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Stand by for 1980's home PC nostalgia
Sneak was intrigued to read reports that the BBC is to screen a 'comedy drama' about the early days of the home computer industry in the UK, when men were men, computers were knocked up from kits that had to be soldered together at home, and software was almost invariably loaded from audio cassette tape.
The show is apparently to be called [bad pun alert] "Syntax Era", and will star comedians Alexander Armstrong as Clive Sinclair and Martin Freeman as Chris Curry, one of the founders of Acorn Computers.
Many of the reports Sneak has seen indicate the show's plot will centre on the rivalry between Sinclair and Acorn Computers for "home computer supremacy".
This isn't how Sneak recalls this period of IT history, it has to be said. Sinclair's ZX Spectrum and Acorn's BBC Micro computers were aimed at very different ends of the computer market.
The 'Beeb' was regarded as the Rolls-Royce of home computers, as it had a full typewriter keyboard, video outputs for a TV and monitor, and an array of ports, including analogue-to-digital converter, disk drive interface, and even a set of chip sockets for plugging in add-on ROM chips that expanded its built-in software. It was a hobbyists' dream.
By contrast, the 'Speccy' was cheap and cheerful, with a rubbery keyboard and a single expansion port that simply brought out the processor bus signals to a connector at the back of the case. It was great for learning to program, playing games, and an introduction to the world of computers.
It would be difficult to decide which of the two was best, however. While the Beeb was clearly technically superior, the Spectrum was far more affordable and had many more software titles created for it. Which would you choose?
As to the "Syntax Era", don't you think that it's great that the BBC went out of its way to find so obvious a look-alike for Clive Sinclair?
I got confused with the programming, when they removed the line numbers.
Posted by Mark | August 3, 2009 5:35 PM
I'm too young to remember either the BBC or the Spectrum, but my boss who's an old fart said they were no good because you couldn't get any porn on prestel which was what he used before the internet.
Posted by Robert Lock | July 18, 2009 12:49 PM
Best days of my life !!!
Posted by Adrian | July 8, 2009 10:21 PM
Yeah, but are you sure you're not thinking of the the BBC Model B? That was the really swish one that was on the BBC programmes about computers, and the ones that schools bought by the bucketload. But there was also the Acorn Electron which was a heavily cut-down version and probably more comparable to the Spectrum. Mind you as far as I remember the real competition was between the Spectrum and the Commodore 64, but I suppose having Clive vs. the Commodore board of directors would make a less appealing show.
Posted by Richard | July 4, 2009 9:16 AM
I still have a Spectrum +2, with loads of tapes, lol
Posted by Mark Percival | July 4, 2009 8:55 AM
I have a BBC model B, and had a 48K Speccy and loved it. I also had a ZX81 which was later sold but now in a way wishing I'd kept.
Posted by John | July 3, 2009 9:17 PM
You're right, the Spectrum and BBC were never really direct competitors in the marketplace. I think Commodore was probably a bigger direct rival to Sinclair.
Acorn and Sinclair did compete for the BBC micro contract though, perhaps that's what this programme is about. How different things might be now had Sinclair won...would Acorn ever have gone on to develop the ARM chip?
The ZX81 was my first computer too, good old days indeed. Although it probably wasn't "powerful enough to run a nuclear power station" as the advertising claimed :P (They never made it clear whether that was with or without the wobbly 16k rampack that usually caused a crash every 30 minutes or so...).
Posted by Charles | July 3, 2009 7:40 PM
Happy days - Programming in Basic on the ZX81 and Acorn Electron - how would todays wizz kids cope?
Posted by Peter | July 2, 2009 5:07 PM
what a jump we have made i had one of them and the zx81 good old days
Posted by stephen | July 1, 2009 5:56 PM