Best thing to do with a ZX81
And I thought the best thing to do was fill it with firecrackers and set it off for New Years! ;)
Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
http://www.sccaners.org
The funny thing is that is exactly what CBM employees did with them! Jack had a promotion that if you sent in ANY electronic device, you would get $100 off of the C64. At the time the ZX only sold for $49, so Commodore was actually responsible for increased sales of the ZX. Bil Herd actually used the Z80 cpu out of his for the prototype C128 because when he had the brainstorm to use the Z80, it was too early in the morning to go out and buy one. :D
Also the original TED concept (C116) was suppose to compete with the ZX.
Laugh all you want at the door stops, but they were the inspiration of many ideas at commodore, probably because they had to look at them all day long.
I hesitate to say any of the early home computers is unequivocally bad, because it was a new market, and everybody was still trying to figure it out, but...1KB of RAM? Really? That would've made sense in an SBC kit from 1978, but in a home computer from 1981? Gah.