
ZX80 & the Dawn of 'Surreal' UK Game Industry - bootload
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/06/sinclair-zx80/all/1
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10ren
I started with a ZX81, and wrote and sold (one copy!) of a... Xevious clone,
called "ZXevious". Perfect name, heh? All assembly, cross-compiled from
another machine, many simultaneous objects on screen, and I even emulated (or
tried to) the brand new Macintosh interface that had just come out, in the
"GUI" for selecting the keyboard layout.

The ZX81 BASIC (and "OS", such as it was) was written by Steve Vickers, and
everything fitted into an 8K ROM. I have always been impressed by this guy's
work. The whole unit had only 4 chips (ROM, RAM, CPU and a custom chip).
Scroll done for a photo: <http://oldcomputers.net/zx81.html>

Steve Vickers went on to create the _Jupiter Ace_ (with the main ZX81 hardware
guy), which had similar hardware, but instead of BASIC, it had _Forth_.

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rbanffy
> The whole unit had only 4 chips (ROM, RAM, CPU and a custom chip).

It always amazes me why would anyone need more than that. Well... Memory could
be an exception - a single memory chip is limiting - but the rest is doable.

PCs are ugly overcomplicated things.

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a1k0n
Well, the C64 for instance had complicated enough video and sound to warrant
separate devices, plus a bunch of peripheral ports (joysticks, etc) and then
you need address decoding logic to support all of that. It all depends how
much of it you can bundle up into your "custom chip". The first Apple had no
custom chips and generated video and sound with extremely clever arrangements
of standard logic gates.

~~~
rbanffy
The later incarnations of the C64 had a much reduced chip-count in relation to
the first ones.

[http://www.commodore.ca/products/c64/commodore_64_motherboar...](http://www.commodore.ca/products/c64/commodore_64_motherboard_1982_1992.jpg)
and <http://www.commodore.ca/gallery/hardware/c65.jpg>

Even if you don't get to 4 chips, a simple and elegant design is very
desirable. And, in the case of PCs, quite impossible.

~~~
ido
And as history shows, doesn't matter much - users don't care how many chips
are in their computers.

It just has to be cheap and run the software they want to use.

~~~
rbanffy
Engineers like me _care_.

I find it disturbing that my computer has, somewhere inside its sleek and
modern body, a complete IBM 5150, with its ISA bus, serial ports, real-time
clock, keyboard micro-controller (with that horrendous A20 hack so that the
286 it can emulate can switch between user and whatever mode OS/2 1.0 would
need to run) and CGA display adapter ready to boot up PC-DOS from something it
thinks is an MFM hard disk. The only thing missing is Microsoft's BASIC burned
in ROM.

It's offensive. Really.

I have a collection of 80's and 90's computers. No computer in the collection
is as inelegant as the IBM PC and its clones. Many of them (original Mac,
Apple II - despite the chip count - Ataris) are absolute works of art. Sheer
elegance in their simplicity.

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timthorn
Those in the UK should keep an eye out for re-runs of Micro Men, which tells
the story of Sinclair vs Acorn in the 1980s. Brilliant television:
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n5b92>

~~~
Luc
That looks pretty hilarious! I've seen more realistic hair on Action Men than
on the actor playing Sir Clive :)

It's on YouTube for those wanting to take a peek:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y8IkcUGV9w>

~~~
10ren
Oddly enough, this BBC production seems to put the people who were behind the
BBC micro in a far better light than Sinclair - who is presented as a
caricature of an evil scientist. I can't imagine he was really like that. Very
funny though.

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petewarden
Ever wondered why Dundee in Scotland has a lot of game companies? In the 80's
Timex made the Spectrum there, so all the local kids ended up with the
machines thanks to (sometimes _ahem_ 'unofficial') employee discounts.

So you have Clive Sinclair to thank for both Lemmings and GTA!

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wazoox
One of my friend had the ZX-81 with about every option under the sun: 64K
extension, color display extension, microdrive, floppy drive, mechanical
keyboard, joystick extension port, serial extension port, printer. It was
hilarious to see, the tiny ZX in the middle of a huge heap of devices of all
forms and colors. Plus at the slightest bump to the table the whole setup
would crash or reset... :)

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bond
Oh the memories of Chuckie Egg, R-Type, Daley Thompson Decathlon, etc....

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motters
My first computer was also a Sinclair ZX-80. My father had bought it,
believing that he might be able to use it to organize his company accounts.
When he discovered that it was useless for such a purpose he gave it to me as
a toy, and the rest as they say is history.

~~~
Nekojoe
Everytime someone mentions the a Sinclair and accounts, I always think of Hey
Hey 16k - <http://www2.b3ta.com/heyhey16k/>

~~~
motters
The home computers of the early 1980s were more curiosities than utilitarian
devices, although spreadsheets and word processors did begin to emerge at that
time.

The practical difficulties such as very restricted memory (the ZX-80 had < 1kB
of usable RAM), unreliable cassette tape drives, long loading/saving times and
non-ergonomic keyboards meant that even the most dedicated business user would
struggle to use them for any serious purpose.

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zandorg
I just played a C64 game written in 2009, Knight 'n' Grail. The interesting
thing is it's the first game I'd played to completion in 8 years. So I can't
say it's me that's the problem (and not the modern games), it's that modern
games suck.

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zandorg
I was a little unclear. Knight 'n' Grail is a game done in the style of a 1985
arcade adventure platformer - like the BBC's Citadel. I used to love playing
games like that. My point is that apart from Ultima Online - which I got bored
of - I haven't liked _any_ PC or console game, even platformers.

So is it that modern games suck, or that I'm too used to the game of the 80s?
I don't know, but I know it'll be a while till I find another game as good as
Knight 'n' Grail.

~~~
ido
To each his own.

I would much rather play Half Life 2: Episode 3 or Starcraft 2 to Pacman or
Joust (my first computer was a 1986 vintage PC XT clone, so it's not that I'm
not aware of the old games).

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defdac
Growing up with the ZX Spectrum this article was a really interesting read. I
never questioned toilets as enemies when I was 7 years old, but I do now =)

~~~
tezmc
If my X360 had more surrealism and toilet-based enemies I'd probably actually
play it instead of leaving it gathering dust.

~~~
CWuestefeld
Perhaps this is because these general-purpose computers were an open platform,
while modern videogames like X360 (and iPhone, for that matter) are closed
platforms. The open approach lends a lot more space to hobbyists, who I think
are more prone to whimsy.

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bootload
My first computer, ZX-80 ~ <http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/268165912>

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torpor
Thankfully, the days of surreal games are here again, the form of homebrew ..
see "Pandora Panic!" for example, one of the first homebrew games for the Open
Pandora gaming console .. <http://open-pandora.org/>

