Find your way in
Who this is for.
Code Like It's 198x means something different depending on who's reading. A complete beginner, a seasoned engineer chasing the metal, a teacher, someone here purely for the romance of the era — all welcome, by different doors. Find the one that sounds like you — each leads somewhere real. If you want the route before the door, start with the Curriculum Map.
Absolute beginners · lapsed coders
Never written a line of code
You don't need to know anything yet. We start with the ideas every program is built from — instructions in order, a variable that remembers, a loop, a decision — in plain terms first, then running on a real Spectrum. Wrote a little BASIC decades ago and lost it? Pick the thread back up; it comes back faster than you'd think.
Experienced developers · the abstraction-curious
You know how to code — show me the machine
You can already build things. Now meet the hardware with nothing in the way — registers, memory maps, the raster racing down the screen. Assembly, on a machine small enough to hold in your head.
CS students · the self-taught
The fundamentals school skipped
The stack, addressing, what a pointer really is, why a loop costs what it costs — the groundwork that makes everything built on top of it make sense. Taught from the machine up, not the framework down.
Performance-aware · embedded engineers
Every cycle counts
When you care exactly where the time goes, there's no sterner teacher than a 3.5 MHz machine that punishes every wasted cycle. The instincts you build here transfer straight to anything tight and modern.
Indie developers · the demoscene
Constraint is the craft
Limits are the point. A fixed palette, a handful of sprites, a few kilobytes — constraint is what makes the work sing, and these machines have it in abundance. Learn the assembly, then raid the pattern library for techniques worked out the hard way.
Retro enthusiasts
For the romance of the era
Maybe you're not here to write code at all — you're here for the machines, the people, and the world that made them. The Vault is the connective tissue; the Timeline sets it all against everything else that was happening.
Parents · educators
For parents and teachers
Sitting beside a curious child, or bringing a classroom along? You don't need to be a programmer either. Here's what a learner actually does, why it's substance not screen-filler, and an honest word on what setting up involves.
Schools · institutions
For schools and institutions
Everything here is free, and openly licensed — Creative Commons for the prose, MIT for the code. Use it, fork it, build on it. The teaching guide covers the real curriculum structure, how to sequence it, and an honest statement of what exists to adopt today.
Funders · press
For funders and press
One person, an enormous ambition, built entirely in the open. The About page tells the why; the family page shows the wider toolchain this sits inside.
Or skip the doors and open the curriculum map, then browse the machines directly — by era, region, maker or readiness. Still not sure? Read the longer story, or come and help build the doors that aren't open yet.