IT REALLY
WORKS!try it ↓
WORKS!try it ↓
KItem 24-1158
Click the screen and type. On a phone, use the keyboard button.
Click the screen and type. On a phone, use the keyboard button.
In the early 1980s computers moved into the living room. The whole machine fitted inside a chunky keyboard and, instead of a monitor, it used the family television, plugged into the aerial socket. Switch on and a moment later it was ready for you to type.
What you typed was BASIC, built into the machine. A line that began with a number was stored as part of a program; a line without one ran straight away. Computer magazines printed long program listings for readers to type in, mistakes and all.
Programs came on ordinary audio cassettes, recorded as a screeching sound. Loading a game could take minutes, with stripes racing round the screen border, and a stretched tape meant starting again.
POKE wrote a number straight into a memory address. Some addresses controlled the hardware itself: on one of the most popular machines, 53280 was the border colour, and a generation of children learned it by heart.