The Roots of Computing: the Sinclair ZX81

Okay, I’m the first to admit I’ve been working with computers for a long time, a really long time by today’s standards. My first experience involved punchcards and a DEC PDP8E, Cobol and Fortran in 1975. The fussiness of the technology left me cold, but since those classes I’ve always had a sort of hot-rodder’s obsession with computing hardware. Should I buy a dedicated word processor, or a full-on computer? Could I build my own? Kits were common back then, so that wasn’t a ridiculous question. But the minute I got my hands on my first 8086 (thank you forever, Oscar Boyajian!) a world opened up that has been growing at astonishing speed.

People who already were addicted to coding in the early 1980s gravitated to several emerging home-computer platforms like Atari. The Sinclair units had gone through several iterations, but Sinclair hit the first sweet spot with the ZX81. It became a consuming (and annoying) habit for teenagers who would later be tagged as geeks, then even later as bosses.

Now comes this great article from the BBC.  Check it out here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12703674