Hosted by the University of Plymouth
Hosted by the University of Plymouth
The Sinclair ZX81 was released by Sinclair Research as the follow-up to the successful ZX80. It shared its predecessors characteristics of a Z80 CPU, membrane keyboard, 1K RAM, black and white display and lack of sound. The ROM, however, was doubled to 8K and the machine ran faster. Like the Z... (read more)Sinclair, 1981
Munchman is a tabletop electronic game that was released under license in 1981 in the UK by Grandstand. It is a rebadged version of a Tomy game known as Pac Man in the US and Puck Man in Japan, and was one of many games released to capitalise on the Pac Man craze of the early 1980s. (read more)Grandstand, 1981
The TI-99/4 series was notable for being the first personal computers to offer 16-bit processors. The TI-99/4A has a TMS9900 CPU running at 3MHz, with 16K RAM and a further 16K of video RAM (supporting a graphics resolution of 256x192 on 16 colours). In addition, software could be purchased on ... (read more)Texas Instruments, 1981
An Introduction to BASIC - Part 1 for the VIC-20 Colour Computer by Andrew Colin. 152 pages. (read more)Commodore, 1981
ZX Printer Instructions by Sinclair Research. 16 pages. (read more)Sinclair, 1981
Welcome pack for BBC Microcomputer. This pack (still shrink-wrapped) contains an audio cassette with 16 programs to run on the BBC. (read more)Acorn, 1981
Booklet titled "Welcome to the BBC Computer Literacy Project" (read more)BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), 1981
Released by Osborne Computer Corporation, the OCC 1 (to give it's proper model number) was the first commercially successful portable computer. Powered by a 4Mhz Z80 processor, alongside 64K of RAM and two 5 1/4" drives, the system ran the popular CP/M operating system. One of its notable selli... (read more)Osborne Computer Corporation, 1981
Perhaps notable for being the only Pac-Man game that was less like the arcade original than Munchman was! Mini-Munchman was a pocket-sized game with a monochromatic LCD display, which also doubled as a clock and alarm (clearly aping the defining characteristic of Nintendo's popular Game & Watch... (read more)CGL, 1981
Produced by Entex, this was arguably the very best of the handheld Pac-Man games of the era. Not only was the playfield (maze) closest to the arcade version, it was also sufficiently fast to feel genuinely playable (unlike the more popular Munchman game of the same era, which was somewhat . . . ... (read more)Entex, 1981
Galaxy Invader is a classic style shoot-em-up, clearly inspired by arcade hit Space Invaders. The invaders in this case are presented at random positions across a 3-column green LED display, and are worth different points depending upon how far up the screen they are shot. As in the original sp... (read more)CGL, 1981