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BBC Micro Creators Reunite In London

Posted by Zonk on from the getting-the-band-back-together dept.

mustrum_ridcully writes "This week some of the original creators from Acorn Computers who developed the BBC Micro home computer are coming together again at the Science Museum in London to discuss the legacy of the computer fondly known in the UK as 'the Beeb'. This news is being carried, of course, on the BBC. The BBC Micro sold some 1.5 million units and helped fund Acorn's development work on the Acorn RISC Machine processor — also known as the ARM processor used today in countless mobile and embedded devices."

4 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Good but Dull by gsslay · · Score: 4, Insightful

    IMHO, the Beeb always seemed a bit dull. It was what you used at school, when you had to peck through dull basic programs under the watchful eye of teacher.

    At home is where you had a ZX Spectrum, and where you had free reign and did the real inventive programming.

    The Beeb was probably the better machine, but the speccy was where the real fun was.

    1. Re:Good but Dull by mccalli · · Score: 3, Insightful

      IMHO, the Beeb always seemed a bit dull. It was what you used at schoo...At home is where you had a ZX Spectrum, and where you had free reign and did the real inventive programming.

      Extrapolation: the machine you had at home was the fun one. True whether Beeb, Spectrum, C64...whatever.

      I had friends with Beebs and enjoyed messing around with them. I had a Spectrum 48k myself and enjoyed messing with that (wireframe vector graphics in Spectrum BASIC anyone? Anyone? No, didn't think so...). I also moved to the C64 and enjoyed messing with that.

      It's whatever you got free reign on, not what the specific platform was.

      Cheers,
      Ian

  2. Greed prevented world domination by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    If the idiots in charge had brought the price of the Archimedes down to that of the Atari ST, it would have dominated the market when the Amiga, Atari ST and Archimedes were in vogue, and we might now all be using RISC OS based PCs, instead of Microshaft.

    But the idiots in charge of the Archimedes' price refused to bring the price down - they would rather sell a few at a large profit per unit, and then lose the market, than sell the most at a smaller profit per unit...

  3. Re:I loved the BBC Micro by Winders · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Don't forget Elite. Probably one of the best games ever made, and still well-loved. The Acorn port was damn good too...