To: rbowman
rbowman wrote to alt.folklore.computers <=-
After seeing an ad for the Sinclair ZX-81 which was under 100 USD in
the kit form, I had to see what you got for that money. 32 character
wide display via a RF modulator and your TV, a membrane keyboard, and program storage on a Walkman cassette player. It wasn't a high point in
my computing experience. It did make an adequate doorstop.
I had the US re-branded system, the Timex/Sinclair TS1000. same
keyboard, same cassette port. Had to use my old portable cassette
recorder to load programs.
One "feature" was the RAM expansion pack (I think it was 16 megabytes)
that plugged into the expansion port using friction to hold it in. Jar
the keyboard just so and it'd crash the computer.
Commodore PET 4000 series had moved away from tape by then. iirc the VIC-20 went back to the purpose build external cassette drive from the
PET 2000 series.
I was in high school working on Commodore PETs - the move to floppy
drives was a quantum leap!
kurt weiske | kweiske at realitycheckbbs dot org
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