Direct Memory Access was typical for many early computers using volatile memory that did not retain its contents when the power was switched off. Even early mainframe computers required their operators to "toggle" or "dial" in a bootstrap program by hand to get things going on power-up. Capability Although 256 words of memory seems extraordinarily small by contemporary standards, when "toggling in" programs by hand it seemed quite adequate. There was ample space to create programs that played music, sent and received morse code, operated data storage to media such as a cassette player and even offered game experiences (though these required significant imagination by the user). Expanded with additional memory, the 77-68 was quite capable of running software such as the TSC BASIC interpreter and users wrote software that offered a wide range of applications at a time when even word processors were a novelty and spreadsheets were largely unknown. User experience and legacy For many home computer pioneers, primitive machines like the 77-68 offered a thrill that is hard to describe to a generation that has grown up with technology many times more powerful all around. The sense of being able to construct something from inert basic components, write a program and see a set of components that had been separate "come to life" in concert to do something small but useful was very exciting. This was a time when it was quite possible for a non-specialist to understand every aspect of the computer they had built and machines like the 77-68 offered a generation the chance to own and experiment with one for the first time. While the number of kits sold and constructed and the number of systems still in operation is unknown, one of the systems illustrated in this article is now in the Museum of Computing, Swindon, England. References Early microcomputers 68xx-based computers