This mini forum is intended to provide a simple means of discussion about the Sinclair  ZX 80 computer. If you want to share your own experience or memories, or add relevant information about this system: post a message!

You can run the same Basic programs in ZX81 and Spectrum but ... there will be slower! ZX80 Basic was faster and not only because of the FAST mode, but also because of integer variables and less tokens! $)

David W. from Ithaca - best to keep your mouth shut and let others believe you are an idiot, than open it and confirm their assumptions. Sir Clive was a visionary, way ahead of his time and only stymied by the technology and attitudes available in the early eighties.

I bought a new ZX81 in 1983 and it started my interest in computing. Sir Sinclair was the man who gave a lot of people the possiblilty of using and learning a computer.
I still own the ZX81, the ZX Spectrum and the Sinclair QL and they are still in working condition !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v$EmwW_6kUdHw

please post this link to youtube
hope yu can find your way to the real great sam sites on the net

I bought the ZX-80 from an advertisement in Popular Science. It was great for writing/testing BASIC programs. You could then hear the processor chunk through the code by the loud interference that came through the TV speaker!

I completely fail to understand the adoration of Sinclair. I read a detailed history of his business, and even though it was actively skewed in his favor I can't see him as anything other than a low-rent shyster.

The ZX80 is a good example - the adverts claim that it's the "most powerful personal computer ever produced". This is, of course, utter and complete bollocks. Even assuming it had a Z80a in it as claimed (which I don't believe it really did), at the time it was released it was up against the 68000 and the 8086. And it was, if I recall correctly from my ZX81, abysmally slow even by Z80 standard - almost remarkably so. This, though, is not surprising from a man who sold things he knew were broken, usually had a 30% failure rate, specified things so tightly that his audio equipment usually had a lifetime of 8 to 12 hours, and even dug up rejected ICs from TI's driveway and used them in his products! To describe him as anything other than a criminal is charitable. That he was knighted based on success in selling equipment that doesn't work based on lies is truly amazing - and it would be nice if sites like this didn't gloss over the truth behind a con-man.

Actually, it was possible to get a ZX80 to run in "slow" mode if you installed your own interrupt handler. Z80 machine code for that was widely published.

I originally bought a ZX-80 in bare component form. It took around 3 hours to put together - soldering in the components and sockets, plugging in the IC chips.

It worked first time.

I later upgraded it with the ZX-81 ROM, there was also a new keyboard overlay provided.

To my knowledge it is still operational, as it is in storage.

I remember one sunday spending about 6 hours writing code on my trusty ZX80 only to experience a power-cut before I had saved anything. (onto magnetic tape I might add!) That was a valuable lesson which stands me in good stead to this very day! BACKUP YOUR VALUABLE FILES!

I was sure that the ZX80 I had when I was younger used the language FORTH and not BASIC! Perhaps I am confusing it with the Jupiter Ace which I also had. I never really used them though so cant be sure. I bought both computers around 1984-85 with the intention of collecting old computers. I think I paid a couple of pounds for each. Unfortunately I allowed my mother to throw them out a few years later with all the other junk from the attic! If only I still had them. *sigh*