The Sinclair ZX81 was small, black with only 1K of memory but 30 years ago it helped to spark a generation of programming wizards.

Packing a heady 1KB of RAM, you would have needed more than 50,000 of them to run Word or iTunes, but the ZX81 changed everything.

It didn't do colour, it didn't do sound, it didn't sync with your trendy Swap Shop style telephone, it didn't even have an off switch. But it brought computers into the home, over a million of them, and created a generation of software developers.

The ZX81 came out when I was at school and I knew a couple of kids with them, but the 1K of memory and black and white graphics meant it was fairly limited. The ZX Spectrum came out a year later and had colour and sound too. It became a top seller, mainly because it was affordable (less than half the price of the BBC, the computer used in schools) and also because of the large amount of software released for it.

My Dad bought our family a 48k Spectrum and I remember nobody else was particularly interested in it, but I really was. It sparked my imagination and I would spend hours playing games and then after a while I got into programming. I started by typing in programs from magazines. Then I wrote my own stuff in Sinclair BASIC and progressed onto other languages like assembly and even a bit of game design in Forth. It was simple stuff, but enjoyable and I can trace my interest in computers back to those days. I was hooked and decided I wanted a job where I could be working with computers all day.

Based on my personal experience, I reckon it was the Spectrum that really introduced a generation of British kids to computers. Funny to think it's nearly 30 years ago - and look how far things have come in our lifetimes.