My first experience with a personal computer

My first encounter with computers was an encounter about thirty years ago with a Sinclair model. That was 1981.



My father bought this ‘box of tricks’ simply because he wanted to compile a data base of race horses so that he could win the Grand National, or at least the horse he chose could. I was chosen for to manage this task with the Sinclair.

From what I can remember a smallish, quite heavy keyboard connected via a TV antenna jack which was then plugged into the back of an old fashioned black & white television, and off you jolly well went, typing to your hearts content. Green on Black.

Unfortunately, The Sinclair model ZX81 did not have a lot of memory and so we could not programme all of dear old pop’s parameters so our horse lost and my mothers horse won, ( because it had a pretty sounding name ).

Needless to say, the dastardly device was relocated to a space in the attic where it probably still is.

Frank Cotterill.

For more information about the Sinclair ZX81 computer, click on its name.