The ZX80 manuals and inserts

The ZX80 is the reason I work as a programmer today.

My father bought one in late 1986, I ran my first program in 1987 (at 7) and I've been programming something pretty much (and literally) every day since.

I think at one point or another I owned all of the Sinclair's including the +3 with the strange floppy disks except the QL which I lusted over but we couldn't afford.

By the time we could afford a better family PC the world had moved and it was an IBM Olivetti Clone where I met Turbo Pascal (and beginning my life long admiration of Anders Hejlsberg, I don't think any single developer has had such a big impact on my progression as a developer without knowing I exist everything he's ever produced or worked on has fit the way I think about programming from TP to TS - even if you aren't a fan of Turbo Pascal, Delphi, C# or TypeScript he's worth watching/listening to, the obvious joy and passion he takes in technology is inspiring since he's been doing it since I was in Nursery)

All because my father decided after seeing a segment on Tomorrows World that these "computer things might stick around" and bought a second hand one on a whim.

Funny the pattern your life can take from the smallest of decisions by someone else.

Good stuff, thanks!

If you're looking for somewhere else to archive them, World of Spectrum might be interested. They have ZX80 and ZX81 books and software as well as Spectrum - and I don't see these listed.

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/archive.html http://www.worldofspectrum.org/books.html

Thank you for scanning these!

My very first computer purchase was a ZX81 with 16K memory expansion and "high resolution" graphics expansion. Cost a bunch, everything was a tad confusing, crappy graphics looked crappier on a tiny black and white television, loading a cassette took more than 20 minutes... but it got me started in my career. Best purchase ever.

If you want you can build your own too!

http://searle.hostei.com/grant/zx80/zx80.html

superb, thanks! I also love the TV. And you'll find the circuit board inside the zx80 looks quite cool too, with hand-drawn curvy traces etc.

Well there was no cassette with the ZX81, free in the box. However the artwork on the manual was pretty good:

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/ZX81BasicProgramming/

Hm, inspiring. I think I still may have an original op code card for the 6809 somewhere.

I still have my ZX81, thermal printer and 16K RAM Pack.

That RAM Pack was my earliest memory. ;)

Title should be: The (ZX80 game) Lamo-Lem Manual and Inserts

Nothing but a lovely picture of the ZX80 behind that link.

Still, I appriciate everything about the ZX80 as it was my first big love.