BBC Micro - Did The UK Get Computer Literate in the '80s? - Trash to Treasure (Pt3)

[@didierdubos]

Hi, I'm french and 52 years old. I bought the BBC B micro when I was 16. I bought it in Paris in a shop called 'ILLEL'. (I started with a Zx81 then a TI99 then the BBC). It is because of this machine that I made carreer in computing and electronics. I still have this BBC micro (waiting for a repair!) standing at home.

[@ixion8666]

Didier Dubos c’est quoi le problème sur ton BBC ? Cela reste des machines réparables facilement .

[@simonzinc-trumpetharris852]

Mine still works!

[@B3tanTyronne]

The memory that always comes to my mind when I think of the Beeb is an old school friend at secondary school writing a basic programme that he had run before a class. It simply played the countdown theme and upon completion displayed the words `Spunk Splatz` and to the mind of a 15 yr old this of course made me laugh....I am 47 now yet that 15 yr old still resides within me and it still makes me laugh to this day.

[@AmbientMusicStudio]

In Canada we were still learning how to use rocks to sharpen other rocks.

[@RobSchofield]

The sheer affection you have for this computer comes through clearly in this series: well made, written and presented. Bravo!

[@ojkolsrud1]

The color scheme on these machines is so visually pleasing! I love the black keys with the red keys at the top.

[@PaulSteel-Credonos]

Like many, the bbc micro and Elite inspired me and now I’m heading up a global technology team. Thank you for this series. I’ve just ordered a refurbished bbc micro b from eBay and I’ll be re-learning assembly language when it arrives

[@hjalfi]

My father was a teacher and was involved in his school's computer 'department' (really a bunch of interested teachers), so we always had a 'borrowed' BBC Micro at home during the holidays. I wasn't allowed to play games --- so I had to write them myself... eventually I ended up using half the storage of the very expensive 20MB Winchester Econet file server myself, before it was struck by lightning.

[@hjalfi]

BTW, when I was 15 I sent a game in to a computer magazine. It got rejected, but a while back I found the disk, ripped it, and did a writeup: cowlark.com/2015-02-03-bbc-micro And more recently I wrote what's possibly the fastest Mandelbrot program for the BBC Micro ever: cowlark.com/2018-05-26-bogomandel

[@fredjones100]

@@hjalfi Nice job on the sound in your Tron clone! I think "excruciatingly bad" is a bit harsh myself....

[@ColinBowen]

This is a series of videos that even the great British Broadcasting Corporation would have been proud to have made. Excellent series, on an excellent product. I might finally get my original Beeb out of the cupboard and fixed up.

[@005AGIMA]

Love the blend of restoration and history in this series Neil. Really really well done. My BBC micro memories are more from secondary School but I love hearing your own stories.

[@VW_Fan]

I remember using a BBC Micro at primary school in the 90's. We used to play something called Pod. We used to make it sing, whilst, run explode etc. Does anyone else remember it?

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

The view of a UK classroom in the 80's sounds very different from where it was for us US kids, where most school desks didn't have inkwells placed in them and public school kids weren't taught by nuns (they were for schools run by the local Catholic Diocese). Wheeling the TV into the classroom was a thing for us too, alongside film projectors and earlier VCR's (often the 3/4" U-matic format but also VHS). The Apple II was the computer of choice for most schools I knew.

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

@@another3997 Thanks for the clarification.

[@mapesdhs597]

@@ChristopherSobieniak Also worth noting that a great many (including myself) attended Church of England schools, but the presence of the Church within the classroom was very minimal, not much more than morning assembly and the special times of year. One thing though, such schools have I think remained well above the general state sector in their quality; today, the CofE primary school I attended has a most impressive curriculum with regard to the sciences: langleyfitzurse.wilts.sch.uk/ Re the old desks, I suspect in many cases it was not replacement cost that kept them around for so long, rather that such desks were incredibly robustly made and withstood the ravages of decades of use by children. :D If it ain't broke... I remember at a later school I attended the desks were like units which could take a tank shell with ease. But yeah, I never saw a school were nuns did the teaching, that's pretty unsual, presumably a more traditional Catholic school or somesuch.

[@meetoo594]

I remember building a lightpen from scratch at school, plugging it into a BBC and then writing the software to drive it. Such a versitile machine for school projects like this. Used email for the first time at school on a BBC, it was connected to the JANET network via an acoustic coupler and I recall not sharing the teachers excitement at getting a reply from some teacher in a Yorkshire school to the email he sent 2 days previous. My young self had no idea I was witnessing the early days of the I.T. revolution in the UK. I also wrote an article describing living in the local area that got put on the BBC domesday project laserdisk system that the school participated in. I think someone broke our schools domesday system shortly after it arrived so I never got to use it. The trouble with schools using the BBC micro was when you left school you found out the hard way that no one actually used BBC machines in the workplace and apart from the electronics experiments pretty much everything you learnt on them was useless as most business used pc`s or macs.

[@Starchface]

Thank you for another incredible addition to this series, Neil. My usual interest runs to the hardware side of things, the repair and restoration of the glorious old micros. This episode, I felt, would be an afterthought to the real meat of the series. I could not have been more mistaken. The writing, the research, the production quality-everything about this installment is of the highest order. It's as good as any television documentary. You've almost brought a tear to this old man's eye, and I'm not even British. How you were able to dig up all this history and archival footage and assemble them into a coherent story is beyond me. Your work has been stunning for as long as I can remember, but here you have taken it to new heights. Clearly you have found your calling. Yes, you preserve hardware, but you're also preserving a unique moment in history that will never be repeated. Thanks for the memories.

[@dj_paultuk7052]

Good memories indeed. My secondary school started off with 5 BBC B's. And eventually ended up with 10 B's. and 5 Master 128k's. The computer teacher used to let me in the room at lunchtimes, and after a short while i helped to kick off the "Lunchtime Computer club". And not long after that a after school club as well. Loved the BBC Micro, and for home i had a "Electron", as did many pupils. The programs we wrote at school , we could continue at home. As long as we saved them to tape. **Still have a B now ;-)

[@_yadokari]

The normalisation of computing extended to the High St (WH Smith, Boots) and supermarkets where it was common to see displays of home computers all available to tinker around with in BASIC. Also, the Usborne books were amazing.

[@fredjones100]

re: the Usborne books: usborne.com/browse-books/features/computer-and-coding-books/

[@cashawX10]

"Geordie Racer - Look n' Read' Who on Earth ever thought the best way to teach kids English was via Geordie ??

[@geordiebatt]

Gods own dialect!

[@cashawX10]

@@geordiebatt Nah lad ! Tha shud spek Yorkshire and nowt else ! ;-)

[@Armand79th]

Well, they had to lower the bar for the thickies Oop Norf.

[@jamesgrimwood1285]

@@cashawX10 I think hearing Geordie counted as learning a foreign language back in the 80s.

[@johnnyutah892]

Clive Shaw Dark Towers was my favourite.

[@Maxibon2007]

My comprehensive school had a whole room of BBC Micro’s well into the mid/late 1990s alongside the Acorn Archimedes for our IT (C.L.A.I.T.) lessons, but sadly by 1995 even our IT teachers were denouncing them as a technological dead-end “forced” on us by Government schemes and “we” needed Microsoft based PCs

[@fueledbyregret]

Wonderful video! I started school in 1990 we had a BBC Micro in each classroom. One of the form rooms had several BBC Master Compact systems with printers and a LOGO turtle. All the BBC systems throughout the school were linked with the Acorn teletext system which showed school events, and simple facts of the day etc.

[@fueledbyregret]

When I moved to middle school we had Acorn A3000s everywhere. The IT rooms had rows of A4000s. High school was a mix of RM windows PCs and Acorn RISC PCs.

[@808v1]

This was a wonderfully made docu-episode. These type of creations (on KZbin etc.) have truly improved and replaced the traditional consumption via broadcast television. I love it :)

[@808v1]

Interestingly, to me your episode is reminiscent of the old BBC programmes that you covered in the video

[@mapesdhs597]

@@808v1 I stopped watching lamestream media in 2016 precisely because people like RMC do so much better. 8)

[@MorebitsUK]

I had a BBC Master from 1987 to 1990, and I absolutely loved it. Playing games like Repton 3 and Ravenskull. I also learned to program BBC Basic on it, which seeded my love of programming and ofc Computers.

[@ColinHoad]

My favourite in this series so far! Great blend of history and information, plus the memories - yours and your followers - were lovely to hear. I also owe my career to the BBC Micro - and my Dad who was the IT teacher at my school, meaning I got to play around with Acorn machines at home as well as in the classroom!

[@ayjay749]

In my Primary School, 4th year Juniors got to use the sole BBC Micro (and play Granny's Garden). In a previous year group, we got no further than an A4 printout of a keyboard layout to "practise typing"!

[@stephenhargreaves9011]

Not an EDIT, so I'm allowed this. In 1982 the National Computing Centre (NCC) sponsored students with an aptitude to attend college for accelerated courses. I passed the requisite tests, and did an ONC in computer studies (usually a 2 year course) in 46 weeks, which included 2 weeks industrial placement at Initial Services in Manchester, operating the main frame, and 6 weeks at British Aerospace programming. As my time at BA came to an end, the operations and programming managers both wanted me to stay on, but this was blocked by HR at the time. This is probably why I'm now a specialist tax accountant. In 1999, I was working for HMRC. Having been trained in COBOL, and with the Y2K paranoia, how I wish I'd quit my job to go freelance fixing computers. Apparently, for programmers, £500 per hour was not unheard of.

[@kcharles8857]

Admittedly I don't have much of a life but I could watch this stuff for hours!

[@RMCRetro]

Hey what does that say about me! 😁😁

[@d3struct0r]

Personally I feel like these old computers have character they've developed over time, and it's much nicer to leave them to age gracefully. I can see the attraction of having one that looks perfect though also. Perhaps the ideal would be to have replacement cases available like the commodore 64 - opening up the possibility of storing and saving the older case.

[@pronstorestiffi]

Wholeheartedly agree with this. I like machines when they show sign of use, just adds to it.

[@AnaloguePhoto]

This episode was absolutely amazing to watch. In Sweden we had half a page on Sundays (Sydsvenskan) newspaper with Basic programming tips and printed code. Nothing like this. Just the follow through of the BBC's efforts impresses me. That's a genuine good use of public service media. A lot better than what it's used for today.

[@Capt.Marco-Hawk-L.L.A.P]

The BBC model B was my 2nd computer and was were my love for computers came from, I use to dream of a BBC Master

[@discovermetaldetecting]

Another fantastic video Neil. As a wide eyed 13 year old in 1982, I remember cutting out computer listings from magazines, walking to my local supermarket and typing them into the computers they had display! As a one parent family, mum couldn’t afford a BBC so I would pester my posh friends who had them! I settled for an Electron when their price dropped! That started my fascination with coding! Great stuff mate! 👍🏻

[@snoballuk]

Even back in 1988, our school Beebs had that case yellowing - many even more so than the unpainted case in this video - so I consider it to be part of the general look of the BBC Micro.

[@gdogg3710]

“Zombies staring at screens”...ironic that a descendant of the Micro wound up supplying the chipset for today’s smartphones...

[@iwanttocomplain]

ARM is a cpu core not a chipset.

[@karlgoldsmith8047]

I skived swimming to spend the time in the computer room in last year of high school.

[@RMCRetro]

Our school swimming pool was outdoors, and so was the changing room. It was so cold in winter!!!

[@muke001]

I'm a bit too young (and American) to have been a part of this literacy project, but I remember our older math books (circa late 80's) would always have basic programs written out at the end of every section to type out and now I finally know why; the influence had traveled across the pond!

[@MrBrianms]

I did my first computing course on the BBC model B with painting and decoration course thrown in. I learned programming by making an estimation program. The program asked for simple measurements of a room and output the quantity of paint needed. Now the paint can be ordered online by the use of a phone.

[@broonage]

I'm a little younger (i was born the year it came out) but remember the BBC at primary school with fond memories and we had the turtle too. It was this machine that got me interested in computing and eventually getting my C64 for home pottering (more affordable), and in the long run - eventually working in software.

[@azzajohnson2123]

The first 20 seconds made me laugh. “More time for leisure” as an office cube convict I find this so funny.

[@jimmcconville]

Testify! 😂

[@InspireVolunteering]

excellent video series. I first used a beeb in jan 83 at primary school. total game changer. I failed exams playing Elite too much

[@M4lkavian]

I miss the old BBC, where they actually did good work.

[@GeoNeilUK]

The BBC tried to do something like this... but did it wrong... British industry leads the way and invents the Raspberry Pi... ...the BBC brings out the MicroBit, making their last, useful, iconic machine that much harder to Google and promptly abandons said MicroBit because the MicroBit was capable of exactly nothing. ...when we already have the Raspberry Pi!

[@AntonyTCurtis]

@@GeoNeilUK The RaspberryPi is a true successor of the Beeb: Useful without modification but also designed to have users attach things to it or even make their own things to attach to it.

[@Daz555Daz]

BBc Bitesize is still an example of the BBC doing great work for our kids.

[@stevecharlton3271]

Absolutely brilliant

[@WoodyPianoShack]

an honour to be on such a great show!

[@kins749]

I remember the magic of first seeing one - there was only one - in my middle school around 1983, one of the teachers had squirreled it away in her office and all we could do was look at it in wonder.

[@tvandbeermakehomergo]

Can still remember these machines well from Primary school, they were still using them up to the early 2000's!

[@lofi-guy]

I dozed off watching Big Clive & woke up to this... For about 30 seconds I was trying to figure out what the BBC Micro had to do with a string of LED Bulbs

[@rwdplz1]

A computer literacy program was an absolutely brilliant idea. In the US, it's easy to forget now, but most people didn't have a home computer until the late 90's or even the early 2000's. I went to schools that in the early 90's had one Apple II computer, to 30 Macintosh computers in a 'computer lab' in the mid 90's, to a group of donated 286's in the late 90's in high school for certain classes.

[@Tim_3100]

Watched micromen again the other day its still a great program and the extreme response sinclair gave when sinclair was not selected for the BBC project is something to see even now.

[@TheStevenWhiting]

As well as high school as I mentioned on one of the other videos, I'm pretty sure it was a BBC that we had in middle school as well, this was about 1984-6. St Joseph's middle school in Hanwell, London. We had one in the class room that was rarely used. But when it was, there was one kid, I annoyingly can't remember his name, who was the whiz on it. I believe he had one at home so knew everything about it and how to set it up etc. So whenever it was time for the teacher to use it with us, he would always be asked to help them as he knew more than them.

[@gamingtherapy7587]

Watched all 3 parts and thoroughly enjoyed all of them. Thank you

[@JohnJones-jv3hr]

This series has brought back many fond memories of my first encounter with a computer. Granny's Garden on the BBC was something we were all addicted to as young kids. I would love to see a follow-up series on the machine that took over from the BBC in many schools, the RM NIMBUS.

[@frazzleface753]

Same here. Granny's Garden was my first contact with a computer - 1984 at primary school. It was magical and very exciting as a 7 year old :)

[@JohnJones-jv3hr]

@@frazzleface753 Were you one of the kids that cheated by looking up the level passwords in the teacher's handbook? I know I was!

[@frazzleface753]

@@JohnJones-jv3hr Haha, come to mention it, I do vaguely remember something like that happening! Whether it was me or not, I couldn't possibly comment...

[@th3d3wd3r]

Pardon my language but fuuuuckin' hell, geordie racer man! I'm from newcastle, about the same age as you, and we watched it in school. Absolute flashback there hahaa. I remember they had a pigeon handler brought a pigeon in for us to see, it got away and shit all over the place. We also had the logo turtle. I found it boxed in the cupboard. I was the only kid in school interested in playing with it.

[@th3d3wd3r]

I assume we're about the same age anyway, going by the amount of grey in your beard ;) hahaa.

[@Rouxenator]

I'm glad I had that school experience of wooden desks and pipe smoking teachers well into the late 90s. Logo I met in primary school, in high school we did have internet on 486 machines. I remember the computer science teacher telling us we are connected to the university via "fibre" cutting edge stuff for '99.

[@P5ychoFox]

My favourite part about using a BBC Micro at both primary and secondary school was running my fingers over that blanked off user port and resisting the temptation to push it through.

[@mharding1258]

Thank you pal. Your series has stirred up so many memories in my mind and reminded me just where my love of computing and electronics is based. I have a lot to thank Acorn Computers for and I have always loved and cherished this historical story. I have my career in IT thanks to a wonderful start in life on these now humble beasts of the past.

[@oxogood9018]

Our primary school had a bbc micro,on a trolly,from classroom to class room,then high school we went,RM Nimbus.but we did have at least one each,once a week ,Tuesdays if i recall.1pm till 2pm.

[@queegfivehundred8197]

It's really interesting to contrast Neil's classroom computer experience with mine in Australia... in the late 80s my primary school had a room of Commodore 64s we went to from time to time (and I distinctly remember using logo as well as being shown an acoustic coupler modem) but the only time there was a computer in our regular classroom was when my year 4 teacher brought in her own C64 and an old black and white TV, which I was responsible for setting up and often got to use when my normal classwork was done. At the same time the local high school had a row of Mac Plus machines for each subschool (so probably 15 computers for 300 or so students in a common area) in addition to a dedicated room of PCs for computing (and typing) classes, which were still there until the mid 90s. I can't recall any instances where using a computer was integrated into other lessons. Before the high school got the macs, they had BBC Micros although I don't know how many or how they were distributed - I only got to use one for one school holiday period and had fun playing an Oregon Trail type game based around the 1850s Victorian gold rush.

[@Tocsin-Bang]

I remember loading up a whole load of BBC micros, monitors hdds etc into a van to be sent to schools in Africa, when the school I was working in found them in a storeroom long after they had changed to pcs.

[@somerandomblokeybloke6033]

I'm quite jealous of the kids that got to participate in the computer literacy project at its peak. As a kid born in the early 80's, I experienced the BBC Micro at primary school but there wasn't much emphasis on learning it in detail. I did get to play with LOGO but at the time I was learning BASIC at home with a Speccy so LOGO seemed very primitive by comparison. Later the school got an Archimedes but none of my teachers knew how to use it so aside from us playing the Lander (Virus) demo, it really just collected dust. High school was where I first experienced IBM PCs in the form of the RM machines, but the emphasis was on learning Word, Excel and Access. What happened to the programming I asked myself?? They basically turned my generation into the 21st centuries admin assistants. It wasn't until college in the late nineties that I finally got to learn something more relevant than ZX Basic in an education setting in the form of Pascal.

[@WiggysanWiggysan]

I loved our BBC Micro. This video has really got the memories flowing again ! Yes, I'm sure my school had the turtle pen robot. We used to use on the gym floor because it was the biggest flat room that did not have bumpy carpets ! Thanks for all your effort in these videos *RMC* . Great work.

[@aeiouxs]

Hear hear Neil, totally agree with your viewpoint on the Beeb and its relatively unsung impact through our schools which normalise computing -- curious where the UK would be now without this programme. And thanks for another superb video - really it feels like you're pretty much producing whole TV programs now, amazing work. fwiw I'm pretty sure we're identical ages and wanted to share a short bit of my own background story: one night I was sneakily playing Elite in my bedroom on our family Acorn Electron, and my Grandma suddenly appears. "Switch that off dear, nothing good will come of that".... I've been in the Games Industry for well over 25 years now, had the pleasure of meeting David Braben briefly at a Games Company dinner, and this industry has taken me around the world and I'm still paying the rent with skills (and inspiration borne from) those BBC-B's in Cheshire schools back in the early '80s. Thanks again.

[@JonPadfield]

Do you know what. I'm going for a second comment to thank you for the thoroughly pleasant trip down memory lane I just had :)

[@RMCRetro]

You're most welcome Jonathan

[@GreyHulk2156]

If given the opportunity, I would have sprayed one of them red for a nice custom case.

[@Lopson13]

Stellar episode, you're one of the best on here. Congratulations!

[@alexandrecouture2462]

I always like to paint my old computers! Xt, 286, 386. Great video!

[@russellhale7694]

Thanks for the memories - from that very first Beeb being installed in the class room at primary school to then having rooms of them at senior school, saving up and buying my own Spectrum at home to then upgrading to an Atari ST. Studying Computing at college and working in the industry for 28 years. The BBC Computer Literacy Program has a lot to answer for!!!! - I am glad it happened to my generation!

[@JesusisJesus]

In Australia, we had a similar computer called MicroBee. It ran cpm and on a token ring network we “all” shared the disk drive on the orange screened “server” using our green screen terminals. This was my introduction to a DOS in 86 aged 9. Kids these days have it good, using a “computer” to program a much smaller one, emulate older ones. Carrying a computer in their pocket.

[@tuopeeks]

As spray painting maybe a conductive coating added to inside of the covers could be made to cut down the RF noise.

[@rabidy]

Been looking forward to the continuation of this series. Really enjoying it so far.

[@daveb1930]

Having a Beeb at home was a great advantage for school. We had a subscription for The Micro User, but we didn't get the accompanying disc at first, so I (with much supervision from Father) had to type in the code from the magazine to be able to play the games. This taught me just enough to wreak havoc during my school sessions on the machine...

[@Teppic11]

My school had about 100 pupils but only one BBC Micro, so we didn't get to use it much. I do remember we had a turtle though. By that time a lot had a Spectrum or a C64 at home so I think the Micro's main appeal was its proper keyboard and high resolution text modes, which made it look like a "real" computer to us and not effectively a toy for games.

[@star_man]

Awww you got Ian McNaught-Davis into it (well how could you not). Not too proud to admit this 48 year old welled up a bit when he popped up at the beginning. What a wonderful video, well done Neil. My first exposure to the BBC was LOGO and the LOGO Turtle in middle school (anyone outside of East Anglia might have to look up what “middle school” was). I was hooked on all the BBC “Micro” programmes, and undoubtedly my love of computers was first ignited by them. There’s something almost poetically beautiful seeing you in front of a green screen with an image of Ian McNaught-Davies behind you who was also talking in front of a green screen, it was as if it was the handing over of the baton from one generation to the next.

[@stephenmorrish]

I left school in '81 so I missed the BBC Micro and the education system. I did have access to my dad's Sinclar, first the 81, then spectrum and beyond.

[@RandomMusingsUK]

As an alternative to both painting or retrobrite, hair peroxide gel combined with sunlight for a few hours works very well in removing the yellowing caused by the fire resistant bromide in the plastic.

[@stephenhargreaves9011]

I love the "Live washing up" idea. Perhaps I should stream myself doing the dishes. :) And how prophetic the worry of people "gazing like zombies at the screen" was, when you observe people of all classes and all ages doing exactly that whilst wandering around busy city centres. As a self-confessed (and proud) geek, I sometimes hate the age of mobile computing. And final edit, but thanks. You've caused me to spend two hours of a Saturday morning watching those programmes of a bygone age, that I weirdly did not see first time around, despite having been a teenager, in the UK, and owning a super powerful ZX81 at the time.

[@mapesdhs597]

Re zombies, I took this pic in a train station (note the child being completely ignored, it fretted constantly): www.sgidepot.co.uk/misc/P1140938s.jpg

[@GadgetUK164]

Wonderful video - great to see the people at the end there!

[@Fadingfool]

I remember playing on the school's only bbc-b at lunchtime (primary school). Had an Acorn Electron at home - whilst most of my classmates had no interest in computers at all. Liking computers in the 80s was not a path to popularity.

[@jameslewis2635]

Nice job on getting the painting of the cases sorted. The 'green tint from certain angles' sounds to me like it could be down to the light refracting through the clear-coat. Knowing how to get the 'Amiga cream' colour could be usefull as well since painting is probably a bit easier to do than retro-brightening with UK levels of sunlight and warmth.

[@Lorfarius]

The 80's were such an amazing time for computing. So much awe, wonder and possibilities. All gone in today's copy n paste market.

[@lemagreengreen]

Literate... I suppose it did. I think the success of the BBC did actually have an unintended side effect though - I was being taught pretty out of date stuff even in the 90s because of those machines, there seemed to be a reluctance to move on. I remember being taught a bit too much essentially useless BASIC programming, a very slow transition to teaching things like VB and next to no drive to teach kids something more up to date. Of course it wasn't all bad and a lot of the stuff taught was still relevant (if slightly outdated) but I think the relative slowness with which the computing curriculum kept up with the pace of change in the 90s was down to a lot of investment in platforms like the BBC Micro, Archimedes etc. That said I did go to a private school later where the computing curriculum was very PC focused, taught C++ etc.

[@azzajohnson2123]

eggypickle yes this! Same is still happening now. The classes and subject matter is still miles out of date. My computer science classes were literally writing programs that had bouncing balls inside boxes. And we had to use JAVA to accomplish it. Most comprehension was typing out crap from a book. And this was in 2002. Thankfully it didn’t squeeze my passion out totally. And i persisted and thanks to the wonderful world of KZbin I’m on the right path.

[@iwanttocomplain]

You were taught BASIC in school?! Was it an expensive school? With more than one Micro per 400 pupils? BASIC and all languages are pretty similar. The only difference is new commands but the essential structure all follows the same logic. Once you now BASIC, it's pretty simple stuff to learn almost any other language if you understand the basic of arrays, functions and such.

[@alexdhall]

Azza, Java is still used directly or indirectly in server/web applications. Android apps are still either written in Java or Kotlin...

[@P5ychoFox]

Totally agree regards to the marker pen. I once bought an Acorn Archimedes on eBay because it had a school name written on it (a school in my home town). When I went to pick up the computer, the seller had cleaned the pen off. I didn’t buy it.

[@moth.monster]

Funnily enough, computers in the US really only got normalized in the late 90s and early 2000s for most people. And as far as computers in schools, that really didn't happen until the 2010s. I remember going from seeing the teacher use an overhead projector every day when i was in elementary school, where going to the "computer lab" full of aging machines running Windows XP was special, to every classroom having a DLP projector and every teacher having one of those fancy 2-in-1 laptops in middle school, with multiple carts of powerful laptops shuffling around the school for kids to use, to every student getting one of those laptops to take home in high school.

[@thomsi67]

My very first computer I ever bought was the BBC Master. I started work and within 2 months went to my local computer shop, Micro Man and bought the Master with a Cumana 40/80 track floppy drive, tape player all for the princely sum of £800+ on credit that my dad had to go guarantor for. I still have the Master stored away and will be hopefully restoring it this year.

[@RockRedGenesis]

Mostly what I remember of the good old BBC Micro is sneaking in a game or two of Chuckie Egg on the Micro at Primary School during break-times. And occasionally doing school work on it! Good times!

[@kuro68000]

Fond memories of the TV being wheeled out for Geordie Racer!

[@mapesdhs597]

IT in my school was a mess (the head hated computers), but the TV got rolled out for English classes; we watched Polanski's Macbeth before diving into Shakespeare. :D

[@sq1rlsqu4d]

Part three and Chuckie Egg hasn't been mentioned yet? 8-o

[@tmacmc2984]

Mrs McCluskey lol. Brilliant stuff as usual RMC.

[@Bozukoviy]

*Be careful: broken english to come* ... I discoverd on YT just 2/3 years ago "bbc micro live" and "making the most of the micro" series and i have to say that it really did help me to understand how computers work "in the inside". These are fantastic shows that i like to re watch sometimes.

[@Zeem4]

Your English is absolutely fine!

[@Bozukoviy]

@@Zeem4 h ok, thanks.

[@chriswatson2407]

Bloody bloody brilliant. Couldn't believe it when you said there is a further episode!

[@RMCRetro]

Thanks Chris. An interview Steve Furber is now showing to Patrons and goes public on Monday and then in a couple of weeks we'll round it off by just using the system really. We haven't seen enough of it in action.

[@erlichbachman3330]

Great content as always, real BBC quality!

[@StreborKram]

Funny how the 4 year old video feels so retro. Love it. Love the less than perfect recording, the dreamy soundscape and the simple set. Should I be afraid of AI? A classic already.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

19:48 Never saw that series here in NZ, but I recognize a certain face from _Auf Wiedersehen, Pet_ ...

[@foreverhungry84]

i was at school from the late 80s and we had one of these on a trolley which was ceremoniously wheeled out on a friday. there was 2 learning games on massive floppy discs. it fired my interest in computers. later moving onto an Archimedes in the 90s. fond memories.

[@jamesgrimwood1285]

I'm a computer science teacher. I like to show my kids pictures of things like the BBC Micro, and explain how my primary school had one computer in it.

[@airingcupboard]

The sweet tones of the Radiophonic Workshop. Ahhh. The BBC in the 80s was pretty incredible.

[@colinr0380]

I always remember in my primary school in Cornwall in the mid 80s that we had a BBC Micro and one of those machines shaped like a turtle or tortoise that you connected to the computer. Then you put a large sheet of paper on the ground and a pen in the bottom of the 'turtle' and typed commands into the computer to make it move around and draw shapes! I'm afraid I do not remember much about the name of it, but it was really exciting as a kid to have the typed in commands have physical 'real world' actions!

[@JesusisJesus]

I had to write a game in LOGO in 1994, I chose to do mini putt putt golf, a game well suited to the language. My “mark” 99.9% So I ask teacher what was wrong with it? His answer “No software is perfect, Computers are inherently stupid.”

[@LeftoverBeefcake]

I already have enough reminders to know that I am aging, so I prefer my computers to look like how I remember them from back in the day. IMHO the yellowing just looks awful, especially when it's patchy, like when only a few keys on the keyboard are yellow.

[@grabham59]

Brilliant episode! Like you, my first experience of computing was with a BBC at Primary School. One thing to note was just how bloody robust these machines were - which lead to them getting used in some pretty harsh environments. As an example - an Internal Drainage Board I collaborated with were still using them to run some pumping stations in 2006!! They were never switched off so just kept doing the job!

[@Lorfarius]

Schools are completely different these days with one in every classroom. I've worked in secondary school IT since 2004 so seen all sorts of changes and enhancements. The biggest for my early working days was moving away from applications for everything (flash programs for games, education bits and bobs, Dreamweaver type stuff) to it all being based within a single browser. Don't want to sound like an old man (I'm only 40 :p ) but today's kids really have no idea how basic it all was back in the 80's and 90's. Computers have worked there way into every part of our lives in a good way and a lot is thanks to those early days of the BBC and Spectrum.

[@garrys9336]

Hi Neil. I found your experiences of using the BBC Micro at school in the 80s interesting as they sound vastly different to mine. I started primary school in 1988 and we had two BBC Micros. It seems that by that time, the BBC literacy programme had faded into memory as none of the teachers appeared to know how to use the Micros at all, so they sat unused for almost my entire seven years. We did have one 'lesson' on them in 1989/1990 using the turtle to draw patterns as shown in your video. Aside from that one lesson, they were never, ever used and certainly not incorporated into other lessons. And you pointed out in your video, it seems that schools and industry failed to capitalise on the momentum of the BBC schools project. One of my friend's parents occasionally helped out in the school and he was reasonably computer literate. I remember he showed us how to load a text-adventure game which I vaguely remember had something to do with castles and dragons. My primary school eventually replaced the Micros with DOS-based IBM-PCs around 1993/94 but, once again, the school had no staff who know how to use them and they too sat and gathered dust. It wasn't until 1996, now in secondary school, that I began to get proper computing tuition. Throughout all of this, my family owned ZX Spectrums and Amigas at home. My dad originally purchased them as games machines but eventually I learned how to use them for other things, such as BASIC programming, desktop publishing, art and more. I now have a successful career in IT which is much more due to the resource I had at home rather than anything I was taught in schools. I wonder if my experiences are typical for somebody of my age or whether my primary school was simply particularly bad at embracing the IT resources which were available to it.

[@cashawX10]

Great video ! You forget to mention the BBC Micro's influence in industry. In the 80's I remember walking round my Dad's work and seeing the Beeb controlling milling machines and lathes. We visited Jodrell Bank Observatory and the Beeb was controlling all their telescopes. Also mid-80's BBC TV would also find them supplying on-screen graphics for game shows. Don't forget the pre-broom cupboard Childrens BBC relied heavily on the Beeb's graphics to provide the animations between programmes. In the UK at the time the BBC Microcomputer was everywhere :-)

[@39Kohm]

I love the BBC micro, I grew up with them too, I remember having one. I can recall writing a program to click the tape relay to make it sound like (to me at least at the time) that is had a hard disk seeking. One day I'll venture back to the UK and bring one over here.

[@napalmhardcore]

I was born in 1983. I have vague recollections of the BBC computers but they weren't integrated into our lessons and I was never taught any coding. We had a couple of the BBC computers that sat outside the classrooms and the only thing I remember seeing run on them was a game where you could select different animals (I remember one was a monkey or gorilla) to traverse the level. I also remember there was an Amiga. (not sure which model, but I think it was a 1200) that some students got special permission to use (I think due to being part of an extracurricular computer club or something). My only memory of seeing that in operation was watching someone play Lemmings. I think it was around Christmas, so we got to do fun activities as opposed to school work. Computers didn't really have a part in my primary school education. We had IT classes in secondary school but it wasn't very useful as it was a case of the IT teacher reading instructions from a sheet of paper (double click on X folder, go to here, press this etc). I was just following instructions and never actually gained any insight. Despite having computers at home (an Atari 800XL and later an Amiga 500), all I ever learned to do was load games or in the case of the Amiga, I learned to make the computer say naughty words (tee hee hee) with the text to speech program. Even when my family got a Windows PC in the late '90s, I only really understood how to use it for basic tasks like searching the internet and playing games. It wasn't really until a few years later when I bought my own PC that I started learning more about it and how to troubleshoot problems etc. To this day I still can't code (though I've watched some introductory videos on it and don't think it's beyond me) and I'm really not comfortable doing things llike editing the registry simply because I don't understand enough about it. The way my friend who works in IT puts it: I know just enough to be dangerous. Luckily I'm aware of how little I know, so if I don't know what something does I'll leave it alone or research it first. Any competence in computers I have has been purely through my own curiosity and willingness to teach myself.

[@thegreatjonzini]

Bravo! 👏Amazing video! Wonderfully produced.