Electronic dreams : how 1980s Britain learned to love the computer
Tom Lean
- London : Bloomsbury Sigma, c2016.
- 287 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 22 cm.
Introduction 1: Electronic Brains 2: Hobbyists Create Microcomputers 3: Computers for the Man in the Street 4: Computer Literacy 5: The Boom 6: Two Information Revolutions That Weren't 7: The Maturing of the Computer Game 8: The Unmaking of the Micro Epilogue: Back to the Future? Further Reading Prices and Other Numbers Acknowledgements Index
Computers invaded British homes for the first time in the early 1980s, with a wave of cheap, futuristic microcomputers that allowed millions of people to discover for themselves the world of computing. In those heady early days of computing, Britannia very much ruled the digital waves. Electronic Dreams looks back at how Britain embraced the home computer, and at the people who drove the boom: entrepreneurs such as Clive Sinclair and Alan Sugar seeking new markets; politicians proclaiming economic miracles; bedroom programmers with an unhealthy fascination with technology; and millions of everyday folk who bought into the electronic dream and let the computer into their lives. It is a history of home computers such as the Commodore VIC20, BBC Micro, and ZX Spectrum; classic computer games like Manic Miner and Elite; the early information networks that first put the home online; and the transformation of the computer into an everyday object in the British home. Based on interviews with key individuals, archive sources, and study of vintage hardware and software, and with a particular focus on the computer's place in social history, Electronic Dreams is a nostalgic look at how a depressed 1980s Britain got over its fear of microchips and embraced the computer as a “passport to the future.
9781472918338
Computers--Social aspects--Great Britain--History -- 20th century Computer games--History--20th century Microcomputers--History--20th century Microcomputers