No one else at my school had a computer, so I was alone when discussing anything related to electronic games, consoles and computers. The most anyone had experienced were the dedicated LCD Game & Watch Nintendo toys rather than proper computers. Just before year three started at my secondary school, I was moved to a new school and met a boy in my class called Greg who was also into computers as well. We talked and I found out he was a huge Atari fan who had owned a VCS, and was just getting into the new Atari 400 and 800 range of home computers. He was part of a small circle of Ipswich Atari enthusiasts. I only knew of one other person who had an Atari 800. The Atari computers were an unusual pair of machines in that they would use cassette tapes but also accept cartridges. The Atari 400 used a membrane keyboard similar to the Sinclair ZX80 and ZX81. It was more accurate than the Sinclair computers because each of the keys had a bevelled edge to the virtual keys meaning your fingers were less likely to slip, but it still felt cheap. The Atari 800 on the other hand had a full proper keyboard. I would often have problems getting the Atari computers to load cassette games as it was very sensitive to electrical and radio interference. I later found out that both the Atari 400 and 800 computers were heavy machines because it had a lot of metal shielding to prevent radio interference and this was Atari’s poor solution to the huge problem. The Atari would only ever release one known computer, the Atari ST, but after this and the disastrous Falcon computer, they withdrew from the home computer market and became an equally unsuccessful console and handheld manufacturer before their demise and eventual purchase by Ubi Soft in the 1990s.
Through Greg, I was exposed to Atari fever like no other and its strange how the fever never really rubbed off on me. I would imagine I was a little more cynical than to accept things at face value. I think it was the expense of the computer that put most people off and the specialised version of Atari BASIC that wasn't the same as standard BASIC. Plus most of the games and hardware had to be bought via mail order through a dedicated Atari shop called The Silica Shop in an obscure and oddly named town called Sidcup. When I did visit Greg’s house one Sunday I got to play some Atari classics like Centipede, Star Raiders (an incredibly elegant and fun three dimensional space combat game with a strong strategy element to the action), Encounter, Miner 2049er and Boulderdash. I didn't get to play them very long as his friends were busy copying cassette games and kept resetting the Atari to check their copies were working. But the one thing that made the Atari special was the proliferation of American games. Very few of the early computers had programs that were programmed outside of the United Kingdom. Computers like the BBC and Sinclair machines were more popular in the United Kingdom, and hence 99% of the software was British. It was only with the arrival of the Atari and Commodore 64 (both American computers) that American programs would come to the United Kingdom in significant numbers. The other big American computer was the Apple, but the price meant that ownership of these machines was extremely limited. Although I liked the Atari computers, I realised that only knowing one other person wasn't enough to share and swap games with. At that point there I decided I would no longer buy niche consoles or computers, but would instead focus on the popular computers, and the games that ran on them.
One Atari game I remember playing, but its name has forever been lost to me was a two player overhead driving game with the track scrolling beneath you. The object of the game was to drive around the track as fast as you possible could and beat the other player. But the trick was to “race” the other player off the screen, whereby the track would reset and the winner would get one point, and you would carry on from where you left off. The winner of the game therefore was the person who scored the most points by driving fast enough that the other player disappeared. This was a game my brother just seemed too good at.
I started gravitating towards computer games shops, as it was visuals and aural excitement I was after and not black and white graphics of the business computers. The business shop owner must have been glad of my eventual departure, as I wasn't contributing anything to his shop. I do remember asking him once if he needed someone to help him in the shop as a Saturday assistant, but he declined.
At its height, Ipswich was home to three dedicated games computer shops, as well as the one computer business centre that I frequented, and also two national newsagent chain stores (John Menzies and WH Smith) that were selling computer games. Not bad for a small market town in Suffolk. I started hanging around one of the independent stores in Ipswich. I chose this shop as it was the only one that not only sold games, but also the computers and accessories as well all of which were powered on and running. They had games running all the time so you could play them as much and as often as you wanted. I began to study all the different computer systems, playing some of the games where I could. I became immersed in the home computer scene and was witness to all sorts of computers such as the Texas TI-98, which had a bolt-on speech synthesiser module and it would talk during games such as Parsec (“Great shot, Pilot”), Oric, Jupiter Ace, Commodore VIC 20, Atari 400 and 800, ZX Spectrum 16 and 48k, the Dragon and Commodore C64. I was impressed by them all. Every day after school I went to that shop and stayed there until closing time which was five-thirty in the evening. Most of my awe was saved for the VIC 20 and its older brother Commodore 64, I think it was Jeff Minter’s game, VoidRunner, that I saw running on the VIC 20 that impressed me most. My parents began to worry about me and where I was almost every weekday evening. The other shops sold the games, but only in sealed cassette boxes. Only your knowledge gleaned from computer magazines and the back of the boxes (and box art) would given you any indication of the quality of the game you were buying. Buying a computer game was hit and miss without valuable reviews. I began pinning for a more popular computer, or at least one that had commercial software I could buy, because while I did show some interest in programming, there was nothing to buy for the Color Genie and certainly no market for anything I thought about writing, Jon had already proved that. The games I started seeing in the shops were far better than what I could program myself. I got frustrated at all these games for computers I didn't own. No one heard of the Genie.
My parents eventually heeded my request for a new computer and settled on a BBC Model B computer as a replacement for the Genie. The BBC was a new machine produced by Acorn Computers, and its association with a national and international brand instantly gave it a reputation as a more serious computer, and being more educational. The British Broadcasting Corporation had just begun to run a series of television programmes dedicated to promoting computers. The BBC consumer tag was a huge bonus for Acorn Computers as they were successful in having a computer with the BBC brand. BBC TV was looking for a computer to launch alongside its television schedule which included programmes specifically for the BBC computer. The machine actually came in an A and B model. The main difference was the size of the internal memory. As an aside, because David Braben (one of the two original programmers of Elite) was a huge BBC computer fan, when he later released the Raspberry Pi mini computer, he released then as Model A and Model B, certainly after the classic BBC. It became undeniable when they relaunched an improved version of the Raspberry Pi B model as B+.
The BBC computer was more mainstream and certainly one of the most expensive micro home computer machine available, especially when compared to the Genie, but it still wasn't a pure gaming computer. It had serious applications, had a removable cartridge slot so you could expand the memory or plug in games and had a decent processor. It was eventually home to some great games like to Aviator (a three dimensional wireframe freeform flight simulator which had you flying a Spitfire) and one of the best home versions of Defender, Planetoid, that I can remember. I never did play Elite on the machine it was originally born on. The only other person I knew who had a BBC was my O Level Physics teacher, which made things a little embarrassing. Programming the BBC was much easier that the Color Genie, and even had an inbuilt machine code language that helped you run programs faster when BASIC proved to be too slow. I did struggle with machine code, even though it was beautifully simple, but you needed to have a solid understanding of electronics and the way a computer processor worked to get the best out of it.
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