A nine year-old David Hayward spent a lot of hours in a 3D maze
What a heady time the early 80s was for the computing industry. Popular electronics were offering computers for sale through dedicated magazines, arcade games were becoming more complex, and the home computer boom was just about to hit millions of consumers throughout the UK and the world beyond.
One day, we were toying with breadboard electronics to make some form of computer, the next we could order the ZX81. This crazy looking device arrived either in the shops or through mail order for the reasonable sum of £49.95 in kit form. If you weren’t in the mood to build one yourself, then for a mere £69.95 it would arrive at your doorstep pre-built and ready to open you to the world of home computing.
Naturally it wasn’t long before the consumers of this brave new frontier tired of the tapes they purchased with the machine. There are only so many games of Chess, Inca Curse and The Tomb of Dracula you can play before you begin to want to stretch your computing legs and see what the machine could do.
With 1KB of memory, though, it was somewhat limiting. Also don’t forget the dodgy membrane keyboard, the fact that knocking the table would wobble the power pack and reset the computer and that the screen kept going blank whenever something was actually being computed. However, those brave enough to tinker with the inner workings of BASIC or machine language came up with some wonderful examples – even if they essentially were an asterisk and other familiar keyboard characters moving around the screen.
Very primitive by today’s standards, true, but ground-breaking and wonderful fun at the time.
Its History
Designed by Rick Dickinson, the ZX81 was launched 35 years ago on 5th March 1981 to a welcome crowd of electronics enthusiasts.
Although the memory could be expanded to 16KB (via the wobbly RAM pack), it was the 1KB standard version of the ZX81 that became the foundation for the Sinclair empire and subsequently the ZX Spectrum as its successor.
The launch of the Z80 the year before and the MK14 before that was the stepping stone to the ZX81. In reality, there wasn’t much of a difference between the two machines, other than the design and the swappable ROM chips. The same cost-cutting exercises that the Z80 endured were also placed upon the ZX81. However, it did launch an affordable home computer to the masses.
In terms of the success of the Z80, over 100,000 units were eventually sold. But that success increased significantly with the ZX81, which sold in excess of 1.5 million units worldwide. It was a success that made Sir Clive his millions and gave him and the Sinclair team the keys to the British computing public’s hearts.
The Good
A proper computer, for just £50 – although you did have to build it yourself. 3D Monster Maze!
The Bad
Overheating, dodgy keyboard, 1KB or memory, a slight knock of the table would cause it to crash, and the wobbly 16KB RAM pack, which also made it crash.
Conclusion
It’s easy to look at the ZX81 these days and poke fun at its meagre resources, design and bad points, but there was something quite special about the ZX81.
For many of us, it was our first time at a computer, and it opened the doors to a much wider world that was just beginning to form. For that alone, we thank you, Sinclair Research and the ZX81.
Did You Know?
• The ZX81 was the first Sinclair computer to adopt the black case colouring.
• Although there was no sound hardware, you could mess around with the video signal and turn up the volume on the TV for some really odd effects.
• The processor could run a program or refresh the screen, not at the same time. Hence, the FAST and SLOW modes of the ZX81.
• Manufactured by Timex, the TV-out port needed to be swapped for territories outside the UK. Sometimes, though, ZX81s were shipped with the wrong UHF port, which led to some amusing outputs.