Calculating Things (4)

The very first hobbycomputer Clive Sinclair was the first to bring a very small 8-bit microcomputer to the market with a tiny Basic interpreter in ROM: the ZX80

The successor: the ZX81 The little computer was followed by a 'bigger' machine: the ZX81 (right) which could be expanded with an extra 16-K memory pack. Simple games on magnetic tape for the ZX81 were developed and sold. The keyboard here is a 'glue-on'.

ZX Spectrum The 8-bit (Z80) hobbycomputer became popular with the arrival of Sinclair's ZX Spectrum. Lots of games in color were developed which could be made visible on a TV screen.

Commodore 64   Introduced in the '80's the Commodore 64 rapidly became the most populair hobbycomputer in Europe. The main reason was its low price and the fact that the C64 had a robust alfanumeric keyboard. Because of its success a huge amount of software (mainly games written in Basic) was developped. Later on peripherals became available: matrix printers, floppy disk drives, joysticks, etc.

Philips P2000   The P2000 was  a good  and reliable BASIC-computer and very popular in the Netherlands. It made use of small cassette tapes and software in ROM in modules which could be inserted in the slot to the left.

Atari Portfolio On of the first 'palmtop' or handheld computers. It ran under an OS which was file-compatible with the first IBM PCs. To the left a 128-K memory card which could be slid into the machine. To the right an extra parallel interface. The light-weight computer was suitable for word processing and spread sheets and could function several hours on its internal battery.

Dragon Color Computer     One of the competitors of the Spectrum: the Dragon Color Computer with a real keyboard.

TRS-80 Model 1 One of the very first home or hobby computers manufactured by Tandy Radio Shack. This more or less legendary TRS-80 Model 1was very popular in the western world long before the IBM PC was announced. Tens of thousands machines were sold and used for gaming, programming, word processing and bookkeeping.The very first spreadsheet program: VisiCalc was developed and written in Z80 native machine language on this machine. The computer consisted of: a keyboard, an expansion interface, a TV-like display, cassette recorder and up to four 5.25 inch floppy disk drives. Total memory was 64 KB: 16 KB BASIC interpreter in ROM and 48 KB RAM.