
The ZX80 manuals and inserts - leoferres
https://medium.com/@leoferres/the-lemo-lam-manual-and-inserts-de06ab9974d1
======
noir_lord
The ZX80 is the reason I work as a programmer today.

My father bought one in late 1986, I ran my first program in 1987 (at 7) and
I've been programming something pretty much (and literally) every day since.

I think at one point or another I owned all of the Sinclair's including the +3
with the strange floppy disks except the QL which I lusted over but we
couldn't afford.

By the time we could afford a better family PC the world had moved and it was
an IBM Olivetti Clone where I met Turbo Pascal (and beginning my life long
admiration of Anders Hejlsberg, I don't think any single developer has had
such a big impact on my progression as a developer without knowing I exist
everything he's ever produced or worked on has fit the way I think about
programming from TP to TS - even if you aren't a fan of Turbo Pascal, Delphi,
C# or TypeScript he's worth watching/listening to, the obvious joy and passion
he takes in technology is inspiring since he's been doing it since I was in
Nursery)

All because my father decided after seeing a segment on Tomorrows World that
these "computer things might stick around" and bought a second hand one on a
whim.

Funny the pattern your life can take from the smallest of decisions by someone
else.

------
coroxout
Good stuff, thanks!

If you're looking for somewhere else to archive them, World of Spectrum might
be interested. They have ZX80 and ZX81 books and software as well as Spectrum
- and I don't see these listed.

[http://www.worldofspectrum.org/archive.html](http://www.worldofspectrum.org/archive.html)
[http://www.worldofspectrum.org/books.html](http://www.worldofspectrum.org/books.html)

Thank you for scanning these!

~~~
leoferres
Great suggestion. Thanks!

~~~
Zardoz84
Bad sugestion! Look at this :
[https://www.reddit.com/r/zxspectrum/comments/6flol2/world_of...](https://www.reddit.com/r/zxspectrum/comments/6flol2/world_of_spectrum_website_is_down/)

~~~
coroxout
Huh. I didn't know about that. Thanks for the info.

I don't know anything about the current maintainer or any of these disputes
but I hope WOS keeps going; it's been going for over 20 years and amassed a
lot of good stuff in that time.

~~~
Zardoz84
Looks that the original maintainer get out, and the actual maintainer is in
middle of the Vega plus torment. At least archive.org would keep a copy of WoS

------
FrankBlack
My very first computer purchase was a ZX81 with 16K memory expansion and "high
resolution" graphics expansion. Cost a bunch, everything was a tad confusing,
crappy graphics looked crappier on a tiny black and white television, loading
a cassette took more than 20 minutes... but it got me started in my career.
Best purchase ever.

------
cjsuk
If you want you can build your own too!

[http://searle.hostei.com/grant/zx80/zx80.html](http://searle.hostei.com/grant/zx80/zx80.html)

------
jacknews
superb, thanks! I also love the TV. And you'll find the circuit board inside
the zx80 looks quite cool too, with hand-drawn curvy traces etc.

~~~
leoferres
I'll take a picture and post it as well. Thanks.

------
Theodores
Well there was no cassette with the ZX81, free in the box. However the artwork
on the manual was pretty good:

[http://www.worldofspectrum.org/ZX81BasicProgramming/](http://www.worldofspectrum.org/ZX81BasicProgramming/)

~~~
ourcat
I still have that somewhere.

------
jacquesm
Hm, inspiring. I think I still may have an original op code card for the 6809
somewhere.

------
ourcat
I still have my ZX81, thermal printer and 16K RAM Pack.

That RAM Pack was my earliest memory. ;)

------
YouKnowBetter
Title should be: The (ZX80 game) Lamo-Lem Manual and Inserts

Nothing but a lovely picture of the ZX80 behind that link.

Still, I appriciate everything about the ZX80 as it was my first big love.

~~~
jacquesm
Scroll down a bit there are links to high-res scans in pdf format.

