Acornsoft


Acornsoft was the software arm of Acorn Computers, and a major publisher of software for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron. As well as games, it also produced a large number of educational titles, extra computer languages and business and utility packages – these included word processor VIEW and the spreadsheet ViewSheet supplied on ROM and cartridge for the BBC Micro/Acorn Electron and included as standard in the BBC Master and Acorn Business Computer.
WWW Official Site

History

Acornsoft was formed in late 1980 by Acorn Computers directors Hermann Hauser and Chris Curry, and David Johnson-Davies, author of the first game for a UK personal computer and of the official Acorn Atom manual "Atomic Theory and Practice". David Johnson-Davies was managing director and in early 1981 was joined by Tim Dobson, Programmer and Chris Jordan, Publications Editor.
While some of their games were clones or remakes of popular arcade games, they also published a number of original titles such as Aviator, Elite, and Revs. Acornsoft also published text adventures by authors such as Peter Killworth, including Philosopher's Quest and Countdown to Doom.
As a result of the publication of a method to circumvent copy protection measures employed by Acornsoft titles, a High Court injunction against Computing Publications - publisher of Personal Computer World - was granted to Acorn Computers "requiring all copies of the January 1984 issue of PCW to be withdrawn from sale", with the article concerned being regarded as inciting readers to "duplicate computer programs". This injunction was subsequently lifted as a consequence of an out-of-court settlement between the parties involving a damages payment of £65,000 plus costs to Acorn "to meet Acorn's expenses in developing a new locking device". The article's author, Guy Kewney, and the magazine's editor, Jane Bird, argued that printing a software routine showing how to save Acornsoft cassette software to disk was a service to the magazine's readers. The cost of printing the magazine issue concerned was estimated at £100,000.
Acornsoft became a subsidiary within Acorn Computer Group, distinct from Acorn Computers who were responsible for the development of Acorn's microcomputer systems, but Acornsoft ceased to operate as a separate company upon the departure of David Johnson-Davies in January 1986. Past this date, Acorn Computers used the Acornsoft name on office software it released in the VIEW family for the BBC Master series. In 1986 Superior Software was granted a licence to publish some Acornsoft games and re-released many, individually and as compilations such as the Play It Again Sam and Acornsoft Hits series. By agreement, the Acornsoft name was also used on the packaging of some of the subsequent Superior games. Superior chose not to take on Acornsoft's text adventure games, most of which were released in updated versions by Topologika along with some sequels from the same authors.
In 1997, Acorn sought to revive the Acornsoft brand for new software releases, such as upgrades to RISC OS, programming tools, a new Web browser, multitasking movie playback, and Java for RISC OS. A stated objective was to demonstrate that a "wide range of innovative software at competitive prices" was available for RISC OS, with support also being potentially offered to third-party software producers. Acornsoft products themselves would be supported by marketing, including advertising, and the provision of press review samples.

Branding

Acornsoft titles extended their consistent branding to the software's loading screens.

Select titles

Acheton – A text adventureArcadians – A Galaxian cloneAviator – A Spitfire flight simulator. With aliens...Black Box & Gambit - 2 board game type games which were the winning entries of a 'design a game' competition on ITV's The Saturday Show. Black Box was a licensed version of the Waddingtons game of the same name developed by Ben Finn who would go on to co-write Sibelius. Gambit was created by the Oliver Twins and their first commercially released gameBouncer – A Q*Bert cloneBusiness Games – An educational packageCarousel – A Carnival cloneCastle of Riddles – A text adventureCountdown to Doom – A text adventure; first in a trilogy Crazy Tracer – An Amidar cloneCreative Graphics – A series of graphical demonstrations of the BBC Micro's visual capabilities, with user editable codeDrogna – Strategy game based on a section of the BBC TV game show The Adventure GameElite – A 3D space battle and trading gameFirebug – A platform and ladders gameFree Fall – Survival game set in an out of control space stationGateway to Karos – A text adventureGraphs and Charts – Graphical mathematical modellingHopper – A Frogger cloneJCB Digger – A scrolling 2D dig-em-upKingdom of Hamil – A text adventureLabyrinth – A 2D maze based shoot-em-upMagic Mushrooms – A platform and ladders game with built-in level editorMeteor Mission – A Lunar Rescue cloneMeteors – An Asteroids cloneMissile Base – A Missile Command cloneMonsters – A Space Panic clonePhilosopher's Quest – A text adventurePlanetoid – A Defender clone originally released as DefenderRevs – A Formula Three racing car simulationRocket Raid – A Scramble cloneSnapper – A Pac-Man cloneSphinx Adventure – A text adventureStarship Command – A 2D space battle gameSuper Invaders – A Space Invaders cloneVolcano – A game in which you rescue people from the other side of an active volcano with a helicopter

Acornsoft Games range

Including all arcade, text adventure and board games. All games were compatible with the BBC Micro Model B. Games followed by Model A & B were compatible with both machines. Games followed by Electron were also released separately for the Acorn Electron. Games are listed by their catalogue numbers which are roughly the order of release of the BBC versions.
  • G01 Philosopher's Quest
  • G02 Defender deleted for legal reasons and later re-released as Planetoid
  • G02 Aviator released with G26-G28 but re-used the deleted Defender's number
  • G03 Monsters
  • G04 Snapper
  • G05 Rocket Raid
  • G06 Arcade Action 4 games: Invaders, Breakout, Dodgems and Snake
  • G07 Sphinx Adventure
  • G08 Cube Master
  • G09 JCB Digger
  • G10 Chess
  • G11 Maze
  • G12 Sliding-Block Puzzles
  • G13 Meteors
  • G14 Arcadians
  • G15 Planetoid
  • G16 Super Invaders
  • G17 Castle of Riddles
  • G18 Missile Base
  • G19 Countdown to Doom
  • G20 Draughts & Reversi
  • G21 Snooker
  • G22 Starship Command
  • G23 Hopper
  • G24 Carousel
  • G25 Kingdom of Hamil
  • G26 Crazy Tracer
  • G27 Drogna
  • G28 Free Fall
  • G29 Meteor Mission
  • G30 Gateway to Karos
  • G31 Boxer
  • G32 Tetrapod
  • G33 Volcano
  • G34 Black Box & Gambit
  • G35 Bouncer
  • G36 The Seventh Star
  • G37 Acheton
  • G38 Elite
  • G39 Firebug
  • G40 Quondam
  • G41 Labyrinth
  • G42 Go
  • G43 Revs
  • G44 Revs 4 Tracks extra tracks for the main game
  • G45 Elite original BBC Micro 6502 Second Processor version
  • G46 Magic Mushrooms
  • G47 Elite enhanced incl. 6502 Second Processor and Master 128 versions
There are also a number of completed but unreleased games that have found their way into the public domain such as Crazy Balloon, Hellforce and Bandit that date from around 1983.

Acornsoft Education range

Acornsoft produced a wide range of educational titles aimed at many different age groups.
  • E01 Algebraic Manipulation
  • E02 Peeko-Computer
  • E03 Business Games 2 games: Stokmark and Telemark
  • E04 Tree of Knowledge
  • E05 Word Hunt
  • E06 Word Sequencing
  • E07 Sentence Sequencing
  • E08 Number Balance
  • E09 Missing Signs
  • E?? Speed and Light
  • E?? Density and Circuit
  • E12 Chemical Analysis
  • E13 Chemical Simulations
  • E14 Chemical Structures
  • E15 Jars
  • E16 Temperature Control Simulation
  • E17 The Examiner
  • E18 Spooky Manor
  • E19
  • E20
  • E21
  • E22 Talkback
  • E23 Workshop
  • E24 ABC
Acornsoft also published and distributed a range of educational software developed by ASK that were widely used in schools running BBC Micros. These included Podd, Squeeze and Cranky. These titles were part of the Acornsoft catalogue but used a different code. They ran on both the BBC Micro Model B and Acorn Electron.
The Ivan Berg Software range was also mainly educational but had its own distinct code. This included the 6 Grandmaster Quizzes, relationship aids "..I Do" Your Guide to a Happy Marriage and The Dating Game and GCE/CSE revision guides.
Acornsoft also distributed other ranges of educational programs developed by companies such as ICL, Good Housekeeping and Bourne but they are not considered part of the official catalogue.

Acornsoft Business range

Acornsoft produced a range of office software for home and business use.
  • B01 Desk Diary
  • B02 Forecast
  • B03 VIEW
  • B04 VIEW Printer Drivers
  • B05 Personal Money Management
  • B06 Database
  • B07 ViewSheet
  • B08 Invoicing
  • B09 Mailing
  • B10 Accounts Receivable
  • B11 Stock Control
  • B12 Order Processing
  • B13 Accounts Payable
  • B14 Purchasing
  • B15 Hi-View
  • B26 P-System
The series continues but mainly with add-on products for the VIEW word processor such as ViewIndex and ViewSpell as well as newer versions.
View Professional was a combined wordprocessor, spreadsheet and database similar to PipeDream on the Z88.
Although primarily a programming language suite, Acornsoft released its P-System product featuring UCSD Pascal and Fortran 77 compilers as part of its business range. Developed by TDI for Acornsoft, the product required a 6502 second processor and disc system, preferably with two drives. Despite the £299 price, various tools including an assembler and linker were omitted from the product, these being made available in a separate Advanced Development Toolkit from TDI.

Acornsoft Languages range

Acorn systems came with a version of the BBC BASIC programming language as standard but Acornsoft also produced a wide range of other languages that could be loaded in by cassette or disc or in some cases, supplied in ROM form.
  • L01 FORTH
  • L02 LISP
  • L03 BCPL
  • L04 Microtext
  • L05 6502 Development System
  • L06 Logo
  • L07 Turtle Graphics
  • L08 S-Pascal
  • L09 LISP Demonstrations
  • L10 BCPL Calculations Package
  • L11
  • L12 BCPL Stand Alone Generator
  • L13 FORTH – ROM version
  • L14 LISP – ROM version
  • L15
  • L16
  • L17 PROLOG Micro
  • L18 ISO-Pascal
  • L19 COMAL.
  • L20
  • L21
  • L22 BASIC Editor
  • L23 Termulator
  • L24 ISO-Pascal Stand Alone Generator
The relative performance of some of Acornsoft's languages was evaluated using a benchmark based on the Takeuchi function, Tak by former Acornsoft managing director, David Johnson-Davies, noting that "it is difficult to imagine a language that performs badly on Tak being much use for anything", illustrating a diversity amongst these language implementations in terms of readability, speed and generated code size. A follow-up article expanded the comparison to other language implementations such as Oxford Pascal, Z80 versions of BBC BASIC, Turbo Pascal and Small-C.

Acornsoft Graphics range and more

The graphics range was used to demonstrate the graphical power of the Acorn computers but only three titles were made available. The X?? code was then used for other types of software.
  • X01 Creative Graphics
  • X02 Graphs & Charts
  • X03 Picture Maker
  • X04 Shirley Conran's Magic Garden
  • X05 Collector's Catalogue
  • X06 Membership Manager
  • X07 One To Nine
  • X08 Hooked on Numbers
  • X09
  • X10 Complete Cocktail Maker
  • X11 Paul Daniels' Magic Show
  • X12 100 Programs for the BBC Micro
  • X13 Linkword French
  • X14 Linkword Italian
  • X15 Linkword Spanish
  • X16 Linkword German
  • X17 Watch Your Weight
  • X18 Me & My Micro
The range took on various themes including Creative Sound.