The worse thing about anniversaries of the debut of home computers is they make you feel so old. Granted, my first Spectrum was rubberless – I got the 48k+, where the keys fell off if you took it out the box the wrong way – but I was still there or there abouts, taking early tentative steps in computing that would lead to me posting this, and you reading it.

Clive’s no doubt beaming at the mere thought of it.

There’s always, of course, the temptation to go misty-eyed when recalling the so-called ‘good old days’. But much though I admire and owe a lot to the Spectrum, here are some of the memories that never seem to make those grinning retrospectives:

* Spending several hours programming the damn thing, only for a) the power pack to come suddenly loose, or b) the notoriously wobbly tape save to go wrong. There’s a c), too. I remember when Star Wars was first broadcast on ITV, and there was a big power surge in our area that led to a power cut. Just as I was finishing off the game that would make me my fortune. That’s bloody George Lucas’ fault, I reckon.

* Listings in computer magazines. Rarely accurate, and it took me three months to work out that those REM statements weren’t compulsory. I was, in my defence, only ten at the time.

* Football Manager: the most hideously overrated game of the era. It was awful then, and it’s awful now.

* Games with little playtesting. A bit like receiving a Christmas present off the market, after it’s failed every EU safety standard going, Jet Set Willy continues to be revered, despite the fact that it was impossible to finish it.

* That printer. What. A. Waste. Of. Time.

* The endless hours lost with the BEEP command. A relation of mine once, and this is true, got out of the doghouse for forgetting his wife’s birthday one year by programming his Spectrum to sing Happy Birthday to her. And, get this, she was impressed. Impressed by that! It must be like being serenaded a late 90s mobile phone ringtone.

I could go on, but my point is this. The Spectrum was a machine with umpteen problems, lots of flaws and the catalyst for rants that these days the blue screen gets instead.

But it’s still great, warts and all. Let’s, though, not pretend it was all plain sailing, but I’ll be more than happy to raise a glass to the machine that mattered more to the UK home computing scene than any machine before or after it