Happy 40th Tech Birthday!
In the first month of this new year it’s tempting, and recommended of course, to look forward to the possibilities that the new decade may bring. However, for those of a certain age, a number of tech toys are coming up for BIG birthdays, so a little reminiscence may also be in order. Unfortunately, these may not make any of us feel younger, given what may have introduced you to computers can now be found with the antiquities of the Science Museum.
Tomorrow, 29th January 2020, sees the 40th anniversary of the launch of the Sinclair ZX80. Wow, yes. 40 years ago.
A white slab of plastic that looked more like something from Ikea, though not as well built, than one of the world’s first sub ￡100 microcomputers. With a proper Z80 CPU and 1KB of memory – that’s 0.000001Gb in today’s terms, it was advertised as being able to do “anything from playing chess to running a power station”. Running a power station on 1KB, let’s hope not! Tech hype is clearly nothing new.
The ZX80 was of course, in its own clunky way, very successful as more than 100,000 people all over the country purchased and then fought with a dreadful keyboard, a black and white flickering screen and little else. At a time when a ‘proper’ microcomputer like the Apple II cost as much as the average family car, about ￡2,500 in 1980, this ￡99 machine gave an affordable introduction to the future.
The ZX80 also launched Britain’s eccentric answer to Americas tech genius Steve Jobs and made Clive Sinclair a household name, something that would take Jobs another two decades to achieve here.
Sinclair also invented the world’s first slimline pocket calculator, the worlds smallest CRT television, an early digital watch, the world’s first GUI based affordable computer in the QL (yes, launched before the Mac) – and, in the greatest tradition of British inventors – they were all commercial failures ! And then there was his obsession with the electric car, his infamous Sinclair C5…. but maybe it’s taken us 40 years to work out that he was thinking in the right direction, just four decades ahead of everybody else.
40th Tech Birthdays coming up…
2020 - 40th anniversary of the launch of the ZX80, Acorn Atom, Commodore VIC20
2021 - 40th anniversary of the launch of the ZX81, worlds 1st sub $100 built computer
2021 - 40th anniversary of the IBM PC, a machine that gave legitimacy to the micro revolution
2021 - 40th anniversary of the Osbourne 1, worlds first successful ‘luggable’ computer, and precursor of today’s laptop
2022 - the 40th birthday of the BBC Micro, which educated a generation of British school kids
2022 - 40th anniversary of, still, the worlds best ever selling computer – the Commodore 64
2022 - 40th birthday of the Sinclair Spectrum
2023 - 40th anniversary of the launch of the Apple Lisa, a $10,000 GUI computer
2024 - The 40th birthday of the Apple Mac
And as for software – Microsoft Word will hit 40 years old in 2023, with Excel following up in 2027. So no excuses if you don’t know many of their features – it’s not new software! Microsoft Windows hits the big 4-0 in 2025 and is still at the root of one of the greatest fortunes in business history.
Many of you may recognise these computers, used some or even been an owner and, whilst we may laugh now at the hype and limited capabilities of these early pre-internet desktop machines, they introduced a whole generation to computers – and computer games, programming, electronics and animation. Early 80’s Britain became the most technically literate computer owning nation in the world. Many of these kids were inspired and have grown up to now run tech companies or head up technology teams in industry that have since helped revolutionise many sectors.
Let’s hope the great possibilities of technology for this decade have the same effect to inspire today’s youth to become tomorrow’s tech leaders and engineers.
Oh, and if you have an old Sinclair ZX80 in the loft somewhere, it’s worth, boxed, about ￡600. Happy 40th !
Thanks for a great trip down memory lane, Duncan. Through sharing the same office space in Bridge Street Cambridge with Herman Hauser and Chris Curry, founders of Acorn Computers, and later ARM, I had the great fortune to become one of the founders of Torch Computers, and get to know them, as well as Clive Sinclair, and his brother Ian.? The first product our very talented Engineering team designed (which was led by Ray Anderson, founder and CEO of Bango) was the Torch Communicator, the casing for which was designed by Ian Sinclair. Launched in 1982, it utilised the Acorn BBC Micro Motorola 6502 motherboard, and a Z80, was a colour PC, and had a built-in Modem that was the first to be permitted to be plugged directly into BT telephone jack sockets. It was shipped with Torchmail, one of the first e-mail products. ? The ZX81, incidentally, went on to sell well in the USA. Nigel Searle, Sinclair Research’s CEO, would say at the time “Sinclair has sold more computers in it’s short existence than IBM in its entire life”. Torch went on to create a great range of powerful work stations, and continued until it was sold off in 1998. All of these pioneering PC’s are exhibited at the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge, and the National Computing Museum in Bletchley Park. There is also a great, and very funny movie about Chris and Herman and their competition with Clive to win the BBC Microcomputer contract. Called “The Micro Men”, It’s on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXBxV6-zamM?
Head of Technology & AI at RiskSTOP
4 年Sadly, I have three ZX80s plus various other ZX81s, Spectrums, Commodore 64s and BBC Micros. I even have a couple of rare Jupiter Aces
CISSP Accredited. Responsible for Information Security best practices across Forvis Mazars
4 年I learned to program on the ZX81 - a really thick BASIC book came with it and it had 1KB of memory - wow! I remember once taking my kids to the science museum and there, behind glass, was a ZX81. "I learned to programe on that when I was 10 or so" I told my kids. "But dad, it's behind glass, that means it's very old" Cheers kids!