Floppy Days 85 - Interview with John Grant, developer of ZX80 OS-BASIC
07/08/18 • 77 min
Interview with John Grant - Developer of the OS & BASIC for the Sinclair ZX80
In the last show Earl Evans and I covered part I of the Sinclair ZX80/81 line of home computers; its history and tech specs. Before delving into part II, we’re going to have a topic-relevant interview this month. I was able to, with the help of Kevin Palser, track down and interview Mr. John Grant, a man whose name we mentioned several times last month when going through the Sinclair ZX80 history. You see, John is literally the gentleman who wrote the operating system and BASIC for the ZX80. He still owns Nine Tiles today and still has the rights to that OS. I think you’ll enjoy this discussion with a true vintage computer pioneer.
- Nine Tiles - http://www.ninetiles.com/
- John Grant at LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/johngrantninetiles/
- John’s current work - https://uk5g.org/discover/read-articles/packet-routing-for-the-other-two-corners/
Interview with John Grant - Developer of the OS & BASIC for the Sinclair ZX80
In the last show Earl Evans and I covered part I of the Sinclair ZX80/81 line of home computers; its history and tech specs. Before delving into part II, we’re going to have a topic-relevant interview this month. I was able to, with the help of Kevin Palser, track down and interview Mr. John Grant, a man whose name we mentioned several times last month when going through the Sinclair ZX80 history. You see, John is literally the gentleman who wrote the operating system and BASIC for the ZX80. He still owns Nine Tiles today and still has the rights to that OS. I think you’ll enjoy this discussion with a true vintage computer pioneer.
- Nine Tiles - http://www.ninetiles.com/
- John Grant at LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/johngrantninetiles/
- John’s current work - https://uk5g.org/discover/read-articles/packet-routing-for-the-other-two-corners/
Previous Episode
Floppy Days 84 - The Sinclair ZX80 with Earl Evans
The Sinclair ZX-80
Hello and welcome to the Floppy Days Podcast for May, 2018, where we remind everyone of the days when everyone knew how to program a computer, not just use it for social media. My name is Randy Kindig and I host this podcast.
We are coming near the end of the computers to be covered on this podcast that were introduced at the beginning of the 8-bit era, when things really started to take off, that being the year 1980. This month, we will be talking about a limited, inexpensive, but definitely historically significant line of computers known as the Sinclair Z80, ZX81, and Timex Sinclair 1000 and 1500.
I was very happy to get an old friend, and vintage computer podcasting legend, Earl Evans to help me host this episode. Earl does a great job of researching and discussing vintage computers and his help was great. In addition, I was able to get some members of the Sinclair ZX80/81 community to provide memories and to help provide information, as well as assisting with going through the topic of emulation. As a result, there turned out to be so much information to present that it turned into 2 episodes. So, this month we will cover the history of the ZX80 computer line and tech specs and next month we will cover the remaining topics such as peripherals, software, emulation, magazine & newsletters, Web sites and more. I’m also working on a special interview with someone key to the development of the ZX80 that I’m hoping will come to fruition.
Links Mentioned in the Show:
New Acquisitions and What I’ve Been Up To
- VCF Southeast 6 - http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/otherevents/vintage-computer-festival-southeast/
- Streaming video and audio on an Atari 8-bit (from Nir Dary) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ9RllBv1pg
- Michael Tomczyk interview on Floppy Days - http://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-70-michael-tomczyk-vic-20
- Sofia RGB board for Atari 8-bit - http://atariage.com/forums/topic/258702-new-development-gtia-in-cpld/page-1
- F18A (TI-99) - http://codehackcreate.com/store#!/F18A-V1-8-Video-Board/p/14022176/category=0
Upcoming Shows
- Pacific Commodore Expo NW - http://www.portcommodore.com/pacommex - June 9-10, Living Computers: Museum + Labs, Seattle, Washington
- KansasFest - https://www.kansasfest.org/ , July 17-22, 2018, Kansas City, Missouri
- VCF West - https://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-west/ , August 4-5, 2018 - Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA
- Commodore Vegas Expo v14 - http://www.commodore.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=12676 , Aug. 11-12, 2018, Las Vegas, NV
- VCF Midwest - http://www.vcfmw.org/ - September 15-16, 2018, Elk Grove Village, IL
- Portland Retro Gaming Expo - http://www.retrogamingexpo.com/ - Oregon Convention Center on October 19-21, 2018
- Tandy Assembly - http://www.tandyassembly.com , Nov. 10-11, Springfield, OH
- TI International World’s Faire - http://ctiug.sdf.org/ - Nov. 10, Evanston Public Library, Evanston, IL
- World of Commodore - https://www.tpug.ca/category/woc/ - December, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Feedback
- Memotech MTX sites from Claus Baekkel
Interview with Earl Evans
- Pi1541 - https://cbm-pi1541.firebaseapp.com/
History
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