In August 1980 I was working as a lab technician in a secondary school and was spending my spare time observing variable starts with binoculars and analysing th

In August 1980 I was working as a lab technician in a secondary school and was spending my spare time observing variable starts with binoculars and analysing the results with my brother's pocket calculator. I used to regularly drop in on the local library on my way home to read New Scientist. One day I noticed an advert for the Sinclair ZX80. And all of a sudden, I realised that you could have a computer at home. This had never occurred to me before seeing that advert. I immediately bought one, followed by a small portable television, so I didn't have to use the family television as a monitor. I wrote several simple programs to parse and reduce my variable star observations but I fairly quickly outgrew the ZX80's limitations, and then upgraded to a 'proper' microcomputer, a Sharp MZ80k. Several years later, I felt confident enough to switch my career over to computing and took an MSc course at Newcastle. Several years after that, my mother told me that her Women's Institute branch had held an 'Antiques of the Future' competition and that she had taken along my long-neglected ZX80 and won first prize with it.