The Spectrum was the market leader in the U.K. almost from the off, and consequently for ages had by far the best selection of games. Which is mainly what ours was used for…an early 48K pale rubber key one. 1983 or 1984 I think.
We had it for a while, though I think (but can’t be sure anymore) that we might have had a 128k one too. But by then, as a teenager, I’d found other things to do…. I do remember that in 1986 (remembered because it’s the year we moved) Dad brought an old IBM PC home from work for us to use - clicky keys, green screen monitor, weighed a tonne and used 5 1/4 floppies and a hard drive the size of which I can’t remember. But because we used that at home I bought an Amstrad PC1512 when I went to Uni in 1989, which had a mouse, the power supply in the monitor and a 20MB hard drive. Oh, and a dot matrix printer for the last minute printing of essays.
But, partly because of the Spectrum, my brothers and I used computers from before we were teenagers, and in the case of my youngest brother since he was 7. So none of us really remember life before them. They were there at home, school, (the good old BBC Micro) and work. Having said that, the speed with which a 4 year old can master an iPhone or iPad is something else…I remember watching one of my nephews trying to ‘swipe’ the TV screen when he was very little :)
And there was even a time that I thought a C5 would have been a great way of doing my paper round ;)
So thanks Sir Clive
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