A Brief History of Time!
By Jon Ripley (8BS member D5B)
In 8BS issue 53 Robert Sprowson (D6G)
gave us a very brief look into the
past world of BBC magazines. Here is
my interpretation of the same. I have
left out most of the dates involved as
I am not sure about some of them.
Indeed some magazines may be left out
and some changeovers too. I have
retold the story here as best I can.
In the early days there were Micro
User and BBC Acorn User. Robert
Sprowson (D6G) said that he had heard
the the BBC moaned about their name
being used and the BBC was dropped to
make Acorn User but since the magazine
was starting to support the new
Archimedes computers the BBC may have
been dropped for that reason instead.
Later on, Micro User started a pull
out magazine for the new Electron
computer, this pullout later became
Electron User.
Other magazines started up for the BBC
and Electron; Disc User, BBC Programs
(both available from the shops) and
Beebug which was subscription only
although the readership topped 10,000.
Aside from the magazines, over 100 BBC
specific user groups started, not
including the several groups that
started up overseas and some more
international ones.
In the early eighties many
multi-format magazines supported the
BBC A, BBC B and Electron among other
computers.
A + B Computing started up (I assume)
when the BBC A computers were still
around and it would have supported
both of them. The name didn't change
when the BBC A was discontinued and
remained the same until the early
1990's when the magazine dropped the
BBC range completely and became the
first Archimedes only magazine,
Archimedes World. This magazine is
still available today.
In July 1990 Electron User had a
special pull out edition of Let's
Compute. The new magazine started the
next month and Electron User was no
more.
Let's Compute started out supporting
Acorn computers only but due to a
large number of complaints because of
the misleading title the magazine
started supporting most home
computers. It only lasted a year.
When the Micro User started to drop
support for the BBC and Electron the
name changed to Acron Computing, a BBC
subcribers disc and a small portion of
the magazine was dedicated to the BBC,
after a number of months this stopped
and only Archimedes computers were
supported.
A few years later, I believe due to
lacking interest in Acorn Computing
(although I may be wrong), the
magazine merged with Acorn User and
ceased to exist.
Nowadays, no commercial shop or
subscription magazines exist for the
BBC or Electron and there is almost no
support in the only magazine willing
to acknowledge the existence of the
BBC, Acorn User.
Aside from the early user groups only
two, to my knowledge, still exist;
8-Bit Software and Solinet. And of
course, the most recent addition, BBC
User Group, or BUG, run by myself -
Jon Ripley!