How 1980S Britain Learned to Love the Computer
Lean, Tom. "Computers for the Man in the Street." Electronic Dreams: How 1980s Britain Learned to Love the Computer. London: Bloomsbury Sigma, 2016. 61–88. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 30 Sep. 2021. <http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781472936653.0006>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 30 September 2021, 11:40 UTC. Copyright © Tom Lean 2016. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. CHAPTER THREE Computers for the Man in the Street arly in 1980, adverts began appearing in British newspapers Efor something rather unusual. Sandwiched between pages of economic and social troubles, Thatcherite politics and Cold War paranoia was an advert for a small white box. It looked a little like an overgrown calculator, but declared itself to be the Sinclair ZX80 Personal Computer, and could be bought, ready made, for just £ 99.95. Despite the implausibly low price, the ZX80 was not only a ‘ real computer ’ , but one that cut through computer ‘ mystique ’ to teach programming, and was so easy to use that ‘ inside a day you ’ ll be talking to it like an old friend’ , or so the advert said. It was an impressively crafted piece of marketing, creating an impression of aff ordability and accessibility, ideas hitherto rarely associated with computers. The little white box, and the bold claims that sold it, marked the beginning of a redefi nition of computers as aff ordable and everyday appliances for the masses. At the time microcomputers were broadly split between two basic types.
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