By Vic Gerhardi, Rakewell Ltd
Little did I know that when I walked into the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham at the end of the 1980.s, that it would be a life changing moment for me. I was on the lookout for this new product, the Cambridge Z88.
It is difficult now to explain to people in the 21st century used to using graphical devices, what that was like to see this A4 size black block rubber keyed lump of computer. Only ten years earlier, to edit text with a computer I was using a line editor with a teleprinter which was connected by a serial port to an 8-bit Motorola 6809 D2 Kit. Files could be saved and loaded using paper tape and being a large mechanical device portability and quiet operation was not on its list of features.
