ULA are made by NEC. Also, the memory appears to be two smaller chips, one soldered onto IC4b, and one in the normal spot - but it's a smaller chip. It seems all the traces are there for either version. I'm guessing it's a standard Sinclair thing, where demand outstripped supply so they ended up getting whatever they could! Interesting video, though - and happy birthday ZX81!
Yep, sounds like you got one of the Friday afternoon specials :)
This was my first computer and it was amazing for the time.
Thanks for watching - hope you enjoyed it :)
If it wasn't for an HP programmable calculator, this would have been my first foray into BASIC and computing. I had a TIMEX 1000 tough, as it was branded in the US, though I bought it here in South Africa somewhere in the mid 80's. My next one was the 48k ZX Spectrum. What nostalgia this has generated! Thanks
You're very welcome and glad it brought back happy memories :)
My mum bought me the ZX80 kit when she spotted the advert for it in one of the newspapers she was working for, she had it delivered at her office and kept me in the dark until bringing it home that day and wow I was super super gobstruck and it was a kit for experts.
The ZX80 however was fraught with problems ranging from overheating and burning a hole in my bedrooms new carpet to components dying from heatdeath as the units got mega hot.
I graduated to the ZX81 when it came out and it was like a supercharged machine compared to the ZX80, my favourite game being Mazog's on the '81 and then the Spectrum arrived and wow this time it was mega awesome and never looked back and I even got a couple games published in one of the mags, one being a fairly cool randomising maze game like Mazog's and the other a sad platformer type thing kinda like Joust but very slow and painful it being in basic lol
So happy to hear these stores :) Takes me right back :)
if it got THAT hot something was drastically wrong with it! i have a zx80 and it certainly doesnt get very hot
Another great video. Never owned a zx81, but had a few friends who had one. I Was lucky to have a vic20 😃
Thanks very much :) Vic series coming up later in the year :)
Happy to see other RUclipsrs celebrating the anniversary! I had such a good party, all alone on my own (not only) due to Corona, celebrating the ZX81 to the max! I’m so happy to share my happiness with you folks! #ZX81IS40 It would be great if we all use this hash tag in the video title. Happy Birthday Zeddy!
That is awesome!
I got mine in 1984 it was a WH Smith Special Deal £39.99 got you the zx81 and the memo tech 16k ram pack
I actually now owned a computer ,something that would have been unheard of several years earlier .
I could now type in programs from the manual and it would do my bidding .it was amazing
Kids today have no idea :) :)
My first computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000 that I traded somebody (in Juneau AK. USA) for a Sanyo ghetto blaster with removeable speakers. However, I didn't learn coding until I got my mitts on a Commodore 64 computer somewhat later on.
TS1000 eh? Spoiled with 2k :)
Good video. I have a wavy line issue one board but instead of a single ram chip it has two. It’s still only 1k though. Could there have been a difference between issue one kit and ready made versions?
Good question - I don't think I've seen one with two ram chips although there's definitely a slot for it. Perhaps it was more common though - I'll do a little digging. :)
I've always thought that using the same connector for power as the cassette in/out was a recipe for disaster!
That being said, I always wanted a ZX81... I might see what I can find on eBay :-)
You're right - I had to check and double check EVERY time I plugged the power in! :). Good luck with the hunt :)
I built one from a kit in '81. It was not for myself, but I soldered it for a friend.
I'm thinking of building a new one myself - kind of fallen in love with the little thing :)
@@TheRetroShack Check out the recent Hackaday badge, which pays homage to it but is an all-new design. I thought I saw something similar for Defcon, but might be mistaken.
@@JohnDlugosz Thanks! Will do :)
You have just made me feel incredibly old... but at least I'm typing this on a computer attached to a 55" OLED - so I don`t have to squint as much as I did all those years ago - and at least my games work... I'm looking at you 3D Monster Maze, 3 days of typing in and not a blink at the end of it. LMAO.
Sorry! Think of yourself as de-younging rather than getting older :)
1 K ‘Pac Man’! Wobble crash 16 K ram pack. Huge manual that taught me BASIC. Sparky illegiblish printer.
Speaks the voice of experience there :) :)
Yes, put Moore's law to work and up the internal ram.
Actually, making a new larger case with a nice mechanical keyboard would be nice. Then, interface an SD card and port CP/M to the machine. NOW you'd have something!
I love all these suggestions and ideas coming in :)
Here you go..an eighties style "thumbs-up"...."thumbs-up"....super video!!
Thanks very much!
You make exceptional videos. Great speaking voice. I would love to see you do a video on the VIC-20. Or maybe even the TI-99/4A. Not sure how popular they were over there but they are two computers often overlooked.
Thank you very much! Got planned series on both of those for later in the year :)