Thomas SturmHappy 45th Birthday to the Sinclair ZX81!
Release Date: March 5, 1981
Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE@tsturm That was before I got involved in the #Cambridge micro industry. I did a lot of work on the ZX83 (the Spectrum was the ZX82 and the QL was the ZX83, at least as far as the numbers printed on the custom chips were concerned).
@TimWardCam Oh wow - that's awesome! I had a QL and used it quite a lot for some time after it came out. What kind of work did you do on that machine?
@tsturm I worked for GST. The main thing we did for Sinclair was 68K/OS, which they never used - but I got three trips round the world and a new kitchen out of it. We also did some software products to go with the QL as released, which sold in small numbers but allowed me to claim that I've authored a book that you could buy in shops - the user manual for the assembler. I also spotted a bug in one of the QL chips during development and got them to fix it.
I ran a project to rework the QL hardware to make a financial information terminal for Australian Associated Press, which is where the trips round the world came from, allowing me to visit Ayers Rock, Singapore, Hawaii and India on the way there and back.
I pressed some of the buttons during the press launch of the QL. But we'd had an awful lot to drink the night before, followed by Bucks Fizz on arrival at the press launch, resulting in me missing a cue so Clive had to repeat it.
That's my handwriting on at least some of the labels on the picture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/68K/OS
You can't have that much fun as a programmer these days.
@TimWardCam You are pretty much credited with writing 68K/OS - that's awesome! And I'm honored to meet you.
I actually at one point was using the GST Assembler on my QL... but it was kinda late in my intensive use of the machine just before I moved on to an Atari ST.
Yes, programmers back then could still build full a full OS from scratch, which is not possible on modern hardware nowadays. I had a chance to help build a multitasking OS on 68030 CPUs around 1990, which was a great experience.
@tsturm I did much of the design, but there were half a dozen of us writing the code. The challenging bit was to find something for the boss to write that was interesting and important but not critical path, as he kept having to stop writing code to go off and do boss things.
@TimWardCam In my case it was a team of about 6 core developers.
I was helping to set up a computer lab at a company of a friend of my parents as a weekend job and I was like - "Hey these Mega STs are cool, I'm writing some games in assembler on my ST!"
The programmers stopped what they were doing and all looked at each other, then looked at me. "Do you want to work here for the summer?"
That's how I ended up spending an intense summer writing I/O chip drivers in 68K assembly. 😁
@tsturm Oh yes, the ST as well, that was fun too.
@TimWardCam Oh wow. I had forgotten that this was also a GST product. 😲
@TimWardCam Is there a written history of GST and its impact on that era of computer history?
@tsturm Not that I'm aware of. We were just a bunch of kids having fund and being paid for it.
@TimWardCam That's the best way to do it.