Hello from Cambridgeshire, UK

[Flatulentia]

Hi,

My first foray in to home computing was borrowing a friend's heavily modified ZX80 in early 1981. It was in a large homemade wooden case with a custom full-size keyboard and integrated PSU. I was instantly hooked.

I think it must have been some time in late 1981 when I'd managed to save up enough pennies to send off for a ZX81 kit, largely thanks to a £20 discount coupon in a Sinclair-related computing magazine. Total cost was £29.99 + £2.95 P&P if memory serves. I was a 17 year old apprentice electronics engineer at the time and couldn't wait to get my teeth into it.

The sheer excitement of switching it on for the very first time and seeing that cursor looking back at me is hard to describe, especially as I knew what a huge privilege it was to own an outright paid-for home computer at my age back then. I felt a simultaneous mixture of great pride and humility and have called the man behind it 'Uncle Clive' to this day.

I couldn't afford to buy a 16K RAMPACK so ended up building one using parts I purchased for a sensible price through my employer. That was quite an adventure too.

Time moved on and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K arrived and went on discount for £139(?) from WHSmith, so I begrudgingly sold the ZX81 to raise funds toward that and started slowly buying and building add-ons for it. It ended up in a custom-made steel case with a custom-designed power supply and full-size keyboard and an MGT D Plus floppy drive interface and 3.5" floppy drive mounted in the front along with a "Snapshot" button.

Time moved on again and I realised how much I missed the old ZX81, so I bought one in an eBay auction in 2000 and have had the same one ever since.

It's grown over the years with the addition of a couple of Wilf Ritger's mods, namely 32KB of battery-backed static RAM and his "Why Wait?" mod. It's also had a backporch generator with composite video output fitted in place of the original UHF modulator along with a combined power/charge status indicator LED and 50/60Hz video switch around the back. I have more plans for it yet, but there's no hurry. It looks as though it'll be here for a few years yet.

I have a beast of a home-built gaming PC with a million times more RAM and a couple of overclocked Raspberry Pi Model 4 B SBCs carrying out light desktop, file-serving and media centre duties, but the humble ZX81 still keeps drawing me back, sometimes with moist eyes as I remember the very first time my kit-built ZX81 welcomed teenage me so gently to the world of home computing and inspired hobbies that keep me smiling to this day.

[1024MAK]

Hello and welcome to our forum Flatulentia!



I know that you will enjoy this forum

Mark

[Flatulentia]

Thanks for the warm welcome Mark.

Is that a pair of bridge chips I see in your avatar?

[mrtinb]

Thank you for your great story.

Welcome here.

[Flatulentia]

Thank you.

[dr beep]

Hello and welcome to our forum Flatulentia!



I know that you will enjoy this forum

Mark

Welcome,
With that name I want a review from you on
MAKE-A-SHIT

[Flatulentia]

I may take you up on that some day.

Fair winds!

[merman]

Welcome. Used to live in Cambridge myself.

[Flatulentia]

Thank you. Me too. I'm not many miles away now.

Something I forgot to add above was that my older brother used to work for Uncle Clive as a homeworker building the tiny Sinclair Micromatic pocket radios. Someone else who'd taken a batch home to build told porkies about being able to solder and had Araldited the components in the boards.

https://www.petervis.com/Radios/sinclai ... radio.html