I remember seeing the ZX80 at my parents' friends house and realizing that this was a different kind of beast than the pocket calculator and the electronic dictionary we had at home: you could make this thing do.. well.. anything!

When the ZX81 came out I spent all my pocket money savings on it. First on the thing itself, later I would shell out for its 16K RAM extension.

Restoring software on the ZX81 using cassette tapes was so slow and cumbersome that it was quicker to restore it from my own memory. I had a little scrolling evasion game that I knew by heart, and I would type it in if I felt the need to play. Changing little aspects of that game (first different characters for the obstructions, then game mechanics) was what set me on the path of programming.

My brother somehow salvaged that first ZX81 from our parents' estate and it is now hanging framed on the wall next to me as I type this.

Took a course on programming the brand new ZX81 back in 1982. Bought one, fell in love with it. Just 15 years old at the time. Wrote lots of programs, stored on cassette using my Grundig cassette recorder. Hardly slept. Just kept learning. Retired early in 2020 after a fulfilling career in IT. Zx81 still is one of my favourite machines!

"Rob Manuel is a writer, curator of Fesshole, and co-founder of B3ta. He lives in London."

He also has a BlueSky account, where he posts lots of good links to new indie games: https://bsky.app/profile/robmanuel.b3ta.com

I got the kit at 11 for Xmas. I still remember one of the jokes in the manual…

“How many legs has a horse ?”

‘6, 2 legs at the back and forelegs in front’.

The color count is so low it seems like it would be hard to see in this day and age, doesn't it? Isn't this effectively the pixel art that's popular right now?

Brings back childhood memories...