{"id":961,"date":"2016-05-25T07:32:54","date_gmt":"2016-05-25T07:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/77.104.180.154\/~andrewdo\/blog\/?p=961"},"modified":"2017-10-01T20:52:53","modified_gmt":"2017-10-01T20:52:53","slug":"britsoft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2016\/05\/25\/britsoft\/","title":{"rendered":"Britsoft"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Beautifully and immaculately presented, this book<\/a> was a delight from the moment it landed on my doorstep to when I finished the last page. It documents the history of the UK home computer and gaming industry through a variety of first-hand accounts from people who played key roles at the time.
\nAt the age of nine I was given my first home computer, an Acorn Electron<\/a>, and it changed my life. Looking back and reading this book, I think I was probably just a few years too young to be hit by the first wave of computers such as the Acorn Atom<\/a>, ZX80<\/a>, ZX81<\/a> etc. when they came out. By the time I started programming in 1986 the games industry was already well-established.<\/p>\n

My dad worked at an airport cargo terminal<\/a> and used to be given sample copies of magazines that were being imported or exported \u2014 he used to bring the computer titles home for me to read, which I did so avidly, even when I didn’t have any experience whatsoever of the machines they were covering. Despite being an Acorn owner, I have so many fond memories of reading both Zzap! 64<\/a> and Your Sinclair<\/a>, magazines that had a lot of personality and humour running through them. Magazines were a massive part of UK computing culture in the 1980s and Britsoft brought it all back.<\/p>\n

The first couple of sections of the book gave me itchy fingers. Although I have a technical Computer Science background my work has taken me in a different direction and I haven’t coded in a very long time. Stories of starting off with a BBC BASIC<\/a> program and slowly refactoring parts of the code into assembly language (in-line with the BASIC<\/a>) made me want to go and explore again. I never learned much assembly the first time around; in our age of massive computing power it doesn’t feel as relevant anymore but there would still be some joy and satisfaction in it.<\/p>\n

It is very interesting to look at the industry arc of hundreds of one-person bedroom developers in the early 1980s turning into smaller numbers of ever larger teams, which were eventually culled when the consoles came along at the turn of the 1990s. It hadn’t occurred to me that the rise of mass mobile platforms such as Android and iOS coupled with Internet distribution means that we once again have a large number of single-person developers who are able to get their games and applications out there. We’ve come full circle.<\/p>\n

If you have any interest in the history of computer games or home computing in the UK then I strongly recommend this book.<\/p><\/div>\n

Beautifully and immaculately presented, this book was a delight from the moment it landed on my doorstep to when I finished the last page. It documents the history of the UK home computer and gaming industry through a variety of first-hand accounts from people who played key roles at the time. At the age of […]<\/div>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-books","7":"h-entry","9":"hentry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":392,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2014\/09\/15\/children-and-technology\/","url_meta":{"origin":961,"position":0},"title":"Children and technology","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"15 September 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"At bedtime tonight my two boys spent 20 minutes walking me through their Minecraft book and excitedly telling me me all about the worlds they have created, the things you can build and the characters you can encounter. They've been reaching for the iOS version of the game at every\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Family"","block_context":{"text":"Family","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/family\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6585,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2020\/12\/24\/6585\/","url_meta":{"origin":961,"position":1},"title":"Been working my way through\u2026","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"24 December 2020","format":"status","excerpt":"Been working my way through this beautiful book over the past few days. Got distracted by looking through Kevin Edwards\u2019 tweets \u2014 so much retro computing love, particularly for the Acorn platforms. All I want for Christmas is a BBC Micro. Again.","rel":"","context":"In "Snippets"","block_context":{"text":"Snippets","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/snippets\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/cd87748e7c23421093d92dbc3dbfcb2f.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/cd87748e7c23421093d92dbc3dbfcb2f.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/cd87748e7c23421093d92dbc3dbfcb2f.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/cd87748e7c23421093d92dbc3dbfcb2f.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/cd87748e7c23421093d92dbc3dbfcb2f.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/cd87748e7c23421093d92dbc3dbfcb2f.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10569,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2023\/11\/30\/10569\/","url_meta":{"origin":961,"position":2},"title":"\ud83d\udcda This finally landed, many\u2026","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"30 November 2023","format":"status","excerpt":"\ud83d\udcda This finally landed, many months after I backed the crowdfunder. A book celebrating the glorious time when online gaming involved hefting your computer to someone\u2019s house. It gives me memories of my time at university, with LAN cables draped through stairwells and into bedrooms like plant tendrils.","rel":"","context":"In "Snippets"","block_context":{"text":"Snippets","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/snippets\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Image-30-11-2023-07-23-scaled.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Image-30-11-2023-07-23-scaled.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Image-30-11-2023-07-23-scaled.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Image-30-11-2023-07-23-scaled.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Image-30-11-2023-07-23-scaled.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Image-30-11-2023-07-23-scaled.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":13439,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2026\/02\/22\/bringing-a-27-year-old-programming-project-back-to-life-with-claude-code\/","url_meta":{"origin":961,"position":3},"title":"Bringing a 27-year-old programming project back to life with Claude Code","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"22 February 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"A big chunk of my final year at university, studying for my Computer Science degree, was spent working on a project. That last year counted for 60% of my overall grade, and the project contributed half of that. So the mark that I obtained could make a significant difference to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"A prompt in Claude Code that says: \u201cAnalyze this repository and create a comprehensive CLAUDE.md file that explains the codebase structure, development workflows, and key conventions for Al assistants to follow. If one already exists, update it with the most recent state\u201d, followed by Claude Code\u2019s response.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DraggedImage-5.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DraggedImage-5.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DraggedImage-5.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DraggedImage-5.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/DraggedImage-5.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10198,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2023\/06\/20\/new-dark-age-technology-and-the-end-of-the-future\/","url_meta":{"origin":961,"position":4},"title":"\ud83d\udcda New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"20 June 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"For some reason my rate of reading has been very slow this year. This may explain the feeling I had when I finished New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future by James Bridle \u2014 that it hadn\u2019t made a big impression on me. Looking back over the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/DraggedImage-1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/DraggedImage-1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/DraggedImage-1.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/DraggedImage-1.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10445,"url":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/2023\/10\/08\/10445\/","url_meta":{"origin":961,"position":5},"title":"\ud83d\udcda Finished reading Listen To\u2026","author":"Andrew Doran","date":"8 October 2023","format":"status","excerpt":"\ud83d\udcda Finished reading Listen To My Heart by Marie Fredriksson. I grew up listening to the early Roxette albums at the end of the 1980s\/start of the 1990s and have always been a fan, despite my school friends thinking that being into Roxette wasn\u2019t cool. I imagine that I would\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Snippets"","block_context":{"text":"Snippets","link":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/category\/snippets\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/2791C131-3340-4F9C-AF69-14F5F2D7F5B5.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/2791C131-3340-4F9C-AF69-14F5F2D7F5B5.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/2791C131-3340-4F9C-AF69-14F5F2D7F5B5.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/2791C131-3340-4F9C-AF69-14F5F2D7F5B5.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/2791C131-3340-4F9C-AF69-14F5F2D7F5B5.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=961"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3724,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions\/3724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrewdoran.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}