My First Computer, The only computer I bought ever
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You make me feel old. I was using computers back in 1979. The first computer of my own was a ZX81 then a ZX Spectrum. That creaking noise you hear is my nostalgia kicking in!
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] Trolls[^]
You are not alone there Dave. My first computer was in 1979, a Compukit UK101. Aaah those were the days.. 1MHz, 8bit processor, 4Kbytes of RAM, 48 x 16 screen resolution on a black/white TV. I remember paying around 230 UK pounds sterling for the computer and another 50 pounds for the additional 4Kbytes of RAM upgrade. One Saturday morning, I drove across London to CompShop and bought the computer, it came as a kit you had to solder together yourself. It took me 12 hours to build (6pm Saturday through to 6am Sunday). I still have it and it still works as designed. One of my favourite parts (NOT) was the editor, the user manual stated something like "if you make a mistake typing in a line, simply retype the line". You said you had a ZX81 in 1979, i recall 'Sinclair' releasing the ZX80 in late 1979 and the ZX81 in late 1980.
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My first was a UK101 kit computer, bought 1979 I think. I was living in a single rented room and by the time I got back from the shop with it, it was already about 9pm. Set to with the soldering iron, soldering in all the sockets and discreet components, plenty of burnt fingers. Left the biggest sockets till last, so I had some "experience" with the easier ones. This of course meant the (6502) processor socket was last to be soldered on to the motherboard. Gone midnight now, very tired. Still, soldered it in carefully and there was no way that baby was ever coming out. Started slotting in the chips - memory (both the 4096bit chips, giving a total 1kb memory) then the logic gates and finally - the 6502. :omg: :omg: :doh: :sigh: :( I'd only gone and soldered the 6502 socket on the wrong side of the board!! God knows how I'd managed to do that; just too tired by then, I guess. Well, there was no way I could unsolder the socket, so all looked doomed. Until inspiration struck; very VERY carefully bend each pin 180 degrees so all pins were pointing UPWARDS instead of down, and effectively fit the chip upside down. (Anyone who's worked with those chips knows the pins can break off very easily if too much stress is put on them, but by 2am I'd reversed them all and the chip was finally in place - sort of. You can't imagine the relief when I powered up, tuned in the telly (no monitor!) and saw that little blinking cursor inviting me to start tapping in machine code. That UK101 ran for years, I doubled the CPU clock, filled out the RAM to 8Kb then "piggybacked" another 16 chips on top, with separate loose wires for the top-bit addressing, added a sound chip, doubled - then quadrupled - the baud rate to the cassette player, and doubled the video ram (again, piggybacking one chip on top of another) to double the screen resolution. With this super-fast, massively extended UK101 I visited a few computer clubs (remember them?) and other UK101 owners would take a peek at the board.... WHERE's THE PROCESSOR??? All they could see were some filled-in holes in the motherboard where the 6502 socket should be. Got some very weird looks... :-\