First computer, first love

Consider if you will the striking similarity between a ZX Spectrum and the black monolith from 2001: a Space Odyssey.

Placing aside the physical similarity (scale permitting) both represented the challenge of the unknown. Like the early monkey-men of the film, Spectrum users started off hitting the computers in frustration but the little computer also inspired the search for knowledge.

Because the main difference between them is that you couldn't unscrew the back of a black monolith and take a soldering iron to its silicon innards.

Earlier this week, silicon.com published a Big Question which asked if you remembered your first computer. Punch cards, soldering kits, valves, flashing lights, and jumpers for goalposts... those were the days.

We've since been inundated with hundreds of comments from dewy-eyed readers.

What comes across is a genuine affection readers have for their early computers despite occasional grievances linked to frequent crashes and having to get the volume on the tape recorder just right to load programs.

Something else that's clear is that the purchase of a large number of early computers was prompted by the allure of one of the greatest killer apps of all time - games - and inspired many to learn more about the machines that ran them.

Who can forget the feeling of bullish confidence that told you that of course you can take the computer apart and put it back together again. The feeling you had when you started to type out the first line of code of a 124-line BASIC program and the inevitable failure of the damn thing to run and then having to fix it yourself.

Object oriented code libraries? Pah!

These days most would-be gamers turn to consoles rather than computers for their kicks and there just isn't the open invitation to get under the bonnet of game machines and start to tinker.

Take Microsoft's Xbox: it's shaped, unsurprisingly, like a big X - meaning access barred, go away, nothing to see here.

Our first computers have clearly been formative in the shaping both our imaginations and vocational aspirations.

Many of you have clearly seen those aspirations through to fruition often because of early games like Pong, Chuckie Egg, Frogger, Citadel, Jet Set Willy, Head over heels and Manic Miner played on computers like the BBC B, 8086 Hyperions, Dragon 32s and Commodore 64s.

How many kids are likely to be prompted to start a career in IT because of their PlayStations? And how many will get such a holistic grasp of computing as those who found themselves elbow-deep in transistors and soldering kits before learning to program?

Your comments pay tribute to the limited, frequently clunky machines that got us started on that giddying voyage of discovery. The machines that inspired the men and women who help shape the IT industry.

So charge your glasses and join us in a toast: "Here's to the old school, may its alumni live on!"