To a time before flat screens
When channel hopping meant turning the dial
When every house had an ariel
And just one thing to connect into it
There was only UHF and terrestrial telly
Suddenly all that was about to change
The battle for the TV was about to begin
And all because of this
That connected into this
Which meant we didn't have to watch
dreary old scheduled progs any-more
We had the power.. Whether it be ZX81
or the Sinclair Spectrum.. So here is what
we did to make the magic happen
First you needed to plug in your computer
This was the power supply for the ZX81
And this for the Spectrum. They do differ.
Locate the suitable power inlet
And give your Speccy the power
Or fire up your ZX81.. Depends when you
joined the revolution. Maybe you had both
Next we needed to be able to play those
new games we got from WH Smiths
So we needed to get a tape cassette player
Something with an ear and mic socket
So we could play cassettes across and into
the computer and enjoy our games
All these new gadgets needed a tape machine
And once connected you really didn't want
the magic to stop
Some even bought a special player
Cus cassette players could be a little flaky
This was the real deal when it came to
the old data transfer. State of the art
With monitor, tape counter and input/output controls
Ready to rock and roll
Time to kick dad from in front of the TV
And load up some serious TLL
Like we needed instructions
In goes the tape
Locate the ' LOAD ' button
Type in the necessary
And wait five minutes while you drive mom
and dad insane with the high pitched screech
Well unless you could switch the noise off
And you were in and dad was down the pub
probably playing pong
The ZX81 was a touch more reserved
Not very impressive when you switched on
But you soon got the hang of it
I mean who hasn't done that... So funny
There you have it. The birth of the death
of the single TV used just for terrestrial TV.
