Tiny Tuesday: Technology

I remember that Christmas Day well.  1982, I believe.  At the time, if you wanted to impress your friends with your technology you showed them your latest pocket calculator.  But that year Clive Sinclair had brought out his new computer, the 'ZX Spectrum'.  Oh, how I hoped that Santa Claus would bring me one.

The presents were under the tree and we started to open them.  And as I opened mine, there it was; a brand new shiny ZX!  There was a cassette tape recorder too, so you could load programmes onto it.  No monitor, of course, so you had to plug it into the television set.  I just knew that no-one was going to get to watch The Wizard of Oz or the Queen's Speech that Christmas afternoon.

I unpacked everything, sorted out the wires, plugged everything in, turned on the TV, and there it was on the screen; snow.  No amount of unplugging, turning off and back on again, checking everything was plugged into the right socket would change it.  All I could see was snow on the screen.

Of course, in those days shops didn't open again until a few days after Christmas so I had a frustrating few days waiting to take it back for a replacement.  It was worth it in the end though; it may only have had as much computing power as a TV remote control nowadays but it was revolutionary at the time.  I wonder if it still works?