serith: ZX81
serith is a ZX81. Enough said.
I'm ashamed to say I haven't even powered it up yet. I have
an AC adaptor for the ZX Spectrum, but the connectors are different
(it's the connector conspiracy!).
Acquisition
- Date: August 1997
- Cost: Nothing
Images
Interior View
Top left is the RF modulator. Next to it is the custom ULA. The 2364 ROM
is at the bottom, the Z80 is in the middle and the two smaller ICs to
the right are RAM. Below the modulator are sockets for connecting a
cassette recorder and also the power socket (9V unregulated DC). There is
a 7805 regulator at the bottom left corner.
It's obvious that Sinclair pared away as much hardware
as possible to keep the cost down.
Exterior View
The outside of the ZX81. Prominent in the shot is the utterly dire 40-key
keyboard, which used a touch-sensitive membrane thingy and provided no
tactile feedback whatsoever. It also had a space key rather than space bar,
and the 'function' key used to obtain most of the punctuation was itself
a two-key combination: SHIFT-NEWLINE...
This page written by Peter Maydell
(pmaydell@chiark.greenend.org.uk).