BBC Micro
The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a family of microcomputers developed and manufactured by Acorn Computers in the early 1980s as part of the BBC's Computer Literacy Project. Launched in December 1981, it was showcased across several educational BBC television programmes, such as The Computer Programme, Making the Most of the Micro and Computers in Control, and Micro Live. Created in response to the BBC's call for bids for a microcomputer to complement its broadcasts and printed material, Acorn secured the contract with its rapidly prototyped "Proton" system, which was subsequently renamed the BBC Micro.
Although it was announced towards the end of 1981, production issues initially delayed the fulfilment of many orders, causing deliveries to spill over into 1982. Nicknamed the "Beeb", it soon became a fixture in British schools, advancing the BBC's goal of improving computer literacy. Renowned for its strong build quality and extensive connectivity, including ports for peripherals, support for Econet networking, and the option of second processors via the Tube interface, the BBC Micro was offered in two main variants: the 16 KB Model A and the more popular 32 KB Model B. Although it was costlier than many other home computers of the era, it sold over 1.5 million units, boosted by the BBC's brand recognition and the machine's adaptability.
The BBC Micro's impact on education in the United Kingdom was notable, with most schools in Britain acquiring at least one unit, exposing a generation of pupils to computing fundamentals. Central to this was its built-in BBC BASIC programming language, known for its robust feature set and accessible syntax. As a home system, the BBC also fostered a community of enthusiasts who benefited from its flexible architecture, which supported everything from disk interfaces to speech synthesis. Through these expansions and its broader software library, the BBC Micro had a major impact in the development of the UK's home-grown software industry. Acorn's engineers used the BBC Micro as both a development platform and a reference design to simulate their pioneering ARM architecture, now one of the most widely deployed CPU designs worldwide. This work influenced the rapid evolution of RISC-based processing in mobile devices, embedded systems, and beyond, making the BBC Micro an important stepping stone in computing.
The BBC Micro had multiple display modes, including a Teletext-based Mode 7 that used minimal memory, and came with a full-travel keyboard and ten user-configurable function keys. Hardware interfaces were catered for with standard analogue inputs, a serial and parallel port, and a cassette interface that followed the CUTS variation of the Kansas City standard. In total, nine BBC-branded microcomputer models were released, although the term "BBC Micro" generally refers to the first six versions. Later BBC models are typically classed as part of Acorn's Archimedes line.
History
During the early 1980s, the BBC started what became known as the BBC Computer Literacy Project. The project was initiated partly in response to an ITV documentary series The Mighty Micro, in which Christopher Evans of the UK's National Physical Laboratory predicted the coming microcomputer revolution and its effect on the economy, industry, and lifestyle of the United Kingdom.The BBC Computer Literacy Project had been conceived by the BBC's Continuing Education Television department. With funding from the Manpower Services Commission, the department undertook research which culminated in the publication of the Microelectronics report in 1979, which was issued to all United Kingdom MPs. The underlying philosophy from the report was that people should learn how to use and control computers, rather than feel dominated by them.
The BBC wanted to base its project on a microcomputer capable of performing various tasks which they could then demonstrate in the TV series The Computer Programme. The list of topics included programming, graphics, sound and music, teletext, controlling external hardware, and artificial intelligence. It developed an ambitious specification for a BBC computer, and discussed the project with several companies including Acorn Computers, Sinclair Research, Newbury Laboratories, Tangerine Computer Systems, and Dragon Data.
The introduction of a specific microcomputer to a more general computer literacy initiative was a topic of controversy, however, with criticism aimed at the BBC for promoting a specific commercial product and for going beyond the "traditional BBC pattern" of promoting existing information networks of training and education providers. Accusations were even levelled at the Department of Industry for making the BBC "an arm of Government industrial policy" and using the Computer Literacy Project as a way of "funding industry through the back door", obscuring public financial support on behalf of a government that was ostensibly opposed to subsidising industry.
The Acorn team had already been working on a successor to their existing Atom microcomputer. Known as the Proton, it included better graphics and a faster 2 MHz MOS Technology 6502 central processing unit. The machine was only at the design stage at the time, and the Acorn team, including Steve Furber and Sophie Wilson, had one week to build a working prototype from the sketched designs. The team worked through the night to get a working Proton together to show the BBC. Although the BBC expected a computer with the Zilog Z80 CPU and CP/M operating system, not the Proton's 6502 CPU and proprietary operating system, the Proton was the only machine to fulfil the BBC's specification, actually exceeding it in nearly every parameter.
Based on the Proton prototype, the BBC signed a contract with Acorn as early as February 1981; by June the BBC Micro's specifications and pricing were decided. As a concession to the BBC's expectation of "industry standard" compatibility with CP/M, apparently under the direction of John Coll, the Tube interface was incorporated into the design, enabling a Z80 second processor to be added. A new contract between Acorn and BBC Enterprises was agreed in 1984 for another four-year term, with other manufacturers having tendered for the deal. An Acorn representative admitted that the BBC Model B would not be competitive throughout the term of the renewed contract, and that a successor would emerge.
The OS ROM v1.0 contains the following ASCII credits string :
1981 Acorn Computers Ltd.Thanks are due to the following contributors to the development of the BBC Computer :- David Allen,Bob Austin,Ram Banerjee,Paul Bond,Allen Boothroyd,Cambridge,Cleartone,John Coll,John Cox,Andy Cripps,Chris Curry,6502 designers,Jeremy Dion,Tim Dobson,Joe Dunn,Paul Farrell,Ferranti,Steve Furber,Jon Gibbons,Andrew Gordon,Lawrence Hardwick,Dylan Harris,Hermann Hauser,Hitachi,Andy Hopper,ICL,Martin Jackson,Brian Jones,Chris Jordan,David King,David Kitson,Paul Kriwaczek,Computer Laboratory,Peter Miller,Arthur Norman,Glyn Phillips,Mike Prees,John Radcliffe,Wilberforce Road,Peter Robinson,Richard Russell,Kim Spence-Jones,Graham Tebby,Jon Thackray,Chris Turner,Adrian Warner,Roger Wilson,Alan Wright.Additionally, the last bytes of the BASIC read-only memory include the word "Roger", which is a reference to Sophie Wilson whose name at the time was Roger Wilson.
Market impact
The machine was released as the BBC Microcomputer on 1 December 1981, although production problems pushed delivery of the majority of the initial run into 1982. Nicknamed "the Beeb", it was popular in the UK, especially in the educational market; in 1985 about 80% of British schools had a BBC microcomputer.Byte called the BBC Micro Model B "a no-compromise computer that has many uses beyond self-instruction in computer technology". It called the Tube interface "the most innovative feature" of the computer, and concluded that "although some other British microcomputers offer more features for a given price, none of them surpass the BBC... in terms of versatility and expansion capability". As with Sinclair Research's ZX Spectrum and Commodore International's Commodore 64, both released the next year, in 1982, demand greatly exceeded supply. For some months, there were long delays before customers received the machines they had ordered.
Export initiatives
Efforts were made to market the machine in the United States and West Germany. Acorn's strategy in the US focused on the education market, worth a reported, by offering the BBC Micro in an upgraded form of the Model B with an expanded ROM, speech synthesis hardware, and built-in Econet interface for a price of $995, complementing this with the provision of software and materials designed to support teaching and to encourage adoption by teachers "fearful" of computers or skeptical of the role of computers in the curriculum.By October 1983, the US operation reported that American schools had placed orders with it totalling. In one deployment in Lowell, Massachusetts valued at $177,000, 138 BBC Micros were installed in eight of the 27 schools in the city, with the computer's networking capabilities, educational credentials, and the availability of software with "high education quality" accompanied by "useful lesson plans and workbooks" all given as reasons for selecting Acorn's machine in preference to the competition from IBM, Apple, and Commodore. Another deployment in Phoenix, Arizona valued at $174,697 saw 175 BBC Micros installed, with the local Acorn dealer predicting sales worth in the next two years, of which around 85 to 90 percent would be made into education, the remainder going to the small business market. In early 1984, Acorn claimed a US network of more than 1,000 dealers, also reporting "over worth of education orders for the BBC Micro system" for which 200 educational titles were being offered.
In October 1984, while preparing a major expansion of its US dealer network, Acorn claimed sales of 85 per cent of the computers in British schools, and delivery of 40,000 machines per month. That December, Acorn stated its intention to become the market leader in US educational computing. The New York Times considered the inclusion of local area networking to be of prime importance to teachers. The operation resulted in advertisements by at least one dealer in Interface Age magazine, but ultimately the attempt failed.
The success of the machine in the UK was due largely to its acceptance as an "educational" computer – UK schools used BBC Micros to teach computer literacy, information technology skills. Acorn became more known for its computer than for its other products. Some Commonwealth countries, including India, started their own computer literacy programmes around 1984. Intending to avoid "re-inventing the wheel", such efforts adopted the BBC Micro in order to take immediate advantage of the extensive range of software already developed under the United Kingdom's own literacy initiative, proposing that software tailored for local requirements would ultimately also be developed. A clone of the BBC Micro was produced by Semiconductor Complex Limited and named the SCL Unicorn. Another Indian computer manufacturer, Hope Computers Pvt Ltd, made a BBC Micro clone called the Dolphin. Unlike the original BBC Micro, the Dolphin featured blue function keys.
Production agreements were made with both SCL in India and distributor Harry Mazal in Mexico for the assembly of BBC Micro units from kits of parts, leading to full-scale manufacturing, with SCL also planning to fabricate the 6502 CPU under licence from Rockwell. According to reporting from early 1985, "several thousand Beebs a month" were being produced in India. Meanwhile, the eventual production arrangement in Mexico involved local manufacturer Datum, aiming to assemble 2000 units per month by May 1985, with the initial assembly intended to lead to the manufacture of all aspects of the machines apart from Acorn's proprietary ULA components. Such machines were intended for the Mexican and South American markets, potentially also appealing to those south-western states of the US having large Spanish-speaking populations. Ultimately, upon Acorn's withdrawal from the US in 1986, Datum would continue manufacturing at a level of 7000 to 8000 Spanish-language machines per year for the North and South American markets.