And here we are after 40yrs still getting a lot of satisfaction out of pushing Basic to its limits.
Good post here, and very informative.
The BASIC language may be considered old-hat here in 2025, and the days when a computer came as a matter of course with a BASIC interpreter are far …
Basically, It’s BASIC
Write about your first computer.
Now this is a prompt that excites me as it is a nod in the direction of all that i really like, retro.
I started my first full time job in about 1982. The ZX81 came out in 1981, and I used my first months pay to purchase one, it cost around £70Gbp if my memory serves me well.
My first real surprise when I opened it was that it wouldn’t do a thing unless you actually programmed it, I really hadn’t done my homework and what followed was a crash course in BASIC programming to get it to do something, but I loved it.
Looking back the best thing about this product was that it got you learning stuff, and I have no doubt that items such as this started many people off on the road of computer technology employment, computing was now available at a good price to everyone, and we youngsters really took to this unit en mass as 1.5 million units were sold prior to it being discontinued two years later in 1984.
I moved on fairly quickly to the Vic20, Spectrum, Amstrad CPC464 and then the traditional home computer and as they say the rest is history. They were fantastic times back in the early days, and I cherish them immensely. In fact I’ve never fallen out of love with this technology and I will soon write a more in depth piece about the ZX81 as I am looking at purchasing another one for my retro collection.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Foxes Den 
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