Z88 is 30 Today!

[QLvsJAGUAR]

According to my records and reports in the UK computer press from spring 1987, the Cambridge Z88 was unveiled by Sir Clive Sinclair at the "Which Computer? Show" in Birmingham, England, on February 17, 1987.

As a kind of an anniversary thing I made this short video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1cOeffPpoY

Enjoy!

[Outsoft]

Wow!!!!

[tofro]

Thanks for reminding, Urs!

(Had to give mine a small hug today )

Tobias

[vanpeebles]

Hehe, excellent little machine I think.

[Cristian]

Cool
My brother has one

[David Batty]

I was a beta tester for the Z88 after Cambridge Computer contacted me and asked me to be one. I had to go to Cambridge to pick one up and sign a non disclosure agreement.

I was using the Z88 while the magazines were showing photos of a wooden mockup of one, this also allowed me to quickly get my QL to Z88 software running, design a cable to connect to the QL, and find a bug in the Z88 communication code that needed fixing before the Z88 was released to the public.

I was then invited to Clive Sinclairs house at Madingley Road, Cambridge (not his address now) for a developers meeting.

I always liked the Z88 and now have three of them (one I bought last year, boxed, new, unused).

I hadn't thought about it being 30 years ago!

[vanpeebles]

I was a beta tester for the Z88 after Cambridge Computer contacted me and asked me to be one. I had to go to Cambridge to pick one up and sign a non disclosure agreement.

I was using the Z88 while the magazines were showing photos of a wooden mockup of one, this also allowed me to quickly get my QL to Z88 software running, design a cable to connect to the QL, and find a bug in the Z88 communication code that needed fixing before the Z88 was released to the public.

I was then invited to Clive Sinclairs house at Madingley Road, Cambridge (not his address now) for a developers meeting.

I always liked the Z88 and now have three of them (one I bought last year, boxed, new, unused).

I hadn't thought about it being 30 years ago!

Wow, tell us more!! What was the meeting like at Sir Clive's?

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

I have 2 x Z88s, one works and the other needs a needs keyboard. The keyboard issue, is the underside of the keyboard have urved up and causes contact.

I used to fit 512Kb ram chips and updated ROM, maybe a little job for the future.

[David Batty]

Wow, tell us more!! What was the meeting like at Sir Clive's?

There was a black porche parked outside, the house itself looked like a castle with battlements.

There was a big sculpture in the hallway as you went in, that used to be in Sinclair Research. Go through the hallway and you ended up in a long room with that had one custom made stone table in it that seated about 20 people, the table only had one leg!

The end of the room was surrounded by glass cases full of his inventions, that was very interesting to see all the stuff from early radios, tv's etc. onwards.

The ceiling was painted deep blue with murals on it, it was painted like the ceiling of a church (highly decorated with signs of the zodiac etc on it (I believe it was his wife who wanted it like that).

Th other side of the house had a room with a grand piano in it and he had a floor to ceiling, wall to wall lp collection. I was amazed to see that his speakers for his hifi were about four feet tall but only about two inches thick! That was unheard of back in the 80's.

He had a long back garden where we had our meal in the sunshine.

His house was featured on Through The Keyhole once, I recognised it as soon as they walked through the door and saw the sculpture. They didn't show several places on that program but if it might be interesting to see if it comes up on YouTube or somewhere.

I was given a blueprint of the Z88 along with other developer documentation to take away.

[vanpeebles]

Amazing!