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I had a Sinclair Scientific too - so small with hard clicky keys! Back then it was a wonder to type numbers that looked like words when you held it upside down.

I had a Sinclair Scientific too - so small with hard clicky keys! Back then it was a wonder to type numbers that looked like words when you held it upside down. I expect more people here will remember the ZX80, but what about the minimal SC/MP-based MK-14 that came before... I skipped that but got a NASCOM-1 kit the following year (1978). I worked at Acorn in the early 80s and Sir Clive attended a couple of our infamous Christmas parties (since he knew Chris Curry). The good thing about those old computers was the simplicity. The only thing on a NASCOM-1 between your assembly code and the hardware was 1KB of monitor program.

kwhitefoot 5y ago
I splashed out on a Nascom 2. I wish I had a keyboard as good as the one it came with now. Had a bit of a fright after I finished soldering everything and switched it on. Nothing happened! So I laboriously went over all 1200 (?) solder joints again and breathed a sigh of relief when it worked. I bought an old 5 bit code teleprinter and wrote a driver so that I could print by connecting the UART to a couple of transistors driving a mercury wetted relay to drive the printer. I think it would be a lot more complicated to do that on any modern computer.