{"id":76,"date":"2007-04-23T16:14:21","date_gmt":"2007-04-23T16:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parkesy.wordpress.com\/2007\/04\/23\/the-sinclair-spectrum-is-25-years-old\/"},"modified":"2007-04-23T16:14:21","modified_gmt":"2007-04-23T16:14:21","slug":"the-sinclair-spectrum-is-25-years-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2007\/04\/23\/the-sinclair-spectrum-is-25-years-old\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sinclair Spectrum is 25 years old!"},"content":{"rendered":"

*-* Corrected after a comment from\u00a0deKay\u00a0<\/p>\n

Just saw this article on the BBC News site<\/a>\u00a0that reports on the 25 anniversary of the launch of the ZX Spectrum!<\/p>\n

The first computer that i could actually call my own was the ZX Spectrum +3<\/a><\/p>\n

It has 128K of RAM and a built-in 3in floppy disk drive! At the time most software was on tape as the\u00a0 ZX Spectrum +2<\/a>\u00a0was so popular so my dad hooked up a tape drive for it which had us spending many hours trying to get the volume and tone just right so we could play Jetpac, Robocop, Rainbow Islands\u00a0and the like!<\/p>\n

The +3 was also the first computer i took apart. My brother and i were off school and the tape drive stopped working. We knew that the audio port had a dodgy connection as we had seen my dad re-solder it a few times. My mom was asleep downstairs so i made the decision to go into my dad’s shed and find his soldering iron, screwdrivers and solder.<\/p>\n

I was so nervous as i knew my dad wouldn’t be best pleased if it had all gone wrong! Fortunately i managed to get it working and we never had a problem with it again (looking back it was probably the three tons of solder!)<\/p>\n

I was about eight or nine years old…….<\/p>\n

The spectrum series also gave me my first foray into programming with BASIC and i guarded my floppies with my saved work as if\u00a0my life depended\u00a0on it!<\/p>\n

Happy Birthday Spectrum!<\/p>\n

*-* Here’s the update!<\/p>\n

I originally commented on the ZX81 having rubber keys and 48k<\/p>\n

deKay quite rightly pointed out i must be remembering it wrong<\/p>\n

I had a chat with my dad this morning and our Spectrum history was as follows:<\/p>\n

My dad originally got a Spectrum 48k (with rubber keys!)<\/a><\/p>\n

after this he got a Spectrum 128<\/a><\/p>\n

This was then followed by the Spectrum +2A <\/a>(the black one!) I quite liked the light gun that we got for it!<\/p>\n

It was after this that i got my +3 and sometime after i somehow aquired another +2!<\/p>\n

We never actually owned a ZX81 as my dad (and i quote) “couldn’t afford it”<\/p>\n

Thanks again to deKay for pointing it out. You can read his article on the birthday of the speccy here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

*-* Corrected after a comment from\u00a0deKay\u00a0 Just saw this article on the BBC News site\u00a0that reports on the 25 anniversary of the launch of the ZX Spectrum! The first computer that i could actually call my own was the ZX Spectrum +3 It has 128K of RAM and a built-in 3in floppy disk drive! At<\/p>\n

<\/span>Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Sinclair Spectrum is 25 years old! - Andy's Techie Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/andyparkes.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2007\/04\/23\/the-sinclair-spectrum-is-25-years-old\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Sinclair Spectrum is 25 years old! - Andy's Techie Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"*-* Corrected after a comment from\u00a0deKay\u00a0 Just saw this article on the BBC News site\u00a0that reports on the 25 anniversary of the launch of the ZX Spectrum! 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