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We had a ZX Spectrum+ with 48Kb memory back in the mid 80s. My father and brother bought lots of games, tools and BASIC/Pascal programming books, and both beca

We had a ZX Spectrum+ with 48Kb memory back in the mid 80s. My father and brother bought lots of games, tools and BASIC/Pascal programming books, and both became quite expert at BASIC programming. I started off just playing games, but pretty soon I wanted to write my own games. Thanks to all the resources already available, I picked up BASIC quite easily. That's how I first learnt to code. Looking back, I realize that though there was no Internet back then, we had so many books and magazines that it was like a mini Internet. Any question I had, I usually found an answer in one book or the other. Ah, the good ole' days!

stevekemp 12y ago
My parents bought the family a 48k spectrum back in the day, and the cassette deck didn't work. It being the 80s all the shops were closed for the Christmas period. I learned to program (BASIC) via the big orange manual that came with the machine. A week or two later I was happy to play Hungry Horace, etc, but I kept up the programming, eventually moving to z80 assembly, then later PCs.
- lovelearning 12y ago
  I absolutely remember Hungry Horace even now! Once I came across a Sega racing game that was a magnitude faster than anything I'd seen till then. In a quest to find its secret, I discovered something known as "Z80 machine code" in a spectrum magazine. The very phrase sent me into raptures of imagination for some reason, and that's how I too ended up learning assembly language :D. Truth be told, I never again felt the raw adrenaline rush that coding the Speccy gave me, so I do remember it with a great deal of nostalgia. Thankfully, I still have my speccy in seemingly tiptop shape, and it looks like the only thing I have to do to get it to work with my current TV is desolder an RF cable from the TV out. I look forward to it :)
  - stevekemp 12y ago
    I wish you luck! These days I don't have any genuine hardware, but I have a small collection of Z80 assembly language books, and old manuals. I play games such as "Chaos", R-Type, etc under emulation, and remember my claim to fame - getting POKEs/hacks listed in print-magazines. The good thing for me was that Z80 and Intel assembly were so close that I had a good head-start.

stevekemp 12y ago

My parents bought the family a 48k spectrum back in the day, and the cassette deck didn't work. It being the 80s all the shops were closed for the Christmas period. I learned to program (BASIC) via the big orange manual that came with the machine. A week or two later I was happy to play Hungry Horace, etc, but I kept up the programming, eventually moving to z80 assembly, then later PCs.

lovelearning 12y ago
I absolutely remember Hungry Horace even now! Once I came across a Sega racing game that was a magnitude faster than anything I'd seen till then. In a quest to find its secret, I discovered something known as "Z80 machine code" in a spectrum magazine. The very phrase sent me into raptures of imagination for some reason, and that's how I too ended up learning assembly language :D. Truth be told, I never again felt the raw adrenaline rush that coding the Speccy gave me, so I do remember it with a great deal of nostalgia. Thankfully, I still have my speccy in seemingly tiptop shape, and it looks like the only thing I have to do to get it to work with my current TV is desolder an RF cable from the TV out. I look forward to it :)
- stevekemp 12y ago
  I wish you luck! These days I don't have any genuine hardware, but I have a small collection of Z80 assembly language books, and old manuals. I play games such as "Chaos", R-Type, etc under emulation, and remember my claim to fame - getting POKEs/hacks listed in print-magazines. The good thing for me was that Z80 and Intel assembly were so close that I had a good head-start.