|
Graig, yes this is such a nostalgia trip, got me digging the monster out, in perfect nick, and with original manual in tact !.
Your right, it was bought in 80' and it was the ZX81 that was 4 chip. The video out put handling was very clever I recall, used the dynamic RAM refresh function of the Z80 CPU to control the video raster display. My ZX81 had an extra IC stuck to the top of the CPU hand wired to the PCB to correct a firmware math bug.
The ZX thermal printer was a marvel too, so small and capable of amazing, chunky graphics.
There was a far more advanced computer PCB kit produced in North London at the same time as the ZX, at about the same price that I cant remember the name of at all and that I cant find any mention of anywhere now, but it didnt come with basic and was a ***** to program in assembler (I think it tanked as a result). I left it with a company in London I worked for at the time, and it became a prototype for automating studio sound mixing desks, the 1st in the industry.
The British are good at this sort of excentric, erratic out of left-field innovation, the TRS80 was boring in comparison.
Technically though, the US was far ahead, Ive worked on industrial machines that were built in 75' that were allready (discrete chip CPUs) 16bit albiet with magnetic core memory, you could actually see the individual bit cores on a giant PCB covered with a wired core array!. They are still in use to this day (Excellon XL3 PCB drill machines).
Thanks for the recall Bart !.
|