Time was when we actually needed the books
There was no other way of feeding the computer
No such thing as downloading.. Everything
had to be typed in by hand
And yes there was still that edge to
some publications but inside was just
hardcore words
Hundreds of lines of the things
People looked at me gone out when I was
reading pages of this on the bus
That's why they put girls on the front, to
disguise our nerdy little secrets
I mean it took all night to load this in
And you really needed the books. No internet
remember .. so play you had to learn
Endless codes and scripts and instructions
Maths suddenly became very very fashionable
And you really needed to know what
all the keys actually did. And those
keys had so many different uses
And the books were even ring bound or
hard bound depending on your preference
All well thumbed and covered in scribbles
Very good years
Suddenly words like LET and LOAD and IF
took on whole new significance. You really
needed to know the difference in what this
BASIC language all meant. Because in truth
it gave you real power
The power came from the code. And that meant
knowing how to break the rules. Sinclair new
that and that is why the Spectrum was different
to the other computers. It allowed you to break
the rules. Worked as intended.
I mean kids in their bedrooms were PEEKING
and POKING and moms and dads hadn't got a
clue what they were up to
And then there were the peripherals. I mean
the joystick was in its infancy. There was
no gamepads of wifi controllers. We are at
the very dawn here. And it was so exciting
The tools may have been basic but they
were capable of doing so much
The kit was growing and so too was
the user base who demanded it
And so the demand for the written word
and the guides to make the fun happen
became a significant factor and so shops
stores set aside great areas for the new
technology. This was a new era and everyone
sensed things were changing
Informative and fun and leading toward
so many possibilities.
And the books were endless
So many claiming to educate in the art
of BASIC which almost became a universal
langauge amongst the kids .
Word !!
And so the revolution had truly begun
and for those at the birth it really
did feel that way. There was no doubt
that something big had happened and things
would never be the same again.
