The Speccy celebrating the Sinclair ZX Spectrum

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Christmas Day, 1984

25th December 1984. I am not sure I was even in the room when the present was opened — I may have been sent to make some tea. Anyway, although I had not been expecting anything computer like for Christmas, or even had an interest in computers at the time, I recognised the “Rubber Keyed Wonder” immediately. Whilst I had never seen one for real, I often browsed the Littlewoods catalogue for toys and stuff.

My parents were not rich; this was a second hand Speccy which they brought from my sister's boyfriend at the time. Although bought from my sister's boyfriend, he was not around Christmas week and we struggled to load any games (a couple of originals with a grey TDK 90 cassette with copied games). We had no idea what “simultaneously” meant, so did not manage to get the Load command to work. After a couple of days of wondering what this computer malarky actually was, Neil, a school friend who owned a Vic 20, came around to help us. Using the TDK tape, the first game that loaded was Manic Miner — I must admit I did not take to that game at first. The second game on the cassette was Jet Pac, and that one I played until we returned to school in January.

The Spectrum was just that — no extras, joystick, interface, printer, etc. I cannot remember the brand of the tape recorder; it was quite old, and had a leather-looking PVC case. After we returned to school, we were no longer allowed to use it on the family TV, and were relegated to the 12 inch Matsui black and white portable TV in the bedroom. To be fair, that was the best use for that TV at the time — living in the middle bedroom of a middle terraced house did not produce the best TV reception on the coat hanger style aerial and rotary tuner.

I had a paper round. After pay day, I would jump onto my Raleigh Grifter and cycle to the local computer shop on the Stratford with my hard earned cash, and spend ages trying to choose which Mastertronic title I would take a gamble on that week. Sometimes I might go for a magazine instead, depending on the cover tape.

Anyway, over 40 years later, I have been working in IT for almost 30 years. Now I have the time to reignite my passion with the object that shaped my career.

Housekeeping

AI-generated content policy

Some content on this site — certain reviews, and every original program, demo and game in the Articles section — was written by an AI assistant (Claude) rather than by the site's owner. That includes the choice of what to cover, the words of the review or article itself, and, for the programs, the code, pixel art and music too.

Anything AI-generated carries a clear notice at the top of the page, and a small AI tag on its listing card. If a page has neither, a human wrote it. This isn't a legal requirement here, just a matter of not taking credit for work that isn't the owner's.

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