Retro Computers

Micro Men will be repeated on the 22/05/10 at 10:30 on BBC Four. All computer hardware and most props were supplied by The Centre for Computing History who are a computer museum based in Haverhill, Suffolk. Jason Fitzpatrick, the curator of the museum played a small part in the film as David Johnson David. See if you can see him dancing in the background!

The BBC website says the following about the show…

Affectionately comic drama about the British home computer boom of the early 1980s.

Legendary inventor Clive Sinclair battles it out with ex-employee Chris Curry, founder of Acorn Computers, for dominance in the fledgling market.

The rivalry comes to a head when the BBC announce their Computer Literacy Project, with the stated aim of putting a micro in every school in Britain. When Acorn wins the contract, Sinclair is furious, and determines to outsell the BBC Micro with his ZX Spectrum computer.

Home computing arrives in Britain in a big way, but is the country big enough for both men?

If you missed the program, you can catch it on the BBC iPlayer.

As I dont currenly have time to write my own review of Micro Men, he is abstract and link to the drobe.co.uk article.

Ahead of tonight’s Micro Men programme, which charts the rivalry between Sir Clive Sinclair and Acorn Computers in the early 1980s, drobe.co.uk spoke to the film’s producer, Andrea Cornwell, to find out more about the show – and now you can read our review of the film

You can read the rest of the article here.

The next episode of “Electric Dreams” will be on BBC Four tonight at 9pm. You can read more about the show on the BBC Four website.

A family and their home are stripped of all their modern technology to live a life of decades past.

The family must live through the digital wilderness of the 1980s at a rate of a year per day, starting in 1980. They have their very own technical support team who source and supply them with the vintage technology that would have been available to British households during the decade, including iconic technology such as the Walkman, Game and Watch and the CD player.

For a modern family it is a decade of challenges. In 1980 they attempt to cook a roast dinner in a microwave oven, as consumers of the time were encouraged to do. They are faced with a bewildering choice of home computers in 1982 and the arduous task of finding a rental shop that still supplies films on video cassette for their newly-arrived VHS player.

Dad takes a spin in the most famous technological flop of the decade, the Sinclair C5, but the family do experience an 80s success story when New Wave icons Ultravox pay a surprise visit to demonstrate the synthesiser technology which soundtracked the era.

Just watched Gameswipe – what a cool program! Some class games were shown. #gameswipe is even a trending topic on twitter!

If you missed the program, you can now watch it on the BBC iPlayer. (UK Only)

Some of the computers in the show were supplied by The Centre for Computing history. Make sure you check out their website and support this museum.

Electric Dreams

BBC Four is giving viewers a unique insight into how developments in technology have shaped our lives over the past forty years in Electric Dreams, a new three-part series charting the rise of today’s globally-linked, instantly-gratified digital culture.

The series will see the world of one ordinary British family turned upside-down as their home is “renovated” to the standard of a typical house in 1970 – the dawn of the digital age – and then fast-forwarded at the rate of a day per year through the technological revolution of the 70s, 80s and 90s. The programmes will reveal the huge transformation that technological change has wrought on British family life over the past 40 years. It remains to be seen how the children will cope when they swap Facebook and Wii for black and white television and vinyl records.

Independent production company Wall to Wall has been commissioned jointly by The Open University and the BBC to make the series.

Dr Ian Johnston, the Open University academic advisor to the series, said: “We are all aware of how technologically based and dependent life is today, but perhaps we have become too accustomed to the pace of change. This project provides a fascinating opportunity to rewind the clock, look at the past forty years again and take stock of where we are and how we got here – and whether all the advances have been beneficial.”

Electric Dreams will form part of the season IT And Us, to be aired later this year on BBC FOUR.

This article was taken from The Centre of Computing History. More info can also be found on the Open University website, or on the BBCs Electric Dreams website. More information and phots can also be found on Gia’s website.