The ZX Microdrive

[The_Unbeliever]

Feature They would, Clive Sinclair claimed on 23 April 1982, revolutionise home computer storage. Significantly cheaper than the established 5.25-inch and emerging 3.5-inch floppy drives of the time - though not as capacious or as fast to serve up files - ‘Uncle’ Clive’s new toy would “change the face of personal computing”, Sinclair Research’s advertising puffed.

Yet this “remarkable breakthrough at a remarkable price” would take more than 18 months more to come to market. In the meantime, it would become a byword for delays and disappointment - and this in an era when almost every promised product arrived late.

Sinclair’s revolutionary product was the ZX Microdrive. This is its story.

Article can be found here.

 

[sajunky]

I don't think it was revolutionary. It was a tape drive anyway and random access very slow. Suitable for program loading, not much more. In short time Amstrad came with 3" floppy drive integrated in keyboard and CP/M operating system at good price. It was a real random access device, I used it for writing software. And hard drives were just on the corner.

 

[Billy]

I never bought a microdrive, by the time that they were released the writing was on the wall for them, but many happy hours with my Spectrum.
Still on a shelf in the garage, but with a Spectrum+ keyboard.

My first son was introduced to computers with the Spectrum when he was 8. It lead to a career in IT. The other offspring learnt to read using the Spectrum.

Pirating of programs was easy. Just plug in a "Multiface 1" press a button and bypass the security.

Before it was pensioned of by a 8080 clone, it had acquired a modem (well actually an Acoustic Coupler @ 1220Baud) and dot matrix printer. Electronic banking the 1985 way using Beltel.

People, never complain about your speeds until you have experienced on-line computing using a 1980's computer
.

 

[oldhat]

Never used one personally(I was more a Commodore man) - but one of my mates had one around 1985 & it seemed to cause him a lot of headaches - almost always gave errors when reading data...

 

[Dion Disco]

Ahh, the days of tape drive computers ;-)

Had the ZX81, Vic 20 and Sharp MZ80B - all with cassette tape storage

Remember the 16K memory upgrade external module cost more than the ZX81 with 1K Ram

The twin floppy drives for the Sharp - 180K each - was the size of 2 car batteries stacked and cost R2,000 in 1982
The OS was CPM

Those were magic days, felt part of a select group pioneering the wonders of computers at home

Typing this on a Nexus 7

 

[ponder]

Those things were crap.

 

[Hamish McPanji]

Did anyone have those cool tiny ZX printers. The paper output was the size of a till slip. And used some sort of thermal transfer to print. You could see the sparks as it printed. Had a big effect on me when i saw it in standard 3 at shool. So much so that i ended up going into IT.

Had a VIC 20 , Acorn Electron (BBC micro's small brother) and Commodore 64. The C64 had a floppy drive....and how cool was that. I showed off enough to all those tape drive people!!!. Until my friend got an Amiga with a hard drive....the ba*?#%d!!!

 

[howardb]

Did anyone have those cool tiny ZX printers. The paper output was the size of a till slip. And used some sort of thermal transfer to print. You could see the sparks as it printed. Had a big effect on me when i saw it in standard 3 at shool.

Still have mine in the garage boxed up with the original thermal paper - got it in the UK in 1985 at a cost of GBP49 (spent all my holiday dosh on it) - the speccie is alos boxed up of course together with the original tape drive, joystick and microdrive... and a few cassettes of games

 

[ponder]

Did anyone have those cool tiny ZX printers. The paper output was the size of a till slip. And used some sort of thermal transfer to print. You could see the sparks as it printed. Had a big effect on me when i saw it in standard 3 at shool. So much so that i ended up going into IT.

Yeah I had one. Was given a spectrum & one of those printers for free. As far as computing in the 80's to early 90's go Commodore was what you wanted. C64 was great and I was over the moon with my two Amigas, 500 & later 1200.

 

[sajunky]

I hated C64 when I was teaching in private school. It was another gaming oriented implementation like Atari and ZX Spectrum. The last one gave me lot of fun. But teaching Basic on Commodore? it was mistake, I had no choice. ZX Spectrum had more consistent implementation of Basic and very simple token-based entering system.
Coming back to the subject, Clive Sinclair was a genius and made revolution in home computing, but Microdrive was a mistake. His next attempt was complete flop. He didn't learn on mistakes.

 

[Arthur]

Hehe. I remember the PEEKs and POKEs of them that days.

Sajunky: Sir Uncle Clive's next attempt that flopped ... referring to the QL? That actually had an integrated Microdrive standard. I remember ICL even brought out a version in a 'console' form factor.

 

[sajunky]

I remember, QL was a good and powerful machine (what I have heard from people), like Amiga. It is Microdrive which killed it. If there were integrated 3" floppy drive like in Amstrad, it would be probaly a success. Not sure, as people demanded a real keyboard (not a rubber thingy).

 

[kayvee]

A lot of old ballies in this thread

I was a BBC Micro man myself. Okay so I include myself in the above description.

A lot of the Sinclair stuff was a bit strange. My old man brought me one of the Sinclair Black Watches from the UK. It had some serious cool factor.... at least for the short time it worked

 

[Willie Trombone]

Still have mine in the garage boxed up with the original thermal paper - got it in the UK in 1985 at a cost of GBP49 (spent all my holiday dosh on it) - the speccie is alos boxed up of course together with the original tape drive, joystick and microdrive... and a few cassettes of games

Resurrecting this thread on the off-chance you still have a few Microdrive cassettes lying around

 

[Billy]

Try https://www.facebook.com/search/topq=vintage computing and console group of south africa

 

[gregmcc]

Get yourself a tzxduino

 

[Willie Trombone]

Get yourself a tzxduino

I can also load from my phone but I want to see if I can get the Microdrive working and need a casette or two to test.

 

[howardb]

Resurrecting this thread on the off-chance you still have a few Microdrive cassettes lying around

Unfortunately not, gave them away in the PIF thread a while back.

 

[Mortymoose]

Vic 20 was my machine, armed with one of those game programming books I learnt BASIC.....stupid power dips causing me to lose my hard typed efforts....

 

[Willie Trombone]

Vic 20 was my machine, armed with one of those game programming books I learnt BASIC.....stupid power dips causing me to lose my hard typed efforts....

Power dips... ooi.
I religiously backed up while I coded... unfortunately I learned the hard way not to back up over the same spot on the tape... had a power failure half-way through the backup one day. $#!$$!!!