Retro Week

Thirty years ago today, a pre-knighthood Sir Clive Sinclair launched his first colour computer, the ZX Spectrum, and the early 1980s home computing revolution got a good a shove forward like no other before it.

Many a Reg reader can trace his or her engagement with information technology back to that point, but whether your first computing experience lay with a Sinclair product; Acorn's Atom, BBC Micro or Electron; an Apple II or Mac; the first IBM PC; Commodore's Pet, Vic-20, 64 or Amiga; or one of the many, many other - usually incompatible - 8-bit micros of the time, we call on you to celebrate with us this 'best of times'.

Ahead, we have a full five days coverage of computing in the 80s: the machines, the games, the listings - all by people who were there. We'll be adding content here - check back regularly to avoid missing out.

Retro Week Coverage

• Basic instinct: how we used to code
• Twelve... classic 1980s 8-bit micros
• Ten... eight-bit classic games
• Look back in Ascii: Computing in the 1980s
• Happy 30th Birthday, Sinclair ZX Spectrum

More 30th Birthday Celebrations

• The Commodore 64
• The Acorn BBC Micro
• The IBM PC
• Microsoft MS-DOS
• The Osborne 1
• The Sinclair ZX81

Other Anniversaries

• The Apple iPod is 10
• QuickTime is 20

People

• Commodore founder Jack Tramiel dies at 83
• Dennis Ritchie: The C man who booted Unix
• Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is dead at 56
• Adam Osborne 1939-2003