Paul The Programmer

So, its 1982, I'm 12 years old and get my first computer. I'm hooked, like a salmon on the river tweed. Its a ZX81.

If you haven't seen one, then may I suggest you go down to you nearest technology museum and marvel at the sleek, black 8 inch square of plastic, with its flat, white, touch sensitive keyboard. I still have it, in the garage. My kids have no idea that their dad earns every penny he has because of that little box, oh yes and of course Mr Spock (I love science too).

This machine got me started on the road to designing, writing and debugging code. I used to buy computer magazines with REAL program listings in them, such as 1k chess (way before t'internet). These little 1k listings might be a game, new feature or a poke/peek into the computers memory. Once I recall turning the ZX81 into an organ, by poking some memory address or other to make the TV hum a different pitch (yes, computer used to plug into the TV back then).

From these listing I started to experiment. First I'd remove some code lines, then add my own. Eventually I started to understand the lines of code, what the keywords (instructions/commands) meant and how they could make the computer do different things. Its like learning a foreign language by trial and error. I loved it.

Years have gone by now. I've got a degree and 20 years work experience, but I'm still passionate about that little machine and what I learned from it.

Now I like to teach. I concentrate on teaching Visual Basic for Applications (VBA - Very Basic), not because its the best language, the most useful language nor the fastest. Mainly its because I loved that ZX81. I get a buzz when students write their first tiny program, or understand how functions work or what a variable is. Now if I can just instill an ounce of that zest back into them, I'll have done my job right.

Have you any fond memories of the ZX81, or perhaps you hated it? Let me know.