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Think back if you will to those early days of the first computers available to us the general public, we’re not talking about those Main Frame monstrosities of the sixties & seventies that took up so much room & generated so much heat that the paper would have a brown tinge as it emergered from the 110db dot matrix printer.

No we are talking about the real personal computers that started with Mr. Sinclairs Z80 & Z81 computers (strangely enough produced in 1980 & 1981) that had, if I remember correctly a whole 1K of memory. Oh how we looked in amazement when after spending hours trying again & again to get the information out of the cassette tape recorder, (on later models known as the data recorder). There for us to behold in genuine black & white would be some-ones basic program, they had spent hours, learning how to program and now here where the words:-

“HELLO WORLD”!

There was nothing else, no music, no movement just those two words, “HELLO WORLD”, did we the friends of this ground breaking genius take one fleeting glimpse & say “what a waste of time, why did you bother?” No, we all in one voice said “where can I get one?” At this point the proud owner would announce “I built it myself from a kit!” With this revelation forthcoming the more timid amongst us would express their doubts as to whether they had the technical know how to achieve such a monumental task. Now that he had the whole rooms attention the computer owner/expert would then let it be known that if you aren’t as ‘hands on’ as he is, then you can pay extra and buy one ready built.

The rest of that evening was spent with the assistance of several alcoholic beverages discussing the potential of such a ground breaking machine which, obviously would mean no more mundane tasks having to be performed by mankind ever again.

Within weeks many of that group would have their own ‘COMPUTER’ and had reached the level of competence to print the now familiar words “HELLO WORLD”, it was even rumoured that some where so advanced that they had displayed the phrase as;-



“HELLO WORLD”!!!





The main problem people were having was the same then as it is now, i.e. if you want extras then you have to pay extra, so most of us couldn’t afford the highly expensive computer & the Cassette recorder (sorry data recorder) as well, due to this whenever you did some programming you would have to copy it down using pen & paper & then enter it again by hand the next time you wanted to show how clever you were!

Despite all this with a few side tracks into such things as the Atari & Amiga, (Bless them both how I miss the hours of fun I had on each with their own quirky ways), we now have the all singing all dancing, P.C. that we are now so familiar with, just think, that piece of equipment on your desk is more powerful, contains a colossal amount more memory and is a zillion times faster than the one used to put man on the moon, and what do we use it for now? PLAYING CARDS!