@RenewedRebecca @johntimaeus @RnDanger @vkc Agree, my ZX80, upgraded to ZX81, was also more Basic relying on my competence than on AI! I regretted those days I didn't buy a Commodore also.
There are reasons this book has a separate listing of the "Cadanza" program for the MC series computer. I didn't have the "memory expansion pack" which also changed some of the hard limits in Basic. So many limitations I don't even remember all of them.
@johntimaeus @RenewedRebecca @RnDanger @vkc I upgraded my ZX80/81 from the internal 1K memory with the huge external 16K memory! Seen at the backend of the computer in my photo in this blog post: https://www.hemrin.com/walking-to-linux/walking-to-linux
@RnDanger @johntimaeus @RenewedRebecca @vkc The ZX80/81 used a normal analog TV as screen, only option, it had built in RF for a TV channel, so tune in the TV to the channel/frequency they use. The memory was shared btw graphics and code, meant that "big" programs coming close to 1K reduced numer of rows shown on screen down to zero, then I had to take away some code in blindness until something could be seen on screen again. The keyboard was close to type on a table. 1/2
@RnDanger @johntimaeus @RenewedRebecca @vkc
It was plastic film, not sure how the contacts were done under it. When I upgraded to ZX81, a new "keyboard" was included, which meant to fix the new film above with tape.
2/2
I'm sure there were knockoffs. The MC series did color in character shaped blocks (basically filled in the space taken by an 'A' with one of 8 colors). I don't think you could do 2=3 -- if I remember correctly, variables were restricted to a-z, which could be re-used as a$-z$ for strings. But that's been a while.
@johntimaeus @hehemrin @RenewedRebecca @vkc
I was also five or something so the memory is fuzzy 😅
@hehemrin @johntimaeus @RenewedRebecca @vkc
Was there a knock off version of this? I remember my dad brought a computer home from work that i plugged into a black and white TV using 300 ohm RF prongs. It had those graphics blocks on the membrane keyboard, and i believe it let me define 2 = 3 such that 2+2=6