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DaftnDirect
Honored Contributor
June 27, 2018
Question

BBC Computer Literacy Archive released - TV Programmes & Software from a magical past

For anyone who lived through the home computer revolution of the 80s, particularly in the UK, you'll probably be like me and fondly remember programmes like Making the Most of the Micro & Micro Live etc.

Well all that computer literacy stuff has been made available, 267 TV programmes in total, along with BBC Micro programmes

….and you can run 166 BBC Micro software programs that appeared on the shows... in your browser! I'm transported back to my teens :)


https://computer-literacy-project.pilots.bbcconnectedstudio.co.uk/programmes

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    Tadin
    Up and Coming
    June 28, 2018
    Games were better on the Speccy but I always preferred BBC Basic for programming !!

    I then had a C64, followed by an AtariST, then on to a 386DX33, those were the days ...

    We used Commodore Pets, followed by RML 480Zs at school, my neighbor had a ZX80 and I had a friend with a Vic 20 .... all 3.5k on it :wink:

    DaftnDirectAuthor
    Honored Contributor
    June 28, 2018

    I think I tended to miss out alternate computer generations when I upgraded... was probably a money limitation thing in my case! I missed the ZX80/81 and started with the Spectrum... ignored the C64 (although there was a bit more jealousy when I saw things like the Ghostbusters game running on that, side-by-side with the Speccy in the shop!). Then got an ST (loved that as much as the Spectrum).


    I was a very late getting into PCs, we'd been using 386s & 486s at work but I waited until 97 to get a Pentium 2 300 for home. I think I do the same thing with graphics cards and CPUs now, miss out on 1 or 2 generations but then then get the best available at the time.


    Started watching Make the Most of the Micro last night... better than I remember and still quite relevant. Great sequence in episode 1 showing a valve computer from around 1960 that was still in use and about to be replaced, it had an analogue meter showing Percentage Programme Efficiency.... I think I need one of those!

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    Anonymous
    June 28, 2018
    @Tadin We only had three 480Zs at my school, and one of those was used as a server, the rest were 380Zs. Our Physics teacher, Mr Barnaby, brought his PC into school for us all to look at in my last year of school. Can't remember if it was Windows 1.0 or Windows 2.0 but seeing the windows and screensaver and seeing the game Snake was amazing at the time! :D
    Tadin
    Up and Coming
    June 28, 2018
    We even had a Honeywell mainframe donated to the school, 8 terminals i think it was, but someone ran off with the hard drive while they were moving it to another room, so that was the end of that ...... I do remember you could change to typing flashing characters, and if you saved a file with a flashing name, it could never be deleted :smiley:

    The 480Zs were great, i remember writing some Scramble type clone that we all loved to play.

    When i first started work i worked on a full cockpit flight simulator of the Harrier GR5 (Written in FORTRAN) and we were allowed to go play during our lunchtimes .... It was fun to sit outside on the console while someone was coming in to land and slowly increase the wind speed until, at full throttle, they were going backwards ..... fun fun fun :smile:

    HiroProtag0nist
    HiroProtag0nist
    Honored Contributor
    June 30, 2018
    Never had a PC growing up (or a console) - parents couldn't afford one.  I bought my first in 2000/2001 - from Time Computers.  I remember asking a work colleague in 1999 or 2000 what the hell that www thing stood for that people on the telly kept saying - he looked at me in disgust.
    Big PC, all the headsets, now using Quest 3
    Anonymous
    June 30, 2018
    My parents couldn't afford one when they got Binatone Pong and later the Atari VCS 2600. One of my Dad's mates worked at a place that used to sell them so we got them both off the back of a lorry so to speak. :o :D

    And when I got my Speccy in the 80s I bought it off a mate for 20 quid I think, needless to say there was an HGV involved there too. :blush:
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