glitchsoc - Link to source
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In retrospect, it's completely incredible that apparently not for a moment did the team behind the 1981 UK Computer Literacy Project consider a non-British-built computer as the project's flagship.

That's not a criticism; it's an acknowledgment of how vibrant the UK computer manufacture scene was at the time. The BBC asked seven different British computer manufacturers to make a pitch.

In the context of the current talk about data sovereignty and looming technofascism, the choice to wind down the British computer industry (in the name of efficiency?) seems shortsighted.

Alison Gazzard, "Now the Chips Are Down", MIT Press Platform Studies series, 2016.

#history #retrocomputing #industry #sovreignty

#history #retrocomputing #industry #sovreignty

reshared this

in reply to Paolo Amoroso

glitchsoc - Link to source

Amin Girasol

@amoroso yes! You sent me off to Wikipedia to find and share the page which is the list of European computer manufacturers - only to discover there's no such page!

Off the top of my head, 1950s to 1990s, European minis and mainframes:

  • UK: Lyons, Elliot, Ferranti, ICL...
  • France: Bull...
  • Germany: Zuse, Siemens, Robotron...
  • Italy: Olivetti...
  • Bulgaria: IZOT series...

1970s to 1990s European minicomputers:

  • France: Thomson...
  • UK: Too many to list!
  • East Germany: Robotron
  • West Germany: Don't mention the war.
  • Finland: MikroMikko
  • ...

Additions welcome! Please boost!

@Paolo Amoroso
in reply to Amin Girasol

glitchsoc - Link to source

Amin Girasol

Reading a bit more, I find this unsourced claim on Wikipedia:

BBC Engineering was instructed to attempt to draw up an objective specification for a machine that the [computer literacy project] could be tailored to, and under pressure from the [Department of Trade and Industry], they wanted to choose a UK-built system. The market provided few alternatives, so the BBC specification was closely written around the NewBrain specification with the expectation they would bid on the project.


Instructed by whom? The DTI? BBC management? The article is unclear on that.

If anyone has better information, let me know!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grundy_N…

Grundy NewBrain - Wikipedia

Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)
in reply to Amin Girasol

mastodon - Link to source

EdS

There's an oral history interview with Chris Curry, with a transcript, where you'll find mention of the Newbrain angle for the BBC Microcomputer.

stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopi…

@fluidlogic

Interesting YouTube videos - Page 18

Have a look at the latest videos posted on Youtube with keywords 'Sophie Wilson ARM' :
Zarchos (stardot.org.uk)
@Amin Girasol
in reply to EdS

glitchsoc - Link to source

Amin Girasol

@EdS oh great, thanks. The evidence is strong that the NewBrain was a contender for the BBC computer literacy project - that's not in question - what I'm interested to know more about was the degree to which the BBC team were 'coerced' or 'advised' to choose a British built computer. Alison Gazzard doesn't address that, which is a pity.

I know @floppydays recently did an exhaustive series of interviews with John Grant, Steve O’Hara-Smith and Gerald McMullon "...concerning their involvement with the NewBrain back in the day" and emulator author Chris Espoinidis.

floppydays.libsyn.com/size/10/…

I'm not aware that the definitive history of the Grundy NewBrain has been written.

(I've always had a soft spot for the Grundy NewBrain because even back when it was new, the machine's name sounded cartoonish, like something the Monty Python team would've dreamed up if they'd ever done a sketch about microcomputers. My apologies to any Grundy NewBrain fans I may have insulted.)

Floppy Days Vintage Computing Podcast

Vintage computing podcast for all types of home computers from the late 70's through the 80's. Covers the Apple II, Commodore PET, and TRS-80 Model I to the Commodore 64, Atari 800, TI-99, Tandy CoCo, and a whole lot more! Covers the computers in g…
floppydays.libsyn.com
@Floppy Days-Randy Kindig @EdS
This entry was edited (Saturday, 30 May 2026, 20:40)
in reply to Amin Girasol

mastodon - Link to source

EdS

Ah yes, sorry, I see you were asking about the process within the BBC.

Perhaps again peripheral to that, Richard Russell posted some recollections and scans of documents from a now-deleted account in a good thread on Stardot:
stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopi…

> Forty years ago today, on 12th February 1981, Acorn was chosen to supply the BBC Microcomputer. By then the competition had been whittled down to Newbury, Tangerine and (late entrant) Commodore, with Nascom, Sinclair and Transam having been eliminated two weeks earlier. The rest is history...

Richard was a BBC employee, and involved heavily in the specification of BBC Basic. See his own history at
bbceng.info/Designs/designs_re…

@fluidlogic @floppydays

RTR's career in Designs Department

www.bbceng.info
@Floppy Days-Randy Kindig @Amin Girasol
in reply to EdS

glitchsoc - Link to source

Amin Girasol

@EdS @floppydays ah yes, that document is referenced in Gazzard.

There's not a word in there indicating that foreign-owned manufacturers are disqualified, but then this is the brief that was sent to selected British manufacturers.

I'd love to know more about how the BBC team selected the shortlist.

@Floppy Days-Randy Kindig @EdS
in reply to Amin Girasol

mastodon - Link to source

EdS

An excellent document is the 78 page
The legacy of the BBC Micro
nesta.org.uk/report/the-legacy…

wherein we read about the process, albeit without specific citations:
> The BBC team approached seven companies (Acorn, Tangerine, Newbury, Research Machines, Sinclair, Transam, and Nascom) to submit bids to build the BBC Micro. These companies were specially selected because of fears that an open tender would have resulted in an overwhelming number of bids. It was felt that many of these would have been from British companies with ‘no reliable track-record’, or from Japanese and American companies who threatened to outcompete British firms. There was a definite emphasis on this being a British microcomputer, and the companies approached were already manufacturing or developing microcomputers at a similar specification and price to the one the BBC wanted.

@fluidlogic @floppydays

The legacy of BBC Micro

This paper explores the legacy of the Computer Literacy Project, and recommends ways of engaging people in the creative uses of computing.
nesta
@Floppy Days-Randy Kindig @Amin Girasol
in reply to EdS

glitchsoc - Link to source

Amin Girasol

@EdS @floppydays Aha! Commodore is specifically called out as a late entrant!

Thank you for these links. There's so much amazing history buried in forum posts, and who knows what we've lost to the heedless maw of Fecebook. The fragility of this information is a real concern. I think most enthusiast forums are one database server crash away from oblivion.

@Floppy Days-Randy Kindig @EdS
in reply to Amin Girasol

friendica (DFRN) - Link to source

Jamie

In the early 1980s I was given a BBC computer to test. A friend of mine at the BBC just gave it to me to see how I got on with it. No instruction, just a computer. A while later Elite came out and that was it, I became full geek. I wrote a couple of programmes in BASIC and then went straight to machine code. That BBC computer was incredible. It took my friend years to get it back.
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