05 Mar 11

Today is the 30th anniversary of the Sinclair ZX81 being launched by Sinclair Research in the UK. Like many people of my generation, it was our first home computer and when my brother got one for his birthday, we both thought it was brilliant. I know by today’s standards, it wouldn’t be any good to anyone else for nostalgia reasons (a typical text file on a modern PC would fill the 16k memory if you were lucky enough to have a RAM pack), but I remember it with fondness. It was thanks to these early home computers that I probably ended up going into IT. I used to spend hours creating programs for the ZX81 (and later the Dragon 32 and Acorn Electron). I self taught myself programming in BASIC and it’s sad that kids these days no longer have that option, as the games consoles you get nowadays don’t come with any sort of programming language. It’s a case of load a game and you play it. No chance to be creative and make your own games. Even today, programming for me is restricted to writing Robocopy and other scripts for use at work. I miss those programming days.

I got an air compressor for Christmas and today was the first time I used it. I thought I’d try it out on my spare tyre at first, just in case I got it wrong and burst it. It did a fabulous job (though I’m a little concerned by the pool of water in the boot of my car). I think next time I use it, I’d better have the engine running, as the engine struggled a bit when I next went to start it. However, that could also have been because I had been below the minimum level of oil and had filled it up with rather cold oil. It’s running OK now though.