The Beginning - The Unwrapping
It happened before Christmas , if I remember correctly. We never intended to get a Spectrum, Dad had his heart set on an Oric 1 ( white , plastic and very small keys) . He bought one , we unwrapped it , connected it to the TV and it started spouting forth random numbers , possibly it was possessed , we will never know, it went back to the shop.
While at the shop the assistant recommended the 48K Spectrum instead, it had more software available, it came with it's own introduction on cassette and a programming manual. Just what my Dad wanted, something educational. So around my birthday in December we unwrapped this magic little black box , it had jolly black rubbery keys that smelt wonderful (yes, I am weird ) , it had rainbow stripes on it and lots of interesting words on the keys.
While at the shop the assistant recommended the 48K Spectrum instead, it had more software available, it came with it's own introduction on cassette and a programming manual. Just what my Dad wanted, something educational. So around my birthday in December we unwrapped this magic little black box , it had jolly black rubbery keys that smelt wonderful (yes, I am weird ) , it had rainbow stripes on it and lots of interesting words on the keys.
We then found out it would work with any old tape recorder and having a father obsessed with home Hi-Fi we had plenty of them ! We loaded in the 'Horizons' cassette that came with the computer and over 6 friendly easy lessons our new best buddy introduced itself to us. That's the thing about the Spectrum , it's friendly, it's stylish and you never really looked at it as something that would tick away quietly in the corner of a horror movie to detonate a nuclear warhead. To be continued ....