Why did you own the 8-bit you had/have?

Xesh · Post by **Xesh** » Fri May 04, 2007 2:50 pm

The 8-bit computer poll has got me curious as to why everyone had the computer they love. Was it price, because your mates had one or you wanted to play a particular game.

I originally bought my Electron because my school had a network of Beebs and my mum had one at home (I wasn't allowed to use it

). I saved up my hard earned paper round money to get it as I couldn't afford my own Beeb. I got it mainly because I was used to programming in BBC BASIC and it had the side benefit of being the only other computer at the time to run Elite.

There was also the fact that part of our course work included writing a program of at least 1000 lines. Most of my mates who had other computers only had school time to do this but I could do it at home as well. This meant that I could play Repton and Elite for longer in my lunch hour.

That's me. What about you lot. Why did you get your 8-bit?

psj3809 · Post by **psj3809** » Fri May 04, 2007 2:57 pm

I didnt have a clue about computers back then, i remember going through the Freemans catalogue and seeing all the different types in the back which were amazing.

The large majority of my friends had a Speccy, one mate had a C64, one an Oric (snigger) and one a Dragon (laughs even more). Because i then realised i could 'ahem' copy games and my mates all had a Speccy i had that also

My folks werent skinflints but i think as computers were so new also they didnt want to spend tons on a C64 at the time in case it was a 'fad' and i didnt bother with it a month or two later. I mean back then to a kid in the 80's a 150 quid computer for Xmas was a lot compared to the usual '5 star wars figures and a star wars spaceship' type present

felgekarp · Post by **felgekarp** » Fri May 04, 2007 3:10 pm

My Spectrum was bought me by my Dad as a sweetner when he and my mum got divorced.

Sureshot · Post by **Sureshot** » Fri May 04, 2007 3:18 pm

Quite simply, my parents are both teachers and my Dad got a Master via his school (I guess at a good deal).

OriginalJax · Post by **OriginalJax** » Fri May 04, 2007 3:37 pm

We didn't have a bunch of money when I was a kid - my first computer came from the Great Universal catalog, and it was the Sord M5. Fortunately (;)) it 'broke' shortly after Xmas, coinciding - also somewhat fortunately - with some insurance money my dad got from a minor work-related injury. When I came home from school one day, he'd gone out and bought me a C64. I never looked back

But if I'd gotten a Spectrum at the time, I'm sure I'd have loved it just as much

O-Jax

necronom · Post by **necronom** » Fri May 04, 2007 4:31 pm

I had a Vic-20 before my C64, and my friend had just got a Spectrum. I played the games he had on that and they were quite good, but then another friend got a C64 and I heard the Aztec Challenge music and was blown away by it. It also had a much better keyboard than the Spectrum, better graphics and colours (that didn't change colour when things moved), sprites, more memory, you could type programs in by just typing (instead of the clumsy way I'd tried on the Spectrum), and had joystick ports. Next to that, the Spectrum was a bit of a joke.

Then the computer teacher at school brought his C64 into school and we played some of his games. At that point I decided to get one as soon as possible. It was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Soon after I had a disk drive to load games in about 10 seconds and a printer, while my Spectrum friend had a thermal joke-of-a-printer, and was still using tapes.

Antiriad2097 · Post by **Antiriad2097** » Fri May 04, 2007 5:31 pm

The original plan was to get me a Speccy as my cousin had one.

When it came to the purchase, only 16k ones were available.

More and better games seemed to be 48k only, so that was a problem. Looking at alternatives, the Oric-1 was in our price range and had a whole 48k. Bigger being better, that's what we went for.

Much later got a Spectrum+ and a C64 for a grand total of Â£75 from Woolworths when they closed down their computer department, but I'm glad I got the Oric. Without it I might have just wasted opportunities on games, but I learned an awful lot about hardware and programming from that initial 48k decision.

Britpop95 · Post by **Britpop95** » Fri May 04, 2007 5:39 pm

I plumped for the Amstrad CPC 6128 - or at least my dad did.

It would have been late 85' or 86' and I remember seeing it on display in a computer shop (funnily enough). I thought the graphics blew the Spectrum and C64 out of the water so it was an easy decision for us.

Suffice to say that just a few weeks later when Christmas Day came around, I was a verry happy chappy!

Sega2006 · Post by **Sega2006** » Fri May 04, 2007 6:23 pm

Umm I currently own 3 8-bit computers, but I did have a fourth which now resides in the hands of another.

My Current 3 are:

Spectrum +2 - Nice machine, gets the most playtime at the moment
Commadore 64 - Cant get it to load tapes for some reason but its not a big issue proberly just a bit needs replacing on its board

and last but not least, The Acorn Electron which dont get used all that much as Ive only got 2 games for it at the moment

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Fri May 04, 2007 7:01 pm

I believe my father bought the C64 because:

1) It was going second hand from someone at his work
2) It had a proper keyboard compared to the Speccy

Xesh · Post by **Xesh** » Fri May 04, 2007 7:23 pm

Mayhem wrote:........2) It had a proper keyboard compared to the Speccy

Know what you mean. That's something in common with the Beeb and Elk.

The Master · Post by **The Master** » Sat May 05, 2007 4:17 am

You saved up two hundred quid from a paper round!! Blimey...

I had a Beeb because my parents saw how frighteningly obsessed I was with my ZX81, and wanted to give me "the best possible start in life" (bless). They were actually proud of me when I got a warning letter home from school a few years later for hacking the net manager account on the Econet

*I AM GOD

Matt_B · Post by **Matt_B** » Sat May 05, 2007 4:18 am

I first got a ZX81 because they were cheap and nobody really knew what a home computer was back then. It was always going to be a limited machine, but it was an incredible bit of design to build a computer from just four chips at the time.

I liked it so much that I persuaded my parents to get a Spectrum at launch a few months later as the obvious next step. I furthered my BASIC and machine code skills a bit on it but after a few games of Timegate, Penetrator and Arcadia, I realized that life was never going to be the same again.

My third 8-bit was an Amstrad CPC as I was outgrowing the Spectrum and wanted something with a proper keyboard, monitor, disk drives, 80 column mode, etc. In hindsight, it wasn't really any better as a games machine than the Spectrum but it was a much more practical affair for programming and semi-serious applications.

forestville · Post by **forestville** » Sat May 05, 2007 5:02 am

my first 8bit computer was a zx81 we had one becouse they where cheap and cheerful at the time, my second was a zx spectrum+ we had one xmas, this one xmas morning me and my bro where opening pressies some of them being speccy games (we planned to get a speccy in the new year) we had finished opening are pressies and then are mum walked in with a load of boxes, a zx spectrum+ with tapedeck and kemston joystick

and my third a +2 i had xmas 1987 this was my best 8bit computer

SirClive · Post by **SirClive** » Sat May 05, 2007 5:11 am

I played Galaxians on my mates Commodore 16 and just had t have one.
Can't remember why I chose the Spectrum, probably what all mates at school had.

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