Technologies that Time Forgot: The BBC Micro

Joey Gardiner and Ian Jones are the two silicon.com staffers reminiscing this week, in part three of our series looking back at the home computing boom of the early to mid-eighties. Stand aside Spectrum and Commodore owners, and let our proud BBC fans state their case...

Once again Technologies that Time Forgot takes you back to an age where children's programme Grange Hill was the best soap opera on television and New Romantics were ushering in an era of electro-pop, bright colours and madly coiffured hair that was to last, well, far too long.

However, by the look of the particular technological toreador we are dusting off today, you would have thought it hailed from an earlier era, decked as it was in the browns and beiges redolent of the late seventies. But this old-skool style belied the visionary technology under the yellowing-cream cover, for this was the computer that was to define computing in the eighties.

Not only that, this was one of the main machines to inspire a generation of children to become programmers, and bridge the divide between serious functionality and the kind of fun that 12 year olds wanted.

It was the granddaddy of them all, none other than the redoubtable BBC Micro.

The BBC Micro was first conceived of as a response to the wide public interest aroused by BBC documentary The Mighty Micro about the impending computer revolution.

The BBC Computer Literacy Project (public service broadcasting, say no more) needed a well-built, high-spec computer to base itself around. Thus the BBC Micro was commissioned.

Early discussions with Clive Sinclair were fruitless, when the machine he offered failed to match the rigorous specifications (Spectrum aficionados take note), and eventually only a last minute cobble offered by a small team from a small company - Acorn - fitted the bill.

In 1981, the BBC Micro models A and B were released and quickly became the basic (perhaps I should say BASIC) fare of schoolchildren up and down the land. The government agreed to pay half the price of sales to schools, ensuring the successful decking of computer rooms across the UK with the friendly Beeb.

In the early eighties the UK had more PCs per person than any other country in the world. But the BBC's success was not just down to its 'high level' support. The machine had a charm all of its own but stood out more than anything because of some brilliant engineering.

Despite the fact that model A gave you just 16K of RAM for your £299 (model B had twice the capacity, for another £100), the simplicity of the programming language - BBC BASIC - meant users were quickly won over.

Also, compared to the alternatives at the time, it offered a surprisingly nippy 2Mhz chip and a full size, adult keyboard - less nostalgia value than the 'dead flesh' feel Sinclair had gone for, with its post-ZX81 Spectrum, but far more practical to use.

It enabled users to make the BBC do an incredible range of jobs, with minimum effort. I know of one user who until very recently was still getting his BBC to download share prices off teletext at home - no great shakes in 2002 but a revolution in 1983.

At work and at school the variety of ports and their ability to be manipulated for different functions meant the machine was perfect for monitoring science experiments, or - to quote an example from someone working at the BBC itself - checking the power on the re-chargeable batteries.

The sheer practicality of it kept it working for many people long past the time it should have been safely gathering dust in attics.

But of course for all those of us who didn't really desire the BBC for its, ahem, educational properties (although that's what we told our parents) the games were a joy. Titles like Rocket Raid, Chuckie Egg, Arcadians and Meteor are still incredibly evocative to anyone who had the pleasure of a BBC in their formative years.

For part two of this column, click here: http://www.silicon.com/a50751