Retro computing,
on the air.

A history in the recordings

From micros to modems

The home-computer revolution was not a single moment when everyone suddenly knew what to do with a microcomputer. It was a noisy, curious process: people compared machines, learned BASIC, argued about prices, tried to make computers useful at work, and wondered whether this new technology would change everything—or simply give the family another expensive thing to argue over.

The surviving ABACUS transcripts capture that process as it unfolded. Across 64 recordings, the programme moves from early microcomputer experiments to the increasingly connected, specialised world of the late 1980s. It is a record of the machines, but just as much a record of the people trying to understand them.

A computer for what?

Presented by Martyn Croft, along with friends and colleagues, especially Dave Coomber, the early ABACUS discussions return to a question that sounds familiar today: what do you actually want a computer to do?

One feature follows a small-business owner whose imagined £200 computer turns into a £4,000 system once he starts adding the equipment and software he needs for accounts, payroll and printing. The joke carries a serious point about the gap between a machine’s advertised price and the cost of making it useful. The seller’s advice is still good: “Just because you can do accounts on it, doesn’t mean to say that you have to.” A computer might be used to improve a business in ways its buyer had not considered.

For many listeners, though, the first encounter was less about business than discovery. Programmes explain BASIC, loops and subroutines, while games provide an immediate reason to experiment. The Spectrum, BBC Micro, Commodore 64, Oric and Dragon appear in a changing landscape of machines with different prices, capabilities and followings. Some were bought for games; some for programming; some were expected to serve as an all-purpose tool. The distinctions were often argued over, and the machines did not fall neatly into separate categories.

Computer clubs offered a practical answer to the bewilderment. Dave Coomber’s advice was simple: “If you haven’t a computer and you’re thinking about it, don’t buy one until you’ve gone to a club.” There, prospective buyers could see different machines, ask questions and meet people who were happy to share what they had learned. In the transcripts, clubs are more than a social footnote: they are part of the informal support network that helped home computing make sense.

The promise—and the friction—of practical computing

As the programmes progress, the question shifts from what a computer is to what it can help someone do. ABACUS covers word processing, spreadsheets, databases, desktop publishing, business software, computer aided design, robotics and financial applications. It also looks at computers in education and at a proposed NHS project to monitor the illness and recovery of older patients.

The most persuasive moments are often personal. In a feature on word processing, broadcaster Frank Pagdon explains why he bought a machine: writing a book on a typewriter had meant retyping pages to make changes. A word processor let him edit sentences on screen. After three weeks with his Amstrad, he had written three chapters, though he was still wrestling with the manuals and some of the formatting. His story catches the mixture of liberation and learning curve that runs through the archive.

That tension appears in the programme’s consumer advice, too. A machine might be powerful, but was it right for the buyer? Were the specifications meaningful? Could the shop demonstrate it, support it and explain what the software did? As home computers moved towards office-style systems, the programmes watched prices rise and standards change. Dave Coomber’s wry Christmas report skewers the difficulty of getting good advice when, as he put it, “all the salesmen can hear is the blip of the computerised cash register and the crinkle of the credit card receipt.”

The wit is part of the record. In one early programme, Coomber jokes about the public relations claims surrounding Sinclair and Acorn: “It’s a hard life at the top, but it’s murder down here.” In another, he describes trying to get a straight answer from a computer salesman, who can only reply that a machine has “a lovely plumage.” Beneath the punchlines is a genuine concern: the industry was moving quickly, and customers were often left to make sense of incompatible machines, jargon and promises for themselves.

From the telephone line to the wider world

The archive also follows the move from standalone micros towards communication. Modems, bulletin boards and services reached through telephone lines promised access to information and other users. The programmes explain technical details such as baud rates and serial connections, while also exploring the practical questions: what could people do with these services, how reliable were they, and how could computers and networks be protected?

Other features look at speech recognition, talking computers and the use of technology by people with disabilities. Interviews and reports from computer shows take listeners beyond the studio, bringing them into contact with manufacturers, developers and users. The result is a view of computing that is not confined to one machine or one kind of owner: it includes enthusiasts, teachers, office workers, small businesses and people exploring new ways to communicate.

This local, hands-on spirit formed part of a much wider moment. The BBC’s Computer Literacy Project, launched in 1982, combined programmes with computers, software, books, courses and advice to encourage people to learn by using the technology. Its history describes a project intended to bring computing into homes as well as educational settings. A later study by Tilly Blyth, “The legacy of BBC Micro”, likewise argues that the project’s influence reached beyond schools, helping make computing part of home life.

A broadcast experiment

There is also a striking footnote to ABACUS’s place in broadcast history. In a 1984 issue of Practical Computing, journalist Glyn Moody wrote that the distinction of the first software broadcast in Britain “probably belongs” to ABACUS, which had transmitted software experimentally in October 1982. (“Telesoftware on the air,” April 1984.)

A letter from D. R. Coomber in Wireless World that February described the programme’s regular experimental software transmissions, while noting that other stations had made competing claims. It is best treated as evidence that ABACUS was among the earliest such programmes, rather than a settled claim of priority. (Wireless World, February 1984.)

That experiment captures the archive’s character particularly well: practical, inventive and close to its audience. Software was not only something to buy in a shop or load from a cassette. It could be sent through the airwaves, inviting listeners to try something new at home.

Listening back

Across these recordings, the home-computer revolution is not presented as an inevitable march towards the modern PC. It is a series of choices and improvisations: which machine to buy, what to learn, whether to use it for games or work, how to connect it to other people, and what to do when the salesperson, manual or machine itself failed to give a clear answer.

The ABACUS presenters and contributors meet that uncertainty with explanation, curiosity and humour. Their interviews preserve the voices of people making new technology work in ordinary settings: at home, in clubs, in offices, at exhibitions and over the telephone. The machines have changed, but the questions they asked—what is this for, who can use it, and what might it make possible?—remain part of computing’s story.