why sell a computer with only 1k of ram?

[beanz]

When I got my ZX81 I was at the time in High School and had taken Computer studies as one of my 4th/5th year options.

We were writing short 5-15 line basic programs etc for homework so the 1k was plenty enough for me to do that on..yes I actually did use it for homework.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Wikipedia is wrong:

What a erm, surprise!

[MrPixel]

1K can be enough for marvellous things like the Artic's 1K ZX Chess. I've always been impressed by this game. According to the link, " It was the smallest implementation of chess on any computer until its record was broken in January 2015 by the PC-compatible BootChess"

so you're telling me, that 1k can support the whole basic program, the checksum and any other needs for said program, all on 1k ram? gotta love british engineering. that;s why i respect europe in some ways, innovation. the PAL games are actually somewhat impressive. less so for the nes and later (of which, we apologize, the developers were unnaturally stupid in this regard)

[Bizzley]

that;s why i respect europe in some ways, innovation. the PAL games are actually somewhat impressive. less so for the nes and later (of which, we apologize, the developers were unnaturally stupid in this regard)

Just to clarify something, were the "unnaturally stupid" developers you refer to those who wrote the games or those who built the console hardware the games had to run on? You write from what seems a personal perspective - "we apologize" - which part of the development procedure were you involved in, software or hardware?

[AndyC]

Well the NES had to store actual graphics data and such, where's the ZX81 was just using the built in character set. Storing all that additional content is as likely (if not more so) to bloat the overall storage requirements than pure code. The fact that most ZX81 was also written in tokenized BASIC rather than raw assembly probably helped too.

[MrPixel]

that;s why i respect europe in some ways, innovation. the PAL games are actually somewhat impressive. less so for the nes and later (of which, we apologize, the developers were unnaturally stupid in this regard)

Just to clarify something, were the "unnaturally stupid" developers you refer to those who wrote the games or those who built the console hardware the games had to run on? You write from what seems a personal perspective - "we apologize" - which part of the development procedure were you involved in, software or hardware?

i'm not. i'm saying it from a U.S gamers perspective. you guys got the shitty ports and hack jobs (not that we didn't). that's why i apologized. i should've clarified that. and i played some PAL games through emulation. i understand the differences between Europe and the U.S.A but were they really that slow over on your side of the pond, or is it just my imagination?

Sonic 1 for example. though i did test both versions of super mario in nestopia and the PAL version is slower. is this the case in europe?

[Sokurah]

How old are you, [mention]MrPixel[/mention]?

It seems to me like you "weren't there" at the dawn of micro computers. 1K RAM were just the norm back then.

[MrPixel]

of course i wasn't there. i was born in '93. my first PC was a windows 95 computer that my grandmother (rest her soul) had when i was younger. from there, i got to see the 98, vista, 7 and now 10. so yes, i was not there at the dawn of micro computers. what a silly response

[Kweepa]

Why did Ford sell the Model T with only 20 horsepower?

[Nomad]

https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazin ... 7/mode/1up

This magazine is from the period, take a look at how much a micro computer would cost, in the USA. In the UK despite the exchange rate due to shady business practices and shipping the cost would have in all likely hood just had the currency symbol changed.

Even the cheapest machines here would have cost the same as a second hand car, the more capable machines would have cost the same as a new car or more...

Even the S-100 bus cards - just the cards cost more - far more than a zx-81 would.

To have a machine enter the market that cost less than an expansion card for a typical micro-computer was mind blowing. Why he did it - to get market share, get PR, destroy the margin of competitors who were also entering the market.

[Sokurah]

of course i wasn't there. i was born in '93. so yes, i was not there at the dawn of micro computers. what a silly response

No, my response wasn't silly. And how on Earth could I know when you were born before I asked?
As you didn't understand "why the zx81 is so slow" or "why sell computers with only 1K RAM" I just wanted to know if the reason was that you just didn't grow up with technology having those limitations, but being born in '93 explains precisely why you ask those questions. Which is okay. I just wanted to know where the questions came from.

[ZXDunny]

PSST! Nobody tell him how much RAM the Atari VCS (2600) had!

[MrPixel]

of course i wasn't there. i was born in '93. so yes, i was not there at the dawn of micro computers. what a silly response

No, my response wasn't silly. And how on Earth could I know when you were born before I asked?
As you didn't understand "why the zx81 is so slow" or "why sell computers with only 1K RAM" I just wanted to know if the reason was that you just didn't grow up with technology having those limitations, but being born in '93 explains precisely why you ask those questions. Which is okay. I just wanted to know where the questions came from.

it's my fault for overreacting. sorry. and yes, the vcs had about 4k, expandable to 8 with bank switching

[ZXDunny]

it's my fault for overreacting. sorry. and yes, the vcs had about 4k, expandable to 8 with bank switching

That's not the original 2600. That had 128 bytes of RAM.

[Nomad]

Senor Pixel, you are thinking of the ROM cartridge.

2,4,8,16k

Look at the Combat cartridge.

http://www.atariage.com/2600/archives/c ... index.html

As Dunny says the 2600 had a tiny amount of RAM.

There is an excellent book about the 2600...

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/racing-beam

I think you will enjoy it if you don't already own a copy.

[MrPixel]

i appreciate it..but i am dead tired. me and my mother just came from jackson and i bought a linux PC for 27 dollars. so, excuse my disinterest for now...please

[5MinuteRetro]

the TS1000 had only 1k of ram, up to 16k maximum and i can't figure out why they would sell such a misleading product for 100 dollars. "Now the power is within your reach" went the advertisements. but that "Power" was only available with the expansion. you would've had a better chance with the zx81(despite it's slow refresh speed, i prefer it, if only for simplicity's sake)

what were they thinking?

I've been on holiday so a bit late to this but the answer, in a word, is... marketing. Yes, Sir Clive's crew could've made the ZX81 with 16K of RAM built in but then it'd have to have retailed at £/$149.95 (or whatever). But, at that time, getting a home-computing product down below £/$100 was a crucial psychological barrier. Something had to give. Well, lots of things gave -- and the RAM quotient was but one. Basically, *everything* about the ZX81 was about hitting that price point. If Sir Clive couldn't hit that price point, the ZX81 wouldn't have happened.

[MrPixel]

that explains it