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Home Computers

By which I mean that legendary array of plastic boxes that invaded our homes during the 1980s and seemed remarkably cool at the time, but actually had less memory power than it has taken my laptop to type this paragraph.

Today our homes are full of notebooks (the computer version!), iPads, desktop PCs, Playstations, Wiis, Xboxes, and hand-held consoles, and we spend our time playing photo-realistic war games, challenging people on the other side of the planet to games of Scrabble, and hurling angry birds at a group of military pigs.

Back then it was the ZX Spectrum, Vic 20, and BBC Micro, and we lost hours trying to guide a miner through a series of caves, taking a bloke called Horace skiing, and typing out ‘PICK UP SWORD’ and ‘GO EAST’ on text adventure games.

But here’s the thing, we would never have had the former without the latter, no matter how quaint and antiquated they may seem today.

Here is a quick whistle-stop tour through some of the more iconic home computers of the time.

Sinclair ZX81

The first home computer that you could purchase from the high street, the ZX81, was the brainchild of calculator king Clive Sinclair, and, launched in 1981, sold over a million units. There were computers available for home use before, most notably its predecessor the ZX80, but they all came in kit form and had to be soldered together. The modern, sleek ZX81 came pre-assembled and pretty much ready to go.

Weighing in with a whopping 1KB of memory (check the size of the next email you send and compare), it had no moving parts and relied on a membrane keyboard (you just pressed hard on the plastic shell) and plugged straight into your television. You could expand the memory with a RAM pack that slotted into the back, cranking power up to 16KB (again, check that against the size of one email today) but the pack was top-heavy and often had to be stuck to the main computer with sticky tape. There was also a printer, a small device that appeared to use that shiny toilet roll they used to have at primary school.

Of course, the greatest achievement of all the 1980s home computers was that they brought gaming into the home and, even though they seem prehistoric by today’s standards, ZX81 games such as Flight Simulator and 3-D Monster Maze have now achieved legendary status.

Sinclair ZX Spectrum

The follow-up to the ZX81 came out a year later, and boasted colour graphics rather than the monochrome of its elder sibling. It was the home computer that truly revolutionised the industry, selling over 5 million units in its various guises, and launching some of the most popular computer games ever.

It was an odd beast, though, and not the most practical of machines. The rubber keys on the keyboard contained multi-functions that could only be accessed by pressing SHIFT or ALT or other more elaborate combinations, and I am pretty sure there are some functions that have still never been used to this day. The rubber keys also made it a bit of a pain to type on, so it lost out in the home programming stakes to its more robust competitors. However, most users only ever pressed Z to move left, X to move right, W to go up, and S to go down, anyway. Sinclair finally relented and included a more traditional keyboard on later models, but the rubber keys remain the distinctive feature of the Spectrum.

Although the early models came with no joystick ports, the Spectrum was a popular gaming machine and spawned numerous classics such as Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, Horace Goes Skiing, The Hobbit, Daley Thompson’s Decathlon, and Lords of Midnight. It is credited with inspiring a generation of gamers who went on to create the classics of the 1990s and 2000s.

Commodore Vic 20

Despite the fact that it had lower memory than its competitors (3.5KB compared to the Spectrum’s 16KB), the Vic 20 became the first home computer to sell a million copies, and was one of the most successful machines in both the US and the UK.

Part of the appeal was just the look and feel of the thing. Unlike the Sinclair models, this actually had a proper keyboard, and was large and impressive. You could touch type on it, which made it easier for home programming, and it was a robust piece of kit.

It could never quite live up to the Spectrum’s game play but it did its best to hold its own, and games such as The Wizard and the Princess and Wacky Waiters became classics of the format.

It only lasted a couple of years, though, as the Commodore 64 that followed was much more powerful, and had better graphics. Nonetheless, the Vic 20 was the first computer for many people still in the industry today and is much cherished by those who owned one back then.

Commodore 64

Bigger, more powerful, and in a darker shade of beige, the Commodore 64 became the bestselling home computer of all time, with nearly 17 million machines sold. A big hit in the US, where most of its owners were located, it did not perhaps have the cult gaming appeal in the UK that the Spectrum had, but it was a solid, dependable family computer, and the first such machine that many people owned.

BBC Micro

Education, education, education. Designed and manufactured by Acorn Computers, but supported by the BBC as part of their Computer Literacy Project, this was the machine to be found in schools. The BBC branding added a certain credibility to the machine, enabling Middle England to trust this new fangled device and allow it into their homes. When Computer Studies first hit the timetable, initially as an out-of-hours voluntary lesson, it was usually a BBC Micro that pupils learnt on, supported by a range of TV programming.

Never very cool, the BBC Micro was probably doomed by its association with the classroom. Kids wanted a Spectrum or Vic 20 to play on at home. It was also about twice the price of its more fun competitors, so never quite made it into sufficient homes to secure any traction. It remains, however, the machine that many people learnt to program on.

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