The Beginning of the End of the In-Between

To be perfectly honest I’m not sure when it began. Yes, my memory isn’t what it used to be. But then again if it wasn’t how would I know? What I mean is I’m not sure if it all started in 1981 with the ZX81 or in 1983 with the C64.

The receiving of both was a complete surprise; with the ZX81 my father decided that computers might just be big one day so I needed to get in on the act. I got home from school one day and there it was: a nice shiny, cellophane wrapped, pre-assembled ZX81. Pleased as I was with my new toy my mother still had occasion to call me in one Saturday to explain that my father worked very hard to buy us all nice things and I should at least have the decency to use it more than once.

My reticence stemmed from my previous experience of ‘computers’ and what they could do. The last one was great and just plugged into the telly and you had several games to choose from. This new one needed some work doing first before I would be destroying the attacking aliens; this one needed telling what to do.

When my kids say 'what did you do in the war Dad?' I show 'em these and pat my shrapnel wounds

I tried, honest mother, I tried but it just didn’t click with me. I think it had something to do with the inability to save the hours of typing you had to go through before anything happened. You see my trusty Alba tape recorder wanted nothing to do with no computer, no sireee.

So it came to be that the ZX81 and its 1024 bytes of RAM were placed back into the box and onto a shelf somewhere. My mother was disgusted and made that abundantly apparent by advising my father never to waste that sort of money again. Naturally I was upset; it wasn’t my fault! My mother’s understanding of technological wizardry has never been great so trying to explain that; each time I wanted the little black slice of plastic to do something, anything at all, would take more time than was worth; fell on deaf ears. I really wanted to be able to use it but the frustration of trying to get two pieces of equipment linked together was just unbearable.

Jump forward two years now to 1983. Woolworths, Chesterfield, Derbyshire.

Actual Chesterfield store circa 1907 - Oric computer just out of shot

My father and I are wandering around waiting for the women folk (mother and two older sisters) to finish doing whatever it is they do and we happen across the new computer section. By now I’m much more interested in the new technology as one mate has a Speccy and another has a C64 and I’d already wasted many hours playing games on both.

My personal favourite was the 64. I don’t know why but it just seemed to be the one for me. I dreamed of owning one and any kid at our school lucky enough to have one was not short of friends. One entrepreneurial lad even charged people to play on his. All I could afford was the occasional computer mag and I would spend hours pawing over the adverts to see if anyone was selling 64s for a few quid.

While my father looked on I proceeded to write the world’s two most repeated lines of code ever; the ones that would display my name unto the world for evermore or until some other spotty faced git came along and changed it. My father was stunned by what he saw and bombarded me with questions about what I had just done and where I had learnt to do it. I nonchalantly explained away my programming prowess as the result of paying attention in computer studies at school. Yet more stunned looks from him at the mention of study and school; he was amazed that schools were that advanced. A sales assistant came over to see if we ‘needed any help’ which is another way of saying ‘I’m watching you so don’t piss about.’ To my shock, horror, disbelief and gratitude my father responded with “We’ll take on of these, please.”

Despite the assistant’s efforts to switch our preference to the cheaper Spectrum we strolled out of Woolies with a C64, C2N tape player, joystick and a single game cassette called Matrix.

Spending over £350 was the easy part, now we had to face the women. I thought my mother would go ape, well not ape exactly. My mother’s preferred method of attack was stony silence. Silences the lengths of which could be measured in days. Instead, her response was merely “So you got one then?” They had apparently discussed it beforehand and decided that I was spending so much time on friends’ computers doing schoolwork that I should really have one of my own. Fortunately my father had hidden the Matrix cassette box from her view.

I think that's an actual in-brain shot on the cover there

My sisters were a different matter altogether but I handled the situation with true diplomacy and told them they could use it to help with their homework whenever they needed to. Instead, they bartered with our parents for an extra half-hour on their curfew on weekdays and a whole hour extra on weekends.

I still couldn’t believe it; I had a Commodore 64. It was mine, all mine I tell you and the feeling was superb. I can still remember the excitement of unwrapping it and putting it all together; seeing that blue/blue image on the screen for the first time, loading the first game. It was all fantastic.

So, officially it all started in 1981 but truthfully it was 1983. That’s when it really started. That’s when I really got into it. I know I’m much older now and some might say I’m sad but to this day no other material purchase has given me the hours of pleasure and unrelenting fun I received from the £299.99 spent on a home computer. These days that sort of money doesn’t even buy you a bag of chips.

Almost.

You can add your thoughts on this story in the forum