The Battle of the Giants

The ZX81 compared with a 80486-33Mhz PC
Dear Friends of the ZX81,
Time and time again we find out that many wellknown magazines that advertise in their magazines, and give less credit to in reality stronger computers simply by doing tests without real depth. The ZX81 has suffered many times because of this and has clearly been less appreciated because of this.
The ZX-Team has now done an objective and completely 'neutral' test between these two computers.
The ZX81 in this test is a standard ZX81 with 1K, the 486 PC uses a 130Mb harddisk.

First we looked at the design, the ZX81 sure is in fashion with his nice black colour, also the nice flat case of the ZX81 is much more stylish then a tower PC in this commonly used outfit, a clear case. The PC reached a 8.5 CU-Value, which is about the same as a coolbox with it's lid open, the ZX81 came with it's keyboard in the direction of the wind, with a great CU-Value of 0.36.
Benchmark 1 is the calculation of a sinus of 30 degrees, it took the ZX81 9.43 seconds, while they where still looking for the appropriate software for the PC to do this......
Benchmark 2 exists of a complete routine written in machine language in one line and entered as a direct command from the keyboard.

1 REM <SPACE> TAN
  RAND USR 16514

The difference in mobility ended up in the advantage of the ZX81. The PC was to heavy to pick up.....
The ZX81 also has the advantage of easy recycling, the ZX81 does not leave many parts.
The economic test was about consuming electricity, well I guess you know that one already.

Review of the testresults:

++ = very good, += Good, o = Poor, - = Very Poor, -- = Terrible

	ZX81	486 PC
Design	++	o
CW-Value	++	--
Benchmark 1	+	--
Benchmark 2	+	--
Total Size	+	o
Mobility	++	--
Recycling	+	o
Shocktest	++	-
Noisetest	++	--
Economics	++	o

Conclusion: We ZX81 users can look optimistic into the future, I certainly would never sell my ZX81.

This article has been taken from the International ZX81-Magazine issue 1. It is written by the ZX-Team, not by me! As mentioned in the full issue which contains many more interesting articles, this article is free for no-commercial purposes.
I have only changed the "outfit" of the text.