April 27th was the thirtieth anniversary of the Sinclair Spectrum computer. This machine launched so many careers, including my own, when it became the platform upon which the UK games industry was founded in the mid 1980s. My own commercial programming work was preceeded by years of owning the ZX81 and early 16K Spectrum before I created my first commercial success, the AMX Mouse for the Spectrum in 1985. All the code for that system was written by hand in machine code stored on casette tapes that I religiously saved three times on different casettes with a NEW casette set every week for the whole development cycle. Cutting one's teeth on such a low powered machine gives a great appreciation of how to use limited resources to the fullest.
For later projects, and with the spoils of the sale of my mouse, I bought a PC, equipped it with CP/M and cross assembled Z80 code for the Spectrum, ransferring it via the RS232 port on the Interface-One. Ah heady days.
Now the Raspberry Pi is available, designed in part by an ex Spectrum programmer so good legacy there. I was also amazed to find that Linus Torvalds states that his original inspiration to write his own operating system comes from having made the mistake of buying a Sinclair QL which was so rubbish that he had to code just to be able to use it. Just imagine what may have happened if the Sinclair QL had been reliable! Linus Torvalds may still be just another Finnish dude and instead of Apple being the greatest company on earth, Sinclair might have been at the top.
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