5 ms·

ZX Spectrum, the 8-bit home computer that turned Europe onto PCs, is 40

• guessbest 4y ago
  8 bit computers were a great entry to computers and probably the best computers for the education market for the simplicity of the machines and the built in BASIC ROMs, but it really took 16 bit computers with the larger RAM availability for graphic windowing systems to really allow computers to become the game changer. For the IBM and PC clones it was Windows 3.0 when it really took off. The TSR's for DOS took keyboard combinations that were frequently forgotten, but GUI's put almost everything on the screen for the user in an icon format. I miss the everything in a toolbar era of computing. Icons and Menus, menus and icons.
  • karmakaze 4y ago
    The 8-bit and DOS+EGA/VGA were the best times for learning to code. You had to get low-level to do things fast enough and was also easy to get near full control of the machine without much fuss. There wasn't much in the way of documentation at first which made for good computer club and magazine cultures. After Windows 3.1 got released I was making business programs as that's more fitting for a WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers) environment.