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Ah yes my first computer, still have it in the garage, keep wanting to spend some time and see if I can get it to boot again. My Dad built it from a kit, can s

Ah yes my first computer, still have it in the garage, keep wanting to spend some time and see if I can get it to boot again. My Dad built it from a kit, can still remember him spending all night soldering it. Literally set the direction of my life/career. We didn't have any permanent storage at first, so I would type basic programs in by hand like games from magazines and play them, then it was lost on power cycle, so if I felt like playing I had to retype, talk about learning programming through repetition. Eventually we got an audio cassette recorder working which took like 10-20 minutes to save and load a small basic program, was torture. Eventually upgraded to C64 but still needed audio cassettes for a while the 5 1/4" floppy drive was much more than the computer itself but when we finally got it felt like the future being able to quickly load and save programs!

rwmj 5y ago
Don't just plug it in! The power supply and voltage regulator are notorious for going bad, and on the ZX81 they can fry the RAM chips (which are hard to get and even harder to desolder and replace). Watch some reputable online videos about restoring this computer first.
- 300bps 5y ago
  Commodore 64 power supplies fail similarly. The voltage regulator on the 5V line fails causing higher voltage to be fed to the motherboard potentially frying every chip on the board. https://retrogamestart.com/answers/replace-c64-power-supply-voltage-failure-will-kill-your-c64 https://retrogamestart.com/answers/replace-c64-power-supply-...
russfink 5y ago
Took my TS 1000 out about THIRTY years ago - plastic membrane keyboard leads cracked with age, could no longer type (arguably only a minor loss compared to when the keyboard was working :-)
- rwmj 5y ago
  Not sure about the US variant, but UK keyboard membrane replacements are available: https://zxrenew.co.uk/Keyboard-Membranes-c20672681 https://zxrenew.co.uk/Keyboard-Membranes-c20672681
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
YZF 5y ago
I also still have mine somewhere. With the 16KB expansion pack... Nah, it was a lot less than 10-20 minutes. Quick research says ~300bps so a 1KB program should save/load at about 27 seconds.
- SigmundA 5y ago
  Memory kind of blurs together, but probably was doing larger programs with the tape, 5-9 minutes for a 16kb program [1], felt like forever. Also might be mixed with memories of the C64 cassette which is 30 minutes per 100kb per side [2] so 20 minutes for a 64kb program. I remember it being torture waiting as kid, and I believe it was not always successful and prone to error reading and requiring retries which maybe never worked, seemed like 50/50 chance and eating up lots of time. 1. https://www.sinclairzxworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=39 https://www.sinclairzxworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=39 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette

rwmj 5y ago

Don't just plug it in! The power supply and voltage regulator are notorious for going bad, and on the ZX81 they can fry the RAM chips (which are hard to get and even harder to desolder and replace). Watch some reputable online videos about restoring this computer first.

300bps 5y ago
Commodore 64 power supplies fail similarly. The voltage regulator on the 5V line fails causing higher voltage to be fed to the motherboard potentially frying every chip on the board. https://retrogamestart.com/answers/replace-c64-power-supply-voltage-failure-will-kill-your-c64 https://retrogamestart.com/answers/replace-c64-power-supply-...

russfink 5y ago

Took my TS 1000 out about THIRTY years ago - plastic membrane keyboard leads cracked with age, could no longer type (arguably only a minor loss compared to when the keyboard was working :-)

rwmj 5y ago
Not sure about the US variant, but UK keyboard membrane replacements are available: https://zxrenew.co.uk/Keyboard-Membranes-c20672681 https://zxrenew.co.uk/Keyboard-Membranes-c20672681

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

YZF 5y ago

I also still have mine somewhere. With the 16KB expansion pack... Nah, it was a lot less than 10-20 minutes. Quick research says ~300bps so a 1KB program should save/load at about 27 seconds.

SigmundA 5y ago
Memory kind of blurs together, but probably was doing larger programs with the tape, 5-9 minutes for a 16kb program [1], felt like forever. Also might be mixed with memories of the C64 cassette which is 30 minutes per 100kb per side [2] so 20 minutes for a 64kb program. I remember it being torture waiting as kid, and I believe it was not always successful and prone to error reading and requiring retries which maybe never worked, seemed like 50/50 chance and eating up lots of time. 1. https://www.sinclairzxworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=39 https://www.sinclairzxworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=39 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_Datasette