<![CDATA[In retrospect, it's completely incredible that apparently not for a moment did the team behind the 1981 UK Computer Literacy Project consider a non-British-built computer as the project's flagship.]]>In retrospect, it's completely incredible that apparently not for a moment did the team behind the 1981 UK Computer Literacy Project consider a non-British-built computer as the project's flagship.

That's not a criticism; it's an acknowledgment of how vibrant the UK computer manufacture scene was at the time. The BBC asked seven different British computer manufacturers to make a pitch.

In the context of the current talk about data sovereignty and looming technofascism, the choice to wind down the British computer industry (in the name of efficiency?) seems shortsighted.

Alison Gazzard, "Now the Chips Are Down", MIT Press Platform Studies series, 2016.

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]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/topic/cfa2bf30-9b7f-4088-8977-b866d1950b0e/in-retrospect-it-s-completely-incredible-that-apparently-not-for-a-moment-did-the-team-behind-the-1981-uk-computer-literacy-project-consider-a-non-british-built-computer-as-the-project-s-flagship.RSS for NodeFri, 05 Jun 2026 01:19:37 GMTSat, 30 May 2026 19:14:45 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to In retrospect, it's completely incredible that apparently not for a moment did the team behind the 1981 UK Computer Literacy Project consider a non-British-built computer as the project's flagship. on Sat, 30 May 2026 21:34:11 GMT]]>@fluidlogic The naming amuses me now that I am reading this. At that time computers were huge but the BBC by today's standard is far from micro. I have several pi's, couple of NVidia's and a couple of Mac's and they are all bigger.]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://friendica.hubup.pro/objects/174591b4-796a-1b57-d3aa-900436543267https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://friendica.hubup.pro/objects/174591b4-796a-1b57-d3aa-900436543267Sat, 30 May 2026 21:34:11 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to In retrospect, it's completely incredible that apparently not for a moment did the team behind the 1981 UK Computer Literacy Project consider a non-British-built computer as the project's flagship. on Sat, 30 May 2026 21:30:19 GMT]]>@fluidlogic In the early 1980s I was given a BBC computer to test. A friend of mine at the BBC just gave it to me to see how I got on with it. No instruction, just a computer. A while later Elite came out and that was it, I became full geek. I wrote a couple of programmes in BASIC and then went straight to machine code. That BBC computer was incredible. It took my friend years to get it back.]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://friendica.hubup.pro/objects/174591b4-106a-1b56-eb34-f01757070092https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://friendica.hubup.pro/objects/174591b4-106a-1b56-eb34-f01757070092Sat, 30 May 2026 21:30:19 GMT