I also started on ZX Spectrum. The interesting thing was, unlike PCs, which continuously improved, the hardware of ZX was pretty much fixed, so people had to come up with more and more ingenious ways to optimize.
I recently downloaded and opened the "BASIC Reference Guide", and I was surprised. All the different BASIC commands that I considered quite complicated when I was 11 had full description on couple of pages. It was nothing compared to today languages' APIs!
I recently downloaded and opened the "BASIC Reference Guide", and I was surprised. All the different BASIC commands that I considered quite complicated when I was 11 had full description on couple of pages. It was nothing compared to today languages' APIs!