3 ms·

Side note: ZX Spectrum was my first computer, and since then I have never ever experienced such a joy about working with new gadget.. I even thought it was some

Side note: ZX Spectrum was my first computer, and since then I have never ever experienced such a joy about working with new gadget.. I even thought it was some childhood effect, never to be repeated again. Can't describe in words, I think everyone here know what I mean. Until I have made a Tesla test drive..

noir_lord 7y ago
Mine as well and a similar feeling, 33 years later and still a programmer, never wanted to do or be anything else.
tluyben2 7y ago
I know what you mean. Not about Tesla though...
danielrpa 7y ago
Totally get it - part of it was that you could fully control and understand that machine. It could do so much and you were able to fully master it! Modern computers are largely black boxes full of software that you can't understand and end up using through experiences that sit on top of dozens inscrutable layers. Not the Spectrum - you had the full power and control always!
- juskrey 7y ago
  I could hardly understand it at that time. What a kid could do? I was playing games, tweaking strip dice vars to always assign points to myself, moving circles across the screen with Basic, and trying to peek poke that alien assembler universe, one byte at a time.
  - danielrpa 7y ago
    That's ok. But it was possible to do it if you wanted.
stevekemp 7y ago
I grew up in the UK, and my first computer (shared with the family) was a ZX Spectrum. The fact that we couldn't load games over hte christmas period, because the cassette player was broken, was the reason I started programming: https://blog.steve.fi/how_i_started_programming.html https://blog.steve.fi/how_i_started_programming.html
- UncleSlacky 7y ago
  I couldn't afford to buy any games between the February when I got the Spectrum (1983) until my birthday the following November, so I learned a lot of programming in that time.
- regularfry 7y ago
  The jack socket on my 48k+ had a fault where you needed to hold the plug at a specific angle or it wouldn't make contact. You had to do that and remain motionless for the entire loading cycle. Something like 40% of the tapes I bought never actually loaded, and I was never sure if it was because I wasn't holding it right, or they were faulty out of the box. And no, I never had the confidence at the time to take the lid off and see if I could fix it. It was just too precious to take the risk.

noir_lord 7y ago

Mine as well and a similar feeling, 33 years later and still a programmer, never wanted to do or be anything else.

tluyben2 7y ago

I know what you mean. Not about Tesla though...

danielrpa 7y ago

Totally get it - part of it was that you could fully control and understand that machine. It could do so much and you were able to fully master it! Modern computers are largely black boxes full of software that you can't understand and end up using through experiences that sit on top of dozens inscrutable layers. Not the Spectrum - you had the full power and control always!

juskrey 7y ago
I could hardly understand it at that time. What a kid could do? I was playing games, tweaking strip dice vars to always assign points to myself, moving circles across the screen with Basic, and trying to peek poke that alien assembler universe, one byte at a time.
- danielrpa 7y ago
  That's ok. But it was possible to do it if you wanted.

stevekemp 7y ago

I grew up in the UK, and my first computer (shared with the family) was a ZX Spectrum. The fact that we couldn't load games over hte christmas period, because the cassette player was broken, was the reason I started programming: https://blog.steve.fi/how_i_started_programming.html https://blog.steve.fi/how_i_started_programming.html

UncleSlacky 7y ago
I couldn't afford to buy any games between the February when I got the Spectrum (1983) until my birthday the following November, so I learned a lot of programming in that time.
regularfry 7y ago
The jack socket on my 48k+ had a fault where you needed to hold the plug at a specific angle or it wouldn't make contact. You had to do that and remain motionless for the entire loading cycle. Something like 40% of the tapes I bought never actually loaded, and I was never sure if it was because I wasn't holding it right, or they were faulty out of the box. And no, I never had the confidence at the time to take the lid off and see if I could fix it. It was just too precious to take the risk.