The Computers That Made Britain

I’m still fascinated by the computers of the eighties. Without well known standards, every machine was different, not only from those of other manufacturers but also older machines from the same company. As as user it was terrible. Back the wrong horse and you’d be stuck with a working computer with no software and no one else to share your disappointment with.

But looking back, there’s a huge diversity of ideas all leaping onto the market in just a few years. Naturally, some of those ideas were terrible. Many machines were rushed and buggy, precisely because there was so much competition. Going on sale at the right time could make or break a machine.

Tim Danton’s “The Computers That Made Britain” is the story of a few of those machines.

He covers all the obvious ones, like the Spectrum and the BBC Micro, and others that I’ve not seen the stories of before, like the PCW8256.

While it’s called “The Computers That Made Britain” rather than “Computers that were made in Britain,” I would argue with some entries. The Apple II is certainly an important computer but, as noted in the book, they didn’t sell well in the UK. Our school literally had one, and I think that’s the only one I’ve ever seen “in the wild.” Sales obviously isn’t the only criterion, but the presence of these machines presumably pushed out the New Brain and the Cambridge Z88 (among others). Since this book is about the computers than made Britain, I would have liked to see more about them and less about the already well documented American machines like the Apples and IBMs.

The chapters are largely standalone, meaning you don’t need to read them in order. I read about the machines I’ve owned first, before completing a second pass on the remaining ones. They’re invariably well researched, including interviews with the protagonists. Some machines get more love than others, though. Talking about the Spectrum, it finishes with a detailed look at all the subsequent machines, right up to the Spectrum Next, though curiously missing the SAM Coupe. But the Archimedes gets nothing, even though there was a range of machines. Did they run out of time or was there a page count?

But those are minor complaints for an otherwise well put together book. Recommended.

It’s published by the company that makes Raspberry Pis, which you could argue is the spiritual successor to the Sinclair and Acorn machine. You can download the book for free, but you should buy it! The above link is for Amazon, but if you’re near Cambridge you should pop into the Raspberry Pi store and pick up your copy there instead.

If this is your kind of book, I would also recommend “Digital Retro” and “Home Computers: 100 Icons that defined a digital generation,” both of which are more photography books than stories.