From Atari to Apple Macintosh, Tetris to SimCity, enjoy a whizz through the world of 1980s computing.
Although home computers entered the market in the late 1970s, it was during the 1980s that they started to become common household accessories.
The three earliest models, which surfaced in 1977, were the Apple II, the TRS-80 Model I, and the Commodore PET. Following their successful launch most home electronics manufacturers introduced a computer of their own into the market. Among the models battling for supremacy in the early days of the home computing era were Sinclair's ZX Spectrum, Commodore International's Commodore 64 and this writer's own childhood addiction, Acorn's BBC Micro.
Numerous people who are now household names were involved in the battle for supremacy in the home computer market throughout the 1980s. Sir Clive Sinclair's company launched the ZX Spectrum, while Steve Jobs along with friends Steve Wozniak and Rod Hold designed the Apple II. Meanwhile Lord Sugar got in on the act in 1985 with the launch of the Amstrad PCW range. Amstrad was founded by Sugar, and its name is an acronym of Alan Michael Sugar Trading. In addition, Sugar acquired the Sinclair brand name in 1986.
However it was the Commodore 64 that dominated the worldwide market following its launch in 1982, and it remains the best-selling personal computer of all time. It was technically ahead of most of its predecessors and had the added advantage of being widely available on the high street, whereas most other computers at the time could only be bought from specialist retailers. Commodore's Amiga 500, launched in 1987, was the dominant home computer at the end of the 1980s, bookending a successful decade for the company.
On the home front, upon its release in 1982, the ZX Spectrum was the darling of the UK buyers. Assembled at the Timex factory in Dundee, one of the ZX Spectrum's biggest selling points was its price, which was just £125. With most computers on the market costing over £200 it was cheap, and the only thing nasty about it was the keyboard with its unusual layout and rather flimsy rubber keys that restless gamers would pick away at while waiting for their games to load up (more on that later). However the keyboard was the reason for its lower price, with its designer, Rick Dickinson admitting: 'A conventional full moving-key keyboard would have pushed the Spectrum into the next price bracket so we had to come up with a cheaper way of achieving moving keys and tactile response'.
While not the most popular or fashionable machine on the market, the BBC Micro may have been the first computer that a lot of children of the 1980s encountered due to its prevalence in schools. The computer was launched in 1981 and its development was initiated by the BBC's Computer Literacy Project. This project was a reaction to the emerging new technology in the 1970s which both the Government and the BBC felt the country was unprepared for, and therefore felt that a public awareness and education campaign was essential.
the IBM PC … the computer that entered the term PC into common parlance
The BBC Micro also starred on the television, featuring on BBC Two's 'The Computer Programme' when it commenced in 1982. This programme demonstrated the various uses that computers could have in day-to-day life. It also made an appearance on BBC Two's 'The Adventure Game' where players would play a 3D dungeon simulation on the computer in search of a password to help them progress in the game. Having a computer game play out on a television programme was a very cutting edge development at the time.
Meanwhile the IBM Personal Computer, which launched in 1981, became the ultimate benchmark and most home computers currently on the market are in essence descendants of the IBM PC. It was also the computer that entered the term PC into common parlance. In Steve Jobs's self-titled biography his biographer Walter Isaacson relates that, following analysis of its technology, Jobs's colleague Chris Espinosa called the IBM PC 'a half-assed, hackneyed attempt'. Apple were so dismissive of IBM's entry in the computer war that they took out a full-page advert in the 'Wall Street Journal', with the headline 'Welcome, IBM. Seriously'.
However IBM had the last laugh, at least in the 1980s. In spite of a $1.5 million advert directed by Ridley Scott, the Apple Macintosh, introduced in 1984, was too late to the party. The lateness of its arrival plus its cost and lack of software meant it was never one of the biggest sellers of the decade.
In the opening episode of the aforementioned 'The Computer Programme', presenter Ian McNaught-Davis stated: 'I would hate to see computers just used for playing games. It's degrading'. However, for children of the 1980s home computers were fundamentally about the games. Among the games to be launched across the various platforms during the decade were 'Donkey Kong', 'Elite', 'Jetpac', 'Frogger', 'Chuckie Egg', 'Pac-Man', 'Tetris', 'Manic Miner', 'Prince of Persia' and 'SimCity'. These games and others still resonate today; 'Donkey Kong' is notable for being the game which launched the career of a platform-jumping Italian plumber called Mario, while 'SimCity' was the first game in the franchise which eventually led to 'The Sims' games which are still popular today.
Modern gamers have been known to bemoan regularly having to wait for updates and expansion packs to download, but back in the 1980s gaming sessions often involved an even more arduous process. Psychedelic screens and high-pitched screeching were a familiar backdrop for gamers of a certain vintage while they waited patiently for cassettes to load up, something which had to be done prior to any fresh gaming session. Thankfully floppy discs became increasingly commonplace throughout the decade, allowing for a much quicker, quieter and less trippy game loading experience.
Although joysticks were available, most games were controlled using the keyboard. A common control method in my days playing the BBC Micro was 'Z' and 'X' to move a character left and right respectively, two keys vertical to each other and near the return key ('@' and '?' on the keyboard I am typing on now) to move up and down, and the return key and/or space bar to jump and/or attack.
Anyone with ambitions of finishing a game would have to do so in one sitting
Back in the 1980s if you fancied playing a game with friends then it wasn't simply a case of firing up the broadband connection and waiting for your friends to appear online. Instead you would all have to gather round the computer, either taking turns to play (a number of racing games involved you taking turns with the quickest time being the winner, rather than racing directly against each other) or going directly head-to-head. If simultaneous multiplayer was a possibility it would usually entail the two players using opposite ends of the keyboard. An 'accidental' nudge or two when your opponent was bearing down on goal or streaking ahead in a race were not uncommon occurrences!
Something that was a much less common occurrence was a 'save game' facility. This meant that anyone with ambitions of finishing a game would often need to do it in one sitting, pausing the computer to scoff down a quick meal, hoping that a cruel sibling or parent didn't switch the machine off in the interim. Another thing that is taken for granted now, but was a rarity back in the day, is the health bar. Rather than incremental damage it was usually a case of one hit or fall and your character would die, and you would go back to the beginning of the level to start again (yes, respawn points were also quite rare in 1980s games). Maybe it is just as well that most gamers weren't using game controllers as the potential for gamer rage and a hurled control was very high.
Another huge difference with the early days of the home computer era would be the nature of free games given away by magazines. While during the 1990s and 2000s computer magazines would often offer cover-mounted floppy discs or CDs to allow readers to sample game demos, or sometimes full games, early computing magazines instead offered a different way of providing readers with access to free games. Magazines would publish gaming code that readers could type into their computer which, upon completion, would allow them to access a game or programme of some description. This could be a very arduous process, particularly if your programme did not work after a lengthy typing session, and you would be forced to trawl through your script to see if you had mistaken a colon for a semi-colon at some point.
And home computers were about more than just the games. They would often offer such facilities as word processing and spreadsheets so back in the pre-Microsoft Office days they could be used to compile documents and collate statistics. As the son of a schoolteacher (one of Dusty's lesser-known songs) I would often earn extra pocket money by inputting test scores and class lists into the family's BBC Micro.
Almost all home computers allowed computer programming using the BASIC language. An example of a very basic BASIC programme is as follows:
10 CLS
20 PRINT "WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE EIGHTIES SUBJECT?"
30 INPUT EIGHTIES SUBJECT$
40 CLS
50 PRINT EIGHTIES SUBJECT$
CLS is the command to clear the screen, PRINT is the command to display text on the screen and INPUT in the command to await keyboard data which will then be inserted into the programme.
So this programme (in the loosest possible sense of the word) would flash up on the screen the question 'What is your favourite Eighties subject?'. The computer operator would input a subject (home computing, obviously) and then the text HOME COMPUTING IS THE BEST EIGHTIES SUBJECT would appear on the screen. It's maybe not a programme of Golden Joystick-winning quality but bear in mind that most of us only had three channels on the TV back then, so we had to find some way to amuse ourselves.
Programming could be more complex and sophisticated than the above example enabling quizzes, databases, graphs and calculations as well as games to be created. As a child I created a database on the BBC Micro that gave all the results and goal-scorers for Greenock Morton over the course of a season. To this day I remain amazed that it didn't make me a rich man.
As with all older technology these home computers, while beloved in their era, are largely no longer used, although it is possible to buy most of them on eBay and similar forums.
However, to show the enduring appeal of the games that surfaced in the 1980s, there have been several retrospective projects in recent years. As well as numerous emulators online, which enable people to play old games, often for free, the ZX Spectrum Vega, THEC64 Mini and Atari Flashback Consoles have been released.
The Atari Flashback Consoles have been released regularly since 2004, and typically come with a pair of joysticks and roughly 100 games. Meanwhile three volumes of Atari Flashback Classics have been released for Xbox One and PS4.
The ZX Spectrum Vega, endorsed by Sir Clive Sinclair, was released in 2015 following a crowdfunding campaign. The unit is essentially a miniature version of the old ZX Spectrum keyboard which can be handheld like a controller, and has long cables attached to it so it can be connected to a TV. It has over 1,000 games built into it including 'Jetpac' and the 'Horace' titles.
THEC64 Mini was released in 2018 and comes in the shape of a 50 per cent replica sized keyboard unit. You can plug in a joystick to play games or a keyboard to do some computer programming. 64 games (see what they did there?) come built into the system.
The nostalgia factor of games of the 1980s has manifested in other recent projects. Irish comedian Dara O'Briain presented television game show 'Dara O'Briain's Go 8 Bit' from 2016-2018. This programme was based on a show by comedians Sam Pamphilon and Steve McNeil that premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2013, and saw the comedians team up with celebrities for a head-to-head on various computer games from a range of periods.
Among the memorable 1980s games that featured on the show were 'Jetpac', 'Chuckie Egg', 'Joust', 'Tapper', 'Ghosts 'n Goblins', 'Gauntlet' and 'Rampage'.
Meanwhile American writer Ernest Cline released his debut novel 'Ready Player One' in 2011. The protagonist in this book plays through 1980s classics such as 'Pac-Man', 'Joust' and 'Zork' on his mission to uncover the secrets of the founder of the OASIS, a virtual reality simulator where a lot of the action is set. Steven Spielberg directed the big screen adaptation of Cline's novel but, released in 2018, it didn't feature video games as heavily as the source material.
Desktop home computers are still in common use now, with Microsoft Office packages, various internet browsers and the iTunes Store being among the most popular new developments since the early days.
My personal home computer routine consists of using an iPad to do things that I would never believe would have been possible as a child in the 1980s, like paying bills, arranging grocery shopping and downloading films and music. When I'm not doing that, I fire up one of my games consoles to play a computer game that often has the production values of a Hollywood blockbuster.
But if, in 30 years' time, I am asked to write a piece reflecting on my home computer experiences of the 2010s it will not dredge up a fraction of the memories and nostalgia (and the occasional tear) that this trip down memory lane has generated.
