I am tempted...

techjunkie · Post by **techjunkie** » Mon May 01, 2006 6:02 pm

http://cgi.ebay.com/SINCLAIR-ZX-81-COMP ... dZViewItem

This was my third computer...

Can not be many left of these... unbuilt... WOW!

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Mon May 01, 2006 6:21 pm

wondering.. did it come with software build in, or how else would you do it ?

techjunkie · Post by **techjunkie** » Mon May 01, 2006 7:15 pm

thefool wrote:wondering.. did it come with software build in, or how else would you do it ?

Yes - the OS and Basic was on a ROM and it was 1 KB RAM. A remember one guy that manage to do a functional chess game in assembler whithin these 1024 bytes, impressive!

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Mon May 01, 2006 7:23 pm

hehe

va!n · Post by **va!n** » Mon May 01, 2006 8:04 pm

only 1kb? wooow... my first computer/console was an atari2600 (only games as moduls, no keyboard), then i got the C64 when it reached the german market. Even today its very impressive to see what people are doing on an original - non modified - C64, Gameboy, GameBoyColor... smooth 3D wolfenstein engines, realtime zoomer, fire, shaded bobs, tunnel effects and so on! damn amzing what was/is possible with such "old but gold" hardware! (this time was the best time in until now in my live ^^)

Poke 53280,0 : Poke 53281,0

techjunkie · Post by **techjunkie** » Mon May 01, 2006 9:11 pm

va!n wrote:Even today its very impressive to see what people are doing on an original - non modified - C64, Gameboy, GameBoyColor... smooth 3D wolfenstein engines, realtime zoomer, fire, shaded bobs, tunnel effects and so on! damn amzing what was/is possible with such "old but gold" hardware! (this time was the best time in until now in my live

Yeah - it was the same with ZX-81. I didn't have any hires graphics, but used a character map instead. But one day someone did the impossible, a game in true "hires" with pixels. Sinclair Company said it couldn't be done... but it was actually done.

srod · Post by **srod** » Mon May 01, 2006 9:13 pm

Didn't it used to have a 16k ram pack you could buy? I seem to remember it always used to overheat though!

Now the Sinclair spectrum... what a machine that was!

utopiomania · Post by **utopiomania** » Mon May 01, 2006 9:23 pm

OMG, your THIRd computer was a SX81? Respect man! My first was an English Dragon 64, with dual 160Kb drives,
running MS BASIC 1.0 first, then OS09 (based on Unix), with Basic/C/Pascal compilers in 40Kb memory.

Now, I've just bought an Amstrad NC200 'laptop' from Ebay, and can't wait to get my hands on it. I think those
were made by the same guy as the SX81, but I*m not shure. It has an 'Office' suite, and can be programmed in BBC
Basic if you want.

techjunkie · Post by **techjunkie** » Mon May 01, 2006 9:26 pm

srod wrote:Didn't it used to have a 16k ram pack you could buy? I seem to remember it always used to overheat though!

Now the Sinclair spectrum... what a machine that was!

Yes that's true. I bought my 16 KB RAM-pack for about $228 (in 1981). One funny thing with the RAM-pack, was that it had dynamic update (had to be refreshed), so my memory had a kind of whistling tone when I turned it on.

Mmmm... Spectrum was cool too! But my "dream-machines" back then, was a BBC or Quantum Leap.

Those were the days... Hehe... a new machine from a new Company with brand new OS and hardware almost every week.

va!n · Post by **va!n** » Tue May 02, 2006 2:14 am

techjunkie wrote: Yeah - it was the same with ZX-81. I didn't have any hires graphics, but used a character map instead. But one day someone did the impossible, a game in true "hires" with pixels. Sinclair Company said it couldn't be done... but it was actually done.

yeah.... its the same as commodore said it would be never possible to draw stuff inside the border (like the well known copperbars for example)... its still possible as its even possible to do (about 20 years later) realtime smooth 3D stuff and graphics looking like Amiga Graphics (32-256 colors) instead only the 16 colors

i would like to play now on an original C64 (but please with a fastloader

dmoc · Post by **dmoc** » Tue May 02, 2006 7:37 am

My First Computer: Hex is for real men

PS: Not my site

Straker · Post by **Straker** » Tue May 02, 2006 4:50 pm

Don't be fooled! Here is techjunkie with his first computer:

Post by **Dare2** » Tue May 02, 2006 5:03 pm

josku_x · Post by **josku_x** » Tue May 02, 2006 5:33 pm

dmoc wrote:My First Computer: Hex is for real men

That's a typo, Sex is for real men

techjunkie · Post by **techjunkie** » Tue May 02, 2006 9:22 pm

Straker wrote:Don't be fooled! Here is techjunkie with his first computer:

*LOL*

Yeah - almost... I started with computers in 1974. My "mentor" was the man that built Sweden's second computer "SARA" (1955 - 1956).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARA_(computer)
http://www.ctrl-c.liu.se/misc/datasaab/bilder-eng.html
http://www.ctrl-c.liu.se/misc/datasaab/om-eng.html

The first thing I had to do when I meet him was to learn how to solder (hmm... is that the right word in english? with a soldering iron). After that I had to learn how to do wiring.