Stories

Name: Stories
Brand: Michael Nurney
Price: 42.75 AUD

Home Computing in 1980s Britain

By: Michael Nurney

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Paperback | 10 August 2025

At a Glance

Paperback
358 Pages

Edition Type
LTE

Dimensions(cm)
22.86 x 15.24 x 1.88

Paperback

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Join me on a trip down memory lane as we look at the highs and lows of the UK computer scene. With giants like Atari, Commodore, and Texas Instruments taking on our tiny British companies. Could Sinclair and Acorn take on the American muscle of Commodore? Well, for a considerable amount of time, they did, but why did the multi-million-selling Spectrum disappear? Why did the government-endorsed BBC Microcomputer fail to sell into most UK homes?

Why did the Acorn Electron fail? Given the might of Commodore and Atari, did the Dragon 32 or Oric Atmos ever stand a chance? With millions of pounds on the line, can they even survive the year? Late releases, missed deadlines, and financial disasters all await our fledgling companies. Can the strange 8/16-bit hybrid Ti99/4 beat the Commodore VIC-20? Is the Oric 1 better than a Spectrum 48k? We look at a year-by-year history of the 1980s and the computers and companies selling here in the UK.

What happened to the global dominance of UK computers... Amstrad managed to capture some of the European markets, along with Sinclair and Acorn. Ultimately, Commodore International would dominate the home computer scene, while Atari would briefly control the console market until the Japanese arrived, but what happened to MGT, Tangerine, Lynx, and Dragon Data? What became of Amstrad or the Enterprise64? The UK home computer (8-bit) scene is covered from 1980 until 1988.

Industry Reviews

A superb read for anyone interested in the history of UK computing and retro computing in general. - Jason Bradbury (UK TV's Channel 5's Gadget Show).

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