Programming like it’s 1984

Over the Christmas holidays, I paid a visit to the archive of Bytes Magazine. Over 22 years of microcomputer development, starting in September 1975 with the headline: “Computers, the world’s greatest toy.” Some volumes were over 300 pages long, full of advertisements and ‘online’ shopping options using postal orders.

Older readers will remember hopping on board this new technology, invoking warm memories. Home computers like the Commodore 64 and th ZX 80/81/Spectrum and manufacturers such as Amstrad, Philips, Sony and Schneider marketing their own machines – even the BBC did so. They were mostly equipped with assembler (for the Z80 of the MOS 6510 processors) and of course Basic.