ZX Spectrum "Speccy" Turns 40 Too
looorg writes:
Since we mentioned that the C64 got middle age (or however you see 40 as) one might also note that the European rival the ZX Spectrum also just turned to (on the 23rd of April). While it might not have been big in America it was fairly popular over in Europe, and certainly then in the UK. More of a rival over here then all this talk about the Apple II etc.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/22/spectrum_at_40/
The ZX Spectrum, released on April 23, 1982, was a follow-up to Sinclair's ZX81. Referred to as the ZX82 or ZX81 Colour during development, the final product arrived with either 16KB or 48KB of RAM (depending on pocket depth) and a case designed by Rick Dickinson, who had previously worked on the ZX81 wedge. Dickinson was also responsible for the ZX Spectrum's infamous rubber keyboard.
The BASIC interpreter was stored in ROM and was written by Steve Vickers on contract from Nine Tiles. A prototype ZX Spectrum, formerly in the possession of Nine Tiles, was donated to the Centre for Computing History in 2019. The prototype lacks the Dickinson case and features full-travel keys, but the guts would go on to form the ZX Spectrum found occupying many a family television of the 1980s.
Text took the form of a 32 x 24 column display and graphics had 256 x 192 pixels to play with. Color was problematic; to conserve memory a separate 32 x 24 overlay of 8 x 8 pixels were used, with each block having a foreground and background color. While static color images could work relatively well, the approach resulted in the infamous attribute clash. Rival machines, such as the Commodore 64, did not suffer from the same problem although used a lower multicolor resolution made for blockier graphics.
The ZX Spectrum, replete with rubber keyboard, debuted at 125 for the 16KB version and 175 for the 48KB incarnation. A 32KB RAM pack could be plugged into the rear expansion slot of the former, and this writer well remembers the joy of an unexpected reset caused by a wobbly bit of hardware.
Over five million of the Z80A-based devices were sold, and its impact cannot be overstated. While over 1.5 million BBC Micros (made by Acorn) may have also been sold during its lifetime, it was the ZX Spectrum that found its way into far more homes across Europe, and its impact continues to resonate in the IT world of today.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.