Took a course on programming the brand new ZX81 back in 1982. Bought one, fell in love with it. Just 15 years old at the time. Wrote lots of programs, stored on cassette using my Grundig cassette recorder. Hardly slept. Just kept learning. Retired early in 2020 after a fulfilling career in IT. Zx81 still is one of my favourite machines!
"Rob Manuel is a writer, curator of Fesshole, and co-founder of B3ta. He lives in London."
He also has a BlueSky account, where he posts lots of good links to new indie games: https://bsky.app/profile/robmanuel.b3ta.com
The color count is so low it seems like it would be hard to see in this day and age, doesn't it? Isn't this effectively the pixel art that's popular right now?
Brings back childhood memories...
Yes, my dad bought me a ZX81 when I was nine, and got bitten by the thrill of creation. At 18 I dropped out of college, my then lecturer told me I’d never get paid to play games. I bullied my way into the industry, and ended up in the US working for the two of the Mag7, many AAA titles, and a couple of game console platforms.
I’m only a few months away from retiring. I still remember Z80 mnemonics and machine code equivalents even today.