Micro Men - 720p (2009)

Nice reference there! Micro Men really is a great docu-drama, it really feels like it captures the time very well. As my first computer was a BBC Micro, it really struck a chord. It’s great seeing the specs for the (yet to be built) ARM chip on the board in the Acorn office, and it’s also awesome that Sophie Wilson playing the barmaid too! For those that haven’t seen it, it’s definitely worth a watch [1] [1] ▶ this video

The excellent Micro Men docudrama ( link ) has somehow been on Youtube since 2013: ▶ this video (1h24m) Micro Men, working title Syntax Era, is a 2009 one-off BBC drama television programme set in the late 1970s and the early-mid 1980s, about the rise of the British home computer market. It focuses on the rivalry between Sir Clive Sinclair (played by Alexander Armstrong), who developed the ZX Spectrum, and Chris Curry (played by Martin Freeman), the man behind the BBC Micro. (Sinclair didn't exactly like it though.)

If you haven't already seen it, 'Micro Men' is an excellent TV drama that details the history of the BBC's computer project and the battle to be the chosen computer: ▶ this video

I can highly recommend the BBC drama "Micro Men", about the early years of the British home computer boom and the rivalry between Sinclair and Acorn. It gives a real flavour of the mad, maverick years before the IBM clones took over. ▶ this video

I second this recommendation. Both SD and HD versions are on Youtube in their entirety. This is the 720P version: ▶ this video

To people asking why a broadcasting corporation needed a programming language you might watch 'Micro Men'. It's available on YouTube. link ▶ this video

And if you're interested in that watch the movie :-) ▶ this video Micro men, story of the zx spectrum vs the bbc

one of the reasons it was cheap was they got faulty 64k ram chips at a knock down price - hence the 48k. this film about sinclair is well worth a watch. ▶ this video

It's easy to quibble about some aspects of the Speccy - the rubber keyboard or the limited BASIC for example - but the key thing is that it offered an awful lot for the price - starting at £125 in the UK when the cheapest BBC Micro was £300. This made computing with colour and enough memory to write programs that were substantial and interesting available to a much wider group than before. Sir Clive Sinclair had a unique genius for designing and then marketing products that caught the public imagination. Sadly, he seemed to lose interest in building on his success and quickly moved on to the next project. Famously the C5 electric "car" but also wafer scale memory! [1] If anyone hasn't seen Micro Men, on the Sinclair vs Acorn rivalry, its definitely worth a watch: ▶ this video And seeing some of the participants watch it and recall their own versions of the story is good too: link [1] link

link Favorites about real and fictional creators: Micro Men ▶ this video Pirates of Silicon Valley Halt and Catch Fire ... and some documentaries like "Mother of all Demos", the history of Internet Explorer vs. Netscape, and the creators of the spreadsheet

ah yes you are right, the in-line ELSE Obligatory shout out for 'Micro Men', about the making of the BBC Micro and ZX Spectrum ▶ this video

Acorn was not obscure. It was a household name, with TV ads and such. There's this nice TV show about Sinclair and Acorn from BBC 4. ▶ this video (Micro Men)