> It's still inconceivable to me how people developed for these platforms. Well, we didn't have Visual Studio Code, and we couldn't summon Claude to help us th

> It's still inconceivable to me how people developed for these platforms. Well, we didn't have Visual Studio Code, and we couldn't summon Claude to help us through the tricky bits. We used whatever tools were available and a LOT of trial and error in order to master the machine. Because computers were amazing, and having one on your desk you could play with was even more amazing. I didn't have a Spectrum, because I'm a bloody Yank. I had a VIC-20 and later a TI-99/4A. In the States we had Apple, IBM, Tandy, TI, and Commodore, with Apple pretty much the dominant force in home computing until PCs got cheap enough. Everybody else was pretty niche, so even when affordable computers came out -- like the Timex Sinclair and Timex Sinclair 2068 (which was based on, but not broadly compatible with the Spectrum), there wasn't a huge library of software nor a large programmer/hobbyist community like there was with the Spectrum in the UK. The "bedroom coder" phenomenon was still a thing, but I think the wide availability and low price of the Spectrum enabled more Brits from a variety of backgrounds and socioeconomic strata to become "bedroom coders" than Americans, for whom home computers were pretty much expensive toys.