Today's UK Google doodle is a tribute to the ZX Spectrum and to St. George's Day. I assume this isn't the case outside the UK, as both events are mainly of interest to the UK.
American histories of computing or video games often show the 80s as a void between the release of the Apple II in '77 and the Mac Classic ('90) or the US popularisation of the NES (I'm guessing not until the Super Mario Bros / Duck Hunt bundle in '88, at least - in Europe I didn't see one until 1990).
But in Europe, where nobody I knew could have afforded an Apple, the 80s were the decade of the home computer for many of us. The Apple II sold for £2400 in the UK, but the ZX Spectrum, Commodore C64 or Acorn Electron sold for less than a tenth of that price, and by 1985 most of my schoolfriends had one.
Budget games were sold (on cassette!) in corner shops. Games magazines included code listings. Libraries stocked Usborne's series of BASIC listings books for kids. And many of us got our first taste of coding at the BASIC prompt of an 80s home micro...
Today's UK Google doodle is a tribute to the ZX Spectrum and to St. George's Day. I assume this isn't the case outside the UK, as both events are mainly of interest to the UK.
American histories of computing or video games often show the 80s as a void between the release of the Apple II in '77 and the Mac Classic ('90) or the US popularisation of the NES (I'm guessing not until the Super Mario Bros / Duck Hunt bundle in '88, at least - in Europe I didn't see one until 1990).
But in Europe, where nobody I knew could have afforded an Apple, the 80s were the decade of the home computer for many of us. The Apple II sold for £2400 in the UK, but the ZX Spectrum, Commodore C64 or Acorn Electron sold for less than a tenth of that price, and by 1985 most of my schoolfriends had one.
Budget games were sold (on cassette!) in corner shops. Games magazines included code listings. Libraries stocked Usborne's series of BASIC listings books for kids. And many of us got our first taste of coding at the BASIC prompt of an 80s home micro...