How's your memory?

[Rik]

Try and identify these early model computers and games consoles.

5/7 for me.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7671677.stm

[Sebby]

I'm a bit young to do well, but very interesting nonetheless.

[Inactive]

4/7 for me..

[Rik]

I did better on computers than consoles, In.

[Simon]

4/7, but mostly lucky guesses.

[kinmel]

I got 6/10,  but then I once owned a few of those, ZX 80, ZX 81, Spectrum, BBC B,  & CPC646.

Ah  when I was a lad.....................

[Rik]

And we thought that 64K of memory was incredible...

[JB]

What memory did the basic ZX81 come with?

[Rik]

I think it was 64K, but I wouldn't swear to it anymore.

[JB]

Believe it or not, it was 1K and expandable to 16K if you needed to run a BIG program 

Just found this link:-

http://www.apj.co.uk/zx81/zx81-hardware.asp

[Rik]

Shows how the rose-tinted specs have cut in, doesn't it, JB. I can remember paying £32 for a 32K EPROM for my BBC B, and £300 to add a 10Mb HD, and I do mean MB.

[JB]

Yes, me too Rik. Seem to remember some board I fitted with extra ROM's on it. Wordwise rings a bell as the word processor.

I'm sure the BBC B is still in the loft. Seem to remember the characteristic bleep it made when it was switched one.

Happy days. (What an old fart I am!).

[kinmel]

The earlier ZX 80 came in kit form, you even needed a soldering iron.

It spec'd out with a 4k ROM, 1k of RAM and a 3.25Mhz clock speed on the Z80 processor.

People came to our house specially to see it.

The original BASIC programs were typed in.

[Rik]

The BBC B was a great machine in so many ways, very expandable, somewhat future proof - I had a range of second processors, a good version of BASIC to learn on. I too had the ROM expansion board, fully populated. Wordwise was the first WP from Computer Concepts iirc. The had a great base near Hemel Hempstead, country house with tennis courts and swimming pool.

Oh, and the Beeb booted faster than any modern machine. 

[Rik]

The original BASIC programs were typed in.

Very slowly on those horrible keypads.

[JB]

The earlier ZX 80 came in kit form, you even needed a soldering iron.

Oh heck, I remember that !

[Rik]

Like the new avatar, JB. 

[JB]

Like the new avatar, JB. 

I'm sure the previous one was doin' peoples 'eads in Rik.

[Rik]

Not mine, but then it's pretty solid.

[kinmel]

Wordwise rings a bell as the word processor.

Wordwise, on a ROM,  was written for the BBC computer at Wrexham Technical College' Computer labs and was intended for the education market> I was one of those testing it before it was released and still occasionally go for a pint with one of the programmers.

[Rik]

Can you remember who marketed it, Alan. The second CC release was a suite, InterBase, InterWord etc, but I thought they handled Wordwise...

[Lona]

I only scored 3/10 as I wasn't into games consoles

[Rik]

You're forgiven. 

[kinmel]

Can you remember who marketed it, Alan. The second CC release was a suite, InterBase, InterWord etc, but I thought they handled Wordwise...

No idea who marketed it, everyone in Wrexham with a BBC B had a copy "for testing" and so we took no notice of what happened to it later.

The original market was schools and colleges since the computer was part of  an educational endeavour by the BBC.


edit: I have spoken to one of the programmers and he thinks it was commissioned and published by a company called Xara, or Xarax

[kinmel]

Rik, you were right about Computer Concepts being involved in Wordwise, someone else has pointed me to an archive of BBC programs and it is listed there for Computer Concepts, look in the "apps" folder.

And Xara was the developer as Paul thought, but i have no idea about the relationship of the 2 companies.