Curious connections: Voyager probes and Sinclair ZX Spectrum

Opinion The Voyager space probes are dear to the hearts of every geek who can remember the 1980s.

The twin robotic spacecraft launched in 1977, the same year as the Apple II, the TRS-80 and the Commodore Pet, making the spacecraft the patron saints of the modern computer age. By the time Voyager’s primary mission ended with Voyager 2's 1989 Neptune encounter, earthlings had the 80486, the Gameboy and the Apple Macintosh Portable. As Voyager 2 was nearly three billion miles (4.7 billion kilometers) away at that point, however, hardware upgrades were ruled out by the cost of delivery. The mission celebrated vintage technology long before it became popular.

Despite such overlap between their histories, Voyager didn't use a microprocessor — the first such marriage was between Intel's 4004 and Pioneer Venus in 1978. Yet Voyager 1's computer issue in 2023 and the subsequent epic ...