Did you have a home computer in the 1980s?

[wanderings]

We had a ZX81 which attached to the TV (I was also a child of the 80s): it could do programming and graphics. I quickly got better at using it than my parents, but it was not much good for word processing. It really helped me with maths.

Later we had an Amstrad PCW which was great for word processing, and programming (I loved using Logo to draw pictures), but not games. My mum didn't embrace the idea of using it to plan or draft a piece of writing - she would not type a word until she had it finalised on paper. It lasted a few years before it went wrong too often. I learned to type on it; my mum got me a book about how to touch type, and I got quite speedy with it. The manual for this computer was literally an inch thick (and on really thin paper), and written in a very longhand style - how things have changed!

I remember being shown the microwriter at school! They told us it replace keyboards completely.

Commodore Vic 20.

20 GOTO 10
RUN

We had a Mackintosh SE and I've yet to find a better game than Maths Blaster

We had a ZX Spectrum to start with and I used to spend hours programming it to change the colour of the screen. Then we had a Vic 20 with games on a cassette. Another Vic in the Wall was my favourite and I was the family champion.

We've still got the Sinclair zx Spectrum in the loft somewhere.

We had the Amstrad with the much coveted colour screen, load in the tape and spend hours playing Jet Set Willy, Chuckie Egg and Daly Thompsons Decathlon!

And, my brother got one of the first Game Boys which my Mum had to mailorder from Japan!

Acorn Electron

Favourite games Felix and the Factory and loved Escape from Moonbase Alpha

Acorn Electron

Favourite games Felix and the Factory and loved Escape from Moonbase Alpha

ZX Spectrum then much later the second (+?) version. Picked up cheap from car boot sales if I remember correctly. Once (we went through a few!) with a case full of bootleg games, none with instructions but some were great if they loaded

We learnt very basic programming, and DDad made a great space invaders type game, which we played for ages.

Chuckie Egg 2 and the Dizzy games were my favourites.

Did anyone else play Daley Thompson (sp, sorry) decathlon? If we threw the javelin at a certain angle it froze the game, and you had to start again

Anyone else play Trivial Pursuit on a spectrum? Feeling rather nostalgic now, and looking up if you can play them today somehow

Dragon 32. I learned to program basic on it. We had to wait for the cassette to load......
Can't get my head round the way my son does coding - seems you have to download a program to program......

No but the bloke my mum worked for had one and we used to play that tennis game (in black and white of course!)

@BrunoMars

We had the Amstrad with the much coveted colour screen, load in the tape and spend hours playing Jet Set Willy, Chuckie Egg and Daly Thompsons Decathlon!

Glad I’m not the only one who remembers those! Never had Chuckie Egg original, only the second one

We didn't have a colour telly until 1994 😂
My mum didn't get a PC until the early 2000s

@WeAllHaveWings

We had the zx spectrum, then the zx spectrum +2 (the one with the cassette tape) which my dbro helped design when he worked in timex in Dundee.

We then had a bbc acorn with an external 5" floppy disk which was an amazingly fast upgrade from cassettes.

That was it, spectrum +2, thank you! And thanks to your DB for so much fun

We had a ZX81 then a ZXSpectrum and finally a BBC B. I suspect the idea was for my DB and I to learn programming and stuff but I just remember playing Chuckie Egg for hours on end.

I had a ZX81. I may ask Dad if he still has it in the loft....

one of the best things I saw was a plotter: a machine which drew coloured pictures and diagrams, using actual pens.

They were rather lovely to see working, and they could produce very good quality line drawings simply with move/pen down/move/pen up types of instructions. OT but I happened upon a lovely example
blogs.mhs.ox.ac.uk/insidemhs/blessed-plot-inside-mhs-blog/

An Acorn Electron, you loaded programmes from a cassette tape. It took ages to load anything.

Yes. First computer was a Commodore Vic 20. It would have been around 1983/4. Used to spend hours copying out programs from the magazine to make little games.

Started my interest in computing which I did to a level and then taught it to gsce and a level. Still teach it now but to primary children.

I don't miss the hours wasted sat waiting for a tape game to load only for it to crash 25 minutes in!

@bubblegumfactory Chuckie Egg is/was my absolute favourite game ever. Then Daredevil Denis.

My dad worked at a college, he brought home a Commodore Pet. Then we got a BBC B. Used to spend ages typing in listings from magazines, only for them to fail to load from the tape properly later on!
My career has ended up being in computer programming!

And Frak? Anyone remember that game. BBC micro I think.