The machine was plug and play – apart from the well documented issues with the tape drive. The capstan rubber turns to mush and can easily destroy a tape.
Destroying tapes was not an immediate issue for me, as i had none. It would soon become an issue, though, because tapes were the only means available to me at the time to load and save programs.
On power up, the machine displays a cursor for the basic interpreter. It is happy to immediately evaluate an expression and display the result.
The cursor can be moved around the screen to edit and reuse text. The screen rolls up and down, displaying 16 of 64 stored lines. This makes it pretty easy to use the small screen.
Basic programs are entered in the normal way. Data can be printed to the screen or to the thermal printer.
Inside, the machine is a joy to behold, with lots of ceramic packaged ICs and a neat arrangement of the CRT, thermal printer and tape drive. Outside, the case is quite yellow, but brightening cases is low on my to-do list.
