December 13, 2002
Spectrum
I was fourteen when I was given my first computer, a Sinclair ZX Spectrum:
It came with 16kB of RAM, which I later upped to 48kB, and displayed no fewer than eight colours, with a screen resolution of 256x192. The keyboard was made of rubber, whose touch was widely likened to that of dead flesh. It was probably the best-selling home computer in the UK ca. ’82-’84.
Ninety percent of the time I used it for playing games, and I sat out a few formative years, that might have been better squandered in any number of ways, absorbed in the glow of images like these:
Manic Miner
Scuba Dive
Chuckie Egg
Jet-Pac
Chequered Flag
Lords of Midnight
