Skip to content
◈ALB Atlas

BBC Micro Dead

BBC Micro
KindMachine
Introduced1981
Discontinued1994
StatusDead
ManufacturerAcorn
ClassHome computer
PlatformMOS 6502
Sourcebitsavers.org ↗

The BBC's computer literacy machine — Acorn's 6502 box in every British school, the platform of Elite. Acorn's ARM chip, designed for its successor, now runs most of the world's phones.

Created by Acorn Computers

The BBC chose Acorn's Proton for the 1982 Computer Literacy Project, renamed it the BBC Micro — rugged, networked, expandable, with BBC BASIC and a proper keyboard. ~80% of British schools had one.

Braben and Bell wrote Elite on it; Wilson and Furber designed the ARM for its successor. The Beeb made Britain a nation of programmers in a way no other machine managed.

Sources

  1. bitsavers.org/pdf/acorn/
  2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro