CAMBRIDGE CATALYST Issue 06 Web

GAMING SPECIAL

Charlie is all about that. The main character Stefan had a TRS-80 and a Spectrum, and we had cables that went in there and it was all completely real, and fortunately – because people can be muppets and love to tear you apart – I don’t think anybody tore any of it apart!” While the work can get slightly tedious, the endless tinkering and research that goes into making something completely historically accurate that actually works is a process that Jason relishes. “The thing I tell people is that back in the 1970s, I didn’t have a computer – but I really wanted a computer. So as a kid, I cut a hole out of a cardboard box and I made a keyboard and made my own cardboard computers and pretended. I’m now nearly 50 and I’m still doing the same thing. I’m doing it with real machines, but it’s still pretend, so nothing’s really changed. And it’s brilliant!” A CAMBRIDGE STORY Cambridge is a fitting location for this incredible archive, given its deep links with the history of computing. When tea shop chain J Lyons & Co became the first business to implement electronic computing in 1951, it did so using a variant of the Cambridge University EDSAC machine – the Lyons Electronic Office (LEO) – to digitise its workplace,

thereby kick-starting a revolution in commercial computing. “It’s an amazing story,” smiles Jason. “Lyons went to the University of Cambridge and said, ‘This computer you’re building for research – we think we could use it for business’, and nobody else had thought about using a computer for business at that time! This tea shop effectively would develop a computer to run their business, and then later on it’s just the way it is for everyone. It’s a British story, it’s a Cambridge story, and we’re doing a lot of work to get that story out there.” Cambridge was also home to Sinclair Research, which in 1980 brought the ZX80 to market with a price tag of under £100, making it the first truly affordable personal computer. It quickly became the top-selling home computer in the UK, with the even more affordable ZX81 attracting yet more customers. Sinclair’s position in the canon of personal computing was cemented in 1982 with the release of the iconic ZX Spectrum, which would go on to sell more than five million units, earn company founder Clive Sinclair a knighthood and spark an interest in programming in a generation of young people. Affectionately known to its fans as the ‘Speccy’, the legend and legacy of this 8-bit personal computer lives

This whole thing’s about people, and I love it; it’s so creative – all these people coming up with ideas and all this cross-fertilisation"

on today. In fact, recent weeks have seen the release of the Kickstarter- funded Spectrum Next, a brand-new machine that’s fully compatible with the original, with added improvements and expansions. The centre was involved in helping to bring the Next into production, and houses the original prototype of the Sinclair Spectrum in its collection – one of Jason’s most prized exhibits. “I think it’s fair to say it was part of the kick-start of the entire British games industry,” he says. “A lot of people wrote the start of bedroom coding on the Spectrum, and we have the very birth of it: a circuit board, it’s pure electronics and software.” GAME ON These early pioneers in personal computing paved the way for Cambridge’s current crop of successful

IMAGES There is an online archive where you can explore the CCH’s extensive collection

ISSUE 06 30

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