This is a big week for 1980s computing. Wednesday marked the 40th birthday of the BBC Microcomputer, the machine that helped launch thousands of software development careers (including mine) in the UK. This was such an important machine, in so many ways: it was really well engineered, with great performance, but also – due to government subsidies – available in the majority of schools in the UK. For my Computer Science A-level I used some networked Beebs to automate a hypothetical fast food restaurant: from touchpad-driven ordering by customers to printing of receipts and stock control. Here’s an image... Read more →