BBC Micro

In the early 80s, the British government started the Computer Literacy Project, intended to introduce computer to the public and bootstrap the burgeoning IT industry. Part of this involved The Computer Programme, a TV series designed to introduce people to computers.

BBC Engineering had already decided the machine that would be used in this TV series was the NewBrain, an innovative design initially conceived at Sinclair Radionics, but now under development by Newbury. However, the series was due to air in Autumn 1981, and Newbury were nowhere near ready. The launch of the series was pushed back to Spring 1982; meanwhile Clive Sinclair and Chris Curry (of Acorn) were now aware of the project and demanded they be allowed to bid. Sinclair’s ZX81 was nowhere near meeting the BBC’s specification, being far too simplistic. Acorn’s design was much closer to what the BBC had in mind, so Acorn won the contract.

Acorn's Proton, now dubbed the BBC Micro, became the defining machine of computing in British schools throughout the 1980s. Robust, beautifully documented and designed from the ground up to teach, it was the computer a whole generation first met in the classroom.

Its version of BASIC was widely admired, its array of ports and expansions made it endlessly adaptable, and its sheer dependability endeared it to teachers and serious hobbyists alike. If you learned to program in a British school in the 80s, the odds are very good that you did it on a Beeb.

Its influence runs deeper than nostalgia. The team behind it went on to design the ARM processor, the architecture that now sits inside almost every smartphone on the planet. Few classroom computers can claim a legacy quite so vast, which makes the unassuming BBC Micro one of the most quietly important machines ever built.