Following the ZX81's release, a ZX81 8 KB ROM was available to upgrade the ZX80 at a cost of around 20% of a real ZX81. It came with a thin keyboard overlay and a ZX81 manual. By simply taking off the top cover of the ZX80 and prying the old ROM from its socket and carefully inserting the new ROM and adding the keyboard overlay, the ZX80 would now function almost identically to the proper ZX81 – except for SLOW mode, due to the differences in hardware between the two models. The process was easily reversed to return the ZX80 to its original configuration.