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Typing on a ZX family machine was different. The keys look busy because you didn’t type out the keywords like you did on most other machines. Instead, a variety
by shever73 3y ago
Typing on a ZX family machine was different. The keys look busy because you didn’t type out the keywords like you did on most other machines. Instead, a variety of keyboard modes inserted them - along with the required spaces - for you. To load a program from tape on a ZX Spectrum you simply pressed J, which would insert the keyword LOAD along with a trailing space, and then hold Symbol Shift and press P twice to get “”.
The space button was only needed when writing regular text, which was much less common on these machines.
- bemusedthrow75 3y agoRight -- and there is a hugely important consequence of this design for people learning to program: It was almost impossible to enter a syntactically incorrect program. Because the keyboard routines were doing the work of what would now be a lexer and parser. The keyboard would only let you enter syntactically valid code. One other nostalgia side-effect; where many games for eight bit computers used Q-A-O-P-<Space> for directional controls plus action, Sinclair games typically defaulted to Q-A-O-P-M, as a result.
- shever73 3y agoYes, there were occasional instances of "C Nonsense in BASIC" errors, but that was for very specific cases. Mostly, the cursor would change to a flashing question mark if you tried to enter something syntactically incorrect.