Home computers in the early 1980s

In the early 1980s, the thing every kid wanted for Christmas was a home computer. In those days, the computers had tiny memories compared to what you see in a PC today. We thought it was great if you had a ZX Spectrum 48K, then there was a Spectrum 16K and other computers such as the Commodore 64, the Dragon 32 and the BBC Computers by Acorn, which you used to find mostly in schools.

The early home computers would use the ordinary TV as a monitor, which was a bit of a pain if someone wanted to watch TV and you wanted to use the computer.

The Sinclair ZX80 was a British-made computer with a touch sensitive keyboard. It was the first of the popular ZX computers by Sinclair Research. This photo is by Editorsthocp.

The ZX80 was followed by the ZX81, another touch key computer. I remember a friend having one, and it was the first home computer I ever had a go on. The display was in black and white and, like other home computers, you needed to plug it into the TV to use it.

At Christmas 1983, I got my first computer, the legendary (and legendarily temperamental in my experience!) ZX Spectrum. My Spectrum was the 16K version, and I also received a few games to play on it. These were "Heathrow" air traffic control sim, "Slippery Sid" snake game and "Haunted Hedges" - a Pac Man type game. The Spectrum had colour, so games looked better, and also a rubber keyboard. The games took ages to load though, accompanied by a high pitched sound and coloured bars up and down the screen.

The ZX Spectrum, photo by Bill Bertram.

My Spectrum worked well for a couple of weeks, then totally crashed. We joined the queue of people at the shop who had also returned a crashed Spectrum. We were given a replacement, which worked relatively OK, except that more and more games would crash on loading, which meant that I could only play a very limited number which did not crash. Most of my games ended up being given to cousins, as shops would not exchange or refund games.

We had the 16K Spectrum upgraded to a 48K, and a couple more games joined my favourites list - Atic Atac, where you explore a haunted house looking for parts of a key to allow you to escape, and Jet Set Willy, a sequel to Manic Miner where you have to guide the character round his weird house collecting objects.

For the patient, here is the loading sequence to Manic Miner:


I can imagine that many people today who had an early (and temperamental!) home computer are pleased that they don't make them like that anymore!