1984: Cutting-Edge PERSONAL COMPUTER Tech | Micro Live | Retro Tech | BBC Archive

Leslie Judd and computer journalist Chris Palmer take a look around the Personal Computer World Show, the annual computer consumer and trade fair held at the Olympia London.

On their travels they investigate the British-made Apricot Portable, which boasts arguably the largest LCD display on the market, and a rather nifty infra-red keyboard and mouse. They also look at the Touchmaster Graphics Tablet, which - with its touch-sensitive interface - they feel could be a great introduction to computing for children.

Over on the Apple stand they try out a "visual database" on the new Apple Macintosh 512k. For budding musicians, the Commodore Music Maker is an ingeniously simple way to turn your Commodore 64 into a musical keyboard. Finally, they stop off at a booth where a guard is deployed to keep an eye on the £25,000 cash prize on offer for the first person to solve Ian Livingstone's new puzzle game for the Commodore and Spectrum, Eureka!.

Clip taken from Micro Live, originally broadcast on BBC Two, Saturday 27 October, 1984.

You have now entered the BBC Archive, a time machine that will transport you back to the golden age of TV to educate, entertain and enlighten you with classic clips from the BBC vaults.

[gwheregwhizz]

The days when being on the spectrum meant something else.

[secretagentbloke]

“And we hope in 40 years time we will have handheld computers where strangers can interact and argue with each others opinions” 😂

[PeowPeowPeowLasers]

I was at that show, with my dad and sister. We went each year. In the 1985 show I bought Skyfox for the 64, on disc.

[channel]

Those 80's micro's were sheer beauty. We're living the dream of computing, right now. But the times when we were dreaming of today was a far more magical experience. And what times they were, to have been alive. Possibly the greatest time in history. And some of us were lucky enough to have been there, right at the start of the computer revolution.

[speedbird]

In case you were wondering who won the Eureka game and 25K GBP! - When the game was originally published, Domark promised a prize of £25, 000 to the first player to solve the entire game before December 31, 1985. The prize was eventually won by Matthew Woodley, a teenager from the UK.Woodley would eventually go on to work for Domark.

[markgatland]

Every time I watch one of these BBC Archive things and think "that's the most '80s thing I've ever seen", they go and raise the bar one more time 😄

[bardo]

I was at the show in 1984, came all the way from Norway, my job paid for the flight. I was only 18 at the time. Amazing to watch this in 2024! I even took some pictures

[AchtungEnglander]

"and what is the folder called Boring Work Stuff?"

"no...don't open that file"

[NR-rvrz]

Amazing to see a wireless keyboard from that time.

[willjones]

The home computer scene was unbelievably exciting back in the eighties, new hardware developments & original game releases almost every week from maverick producers...kids today will never know such thrills now its all corporate big business pulling the strings to suit themselves.

[Progressive_Canadian]

I was just over 20 years old back then and I remembered that it would take me at least a year to save up for an Apple computer. I don't think much has changed! 🤨

[peteradshead]

I remember going to the nova hotel London for one of there shows, Showing my age it may have been before than 1981 ?, I remember at that time it was full of apple 1s and PETs, But one thing I do remember is going for a coffee and see the price going out side and getting a 3 course meal cheaper .

[hopebgood]

I used to work for the London Borough of Greenwich Computer Unit in the early 1980s. Me and some other newbie were shown the huge underground main computer complex beneath the town hall in Woolwich. It was fairly impressive. Then I went back to my nearly one metre wide word processing unit that had futuristic looking green text on it because there was a thin film of green plastic stuck on the front of the screen that you could peel off with your fingernail. Even then I thought it seemed a bit crap.

[madmtty]

Shout out to any fans of Halt and Catch Fire

[hamsterclamper]

Chris fancies his chances with Lesley😀

[cryptocsguy]

This stuff is fascinating 😮 even these early computers as simple as they seem by modern standards it's still pretty difficult to understand how it all works inside. I've had a difficult time learning how computers do mathematical calculations in binary 😅 & attempting to develop an 8bit game in assembly language & learning how the graphics work 🤓😵‍💫😵‍💫👨🏾‍💻

[Flippant-jd]

I was 13 and at home programming my ZX Spectrum while this was all going on lol.

[eccremocarpusscaber]

I was 7 years old in 1984. It’s jaw-dropping how technology has changed. And how it has been integrated to our lives.

[jb-zrez]

The moment in history when children were 'captured' by technology and catapulted into an alternative reality.

[williambinions]

512 k Macintosh!!! The memory capability is mind blowing. Thats OVER half a megabyte. That’s serious capacity😂