philmophlegm | Sinclair User

I've been reminiscing over at www.sincuser.f9.co.uk. This is an archive of every copy of Sinclair User magazine, which covered the ZX80, ZX81 and Spectrum and ran from 1982 to 1993. I remember being given issue 2 by a friend for my 10th birthday. My grandparents had bought me a ZX81 with 1k of RAM in February 1982, and I had the 16k RAM pack for my birthday in May.

This was a time when 'computing' was a hobby in itself. Software (certainly in this country) was astonishingly amateur, as was the magazine. I'd like to pick out issue 19's cover picture as a fine example of this and one that will be of particular interest to Pellinor and LadyofAstolat. Computer magazines don't look like that anymore...

The really, really amateurish aspect of this cover is that despite the headline reading "Dancing with the Spectrum", he is clearly holding a ZX81. I mean...

Unfortunately, the article is not reproduced on the website. This was a regular feature - a 'user of the month' who would get on the cover of the magazine because of the way he used his Sinclair computer in his job or hobby. Issue 13's old person, issue 14's CB radio user (with really bad perm) and issue 22's methodist minister are particularly good.

The keener Spectrum gamers among you may recognise the icon as 'Lords of Midnight', reviewed in issue 30: http://www.sincuser.f9.co.uk/030/ssftwre.htm .