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Micro Men is coming to the BBC
PART OF THE BEEB'S Electric Revolution Season, Micro Men takes a sideways look at the battle between the men behind two of Britain's most influential computers, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and the BBC Micro.
The 90-minute comedy docudrama (we just made that term up), which is due to hit our screens on October 8th, stars comedy stalwarts Martin Freeman (The Office, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) as Chris Curry, the man behind the BBC-backed box, and Alexander Armstrong (Armstrong and Miller, the Pimms ads) as Clive Sinclair, the speccied ginger geek who practically invented home computing as far as anyone who grew up in the eighties is concerned.
With two of the UK's finest comedy actors in the leading roles, we can only assume that the programme won't take itself entirely seriously, as Sinclair on his own is eccentric enough to keep most audiences giggling for an hour or so.
The drama includes lots of antique clips from the era that fashion forgot including reports from home-made jumper-wearing kiddie news provider John Craven in his position as anchorman for Newsround.
Written by Tony Saint, whose credits also include episodes of Whistleblower, and Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley, Micro Men promises to be a nostalgic and affectionate retelling of a fascinating story about two visionaries who ultimately shaped the way we use computers today, despite being told by all and sundry that no one would ever want such a thing in their home. µ
L'Inq
BBC
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Yeah pretty much in every UK school from around 1984 onwards.
The few 380Z's were the forerunners. We had one left collecting dust in the corner by the time I left in 1987. The rest of the computer studies classroom was made up of iirc about 4 BBC Masters, 4 BBC B's and 4 Electrons.
My high school was nothing special.
I've never seen a BBC Micro in any school or college I attended, a friend had one. We were forced to use Research Machines 380Z, followed a year later with the colour 480Z. Also I don't recall PC compatibles entering the home in vast waves until the demise of the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga, and even then I had a SNES before my first overpriced PC complete with 3dfx support graphics card... Memories...
..was the C64 and the Spectrum during the 80's.
It was fun and I dont remember any rabid fanboyism either. We respected the pros and cons of both machines.
The Beebs were all in the schools however, so that made them uncool and the fact they cost a fortune. One of my mates had an Electron...oh dear.
Certainly though before the C64 appeared, the main rivals were the Spectrum and BBC A/B. The Vic20/Oric/Dragon/Atari etc. had fallen away.
Both machines touched by genius in places and complete twits in others.
Combine the best elements of both and you would have had a truly decent micro.
rkl: "You'd have thought Sinclair vs. Sugar was a more obvious contest really."
Yes, but five minutes isn't long enough for a docudrama: "Not interested in computers any more, Sir Clive? How about I buy your company?"
wafer drive: "from what i can remember, the 8-bit computer duel was between the spectrum and commodore 64. the bbc micro was massively overpriced and had a paltry 32k mem"
Sure, the C64 was popular and had more memory, but it wasn't in every school in the country.
"but then this programme is made by the bbc so they have the right to redesign history and influence people's opinions"
Sheesh: the Beeb commissioned the damn thing, made programmes (of the TV kind) for it, and there was a bunch of additional kit for it - a whole industry, including the Domesday stuff. (Meanwhile, the C64's pantheon of hardware amounted to joysticks and a mediocre disk drive which probably sold poorly in the UK - it's only now that people are really doing interesting add-ons for the C64 like Ethernet cards.)
In addition, Sinclair and Curry were business partners who parted company and became rivals. How interesting would it be to have a programme which is effectively a monologue by Sinclair where he wonders what his competitors in the States are up to at Commodore?
As others have pointed out, Acorn spawned ARM. Commodore, meanwhile, fragmented as the main players went off and made niche kit while the brand was hawked round a bunch of third-tier vendors. So it isn't like playground arguments from the 1980s get to define cultural significance after all.
from what i can remember, the 8-bit computer duel was between the spectrum and commodore 64. the bbc micro was massively overpriced and had a paltry 32k mem
but then this programme is made by the bbc so they have the right to redesign history and influence people's opinions
p.s. isnt it ironic that the bbc computer mirrors the tv corporation - overpriced and underperforming! haha
Sadly they have retitled this. It was originally going to be called Syntax Era, which, quite frankly, is pure genius.
Win!
(C) 1982 Sinclair Research Ltd.
('nuff said!)
It does seem a little weird to have Clive Sinclair vs. Chris Curry in a drama-doc since the former was *very* well known in the 80's and the latter had nowhere near the profile of Sir Clive. You'd have thought Sinclair vs. Sugar was a more obvious contest really.
As for who won the 80's "micro war" in the UK, it was clearly Sinclair, but not for any technical reasons (almost everything technical about all of Sinclair's machines was rubbish compared to Acorn's) - it was simply a price war. Acorn always priced their machines too high and didn't do any decent advertising either (they assumed that riding on the coat-tails of the BBC name was good enough).
Once enough people had bought the cheaper Sinclair machines, the software publishers wrote for the most popular platform (Sinclair) and the virtuous self-feeding circle was complete (yes, Microsoft Windows has a similar virtuous circle). With the Spectrum in particular, publishers had to be extremely clever to code around horrible hardware limitations and there had to be very good gameplay too - the software houses that got it right made millions in a short period, but it all eventually fizzled out of course as the PC slowly started to take a grip in the late 80's and early 90's.
I still think that the BBC Micro was the world's best 8-bit microcomputer (even if it was one of the most expensive) - fast for its time, good keyboard, sound and excellent OS and BASIC (absolutely none of which was true of the Spectrum). It ran rings around all the UK and US 8-bit micros of the time (Apple II, TRS-80, Spectrum etc.).
It's a shame Acorn lost their way by taking too long to introduce the ARM-based Archimedes range (which for about a year was the best 32-bit home PC too!) and, yes, overpricing the Archimedes too. Now very few people remember the Acorn brand...it only really properly lives on with ARM, which is all over the place now (mobiles, netbooks and even as a 2nd CPU in Dell laptops now!).
Wow - you were a true geek. No one but a home computer fanatic would have been wearing flairs in 1983!
I paid £175.00 for my Spectrum ZX in 1983 from WHSmiths.
I will keep an eye out, and get my old jumpers and flairs out for this programme.
BBCA
Oh come on nanny we never get to do nuftin!
The production company for this drama raided the PCW archives for old ads, copies of the magazine for props and other info just before PCW was closed. Hopefully we'll get a credit!