 | |
 First issue cover | |
| Categories | Computing |
|---|---|
| Founder |
|
| Founded | 1981 |
| First issue | April 1982 |
| Final issue | April 1994 |
| Company | Beebug |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Based in | St. Albans, Herts |
| Language | English |
| ISSN | 0263-7561 |
| OCLC | 220052713 |
BEEBUG was a magazine published for users of the BBC Micro between 1982 and 1994. It was the first subscription magazine for computers made by Acorn Computers.
The group was formed in 1982 by Sheridan Williams and Lee Calcraft. Calcraft and Williams were contributors to Personal Computer World magazine (PCW) at the time. [1] Calcraft was writing under pseudonyms in PCW, Acorn User and The Micro User . [1] Williams was a founding contributor to PCW. [2]
When Acorn announced that they had won the contract to provide the computer to support the BBC's Computer Literacy Project, BEEBUG was formed to provide a magazine and support group. It turned out that Acorn were unable to supply the BBC Micro for many months and customers who had ordered the computer were anxious to learn as much about it before its arrival. [3]
Within 6 months membership reached 10,000 [4] and by 1985 membership exceeded 30,000; [5] in the final issue, the editors estimated 60,000 people had subscribed at one time or another during the magazine's lifetime. [6] The company is still in existence and nowadays the core business involves providing computer networks in schools. [7]
The first issue of the Beebug Newsletter appeared in April 1982 and the last issue, volume 12 no 10, in April 1994. Newsagents W H Smith sold the magazine at some point. [8] It was the first subscription magazine for computers made by Acorn Computers. [8]
At the start the cover was monochrome, but a colour printed cover was then introduced in March 1983 when membership was 16,000. At the beginning each issue had 28 pages, but it expanded to 50 pages by 1985 when membership exceeded 30,000. The content included hints, program listings, hardware and software reviews, brain teasers and competitions. Illustrations were rudimentary. The magazine sometimes included special members' offers for items such as operating system upgrades. Cover mounted tape cassettes containing programs, [9] binders and an advertising supplement were also published.
It was published 10 times a year in A5 format. It was published by BEEBUG Publications Ltd, based in St Albans, UK. In 1985 membership including a postal subscription in the UK cost £11-90 a year (10 issues).
The magazine and its younger Acorn Archimedes companion RISC User were considered by Archive in 1990 as "friendly rival[s]". [10] The magazine was remembered in 1998 as being "an essential source of information and tips for BBC Micro and Master users". [9]
Professor Krisantha Weerasuriya of Sri Lanka's University of Colombo noted the user group and its magazine to be "very helpful" in a 1988 issue of the BMJ . [11]
A review from a 1984 issue of the magazine was cited in United States patent no. 5,271,098 in 1993. [12] [13]
Some of the topics covered in the magazine listings included fractal trees, Lorenz attractors and modelling of 3D functions. Such basic principles have been included in the 2004 book Flash Math Creativity, with reference to the magazine's coverage of the topics. [14] An enhanced version of one listing was included in the 1996 book An Introduction to Experimental Physics. [15]
BBC BASIC is a version of the BASIC programming language released in 1981 as the native programming language for the BBC Micro home/personal computer, providing a standardized language for a UK computer literacy project of the BBC. It was written mainly by Sophie Wilson.
Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the UK, including the Acorn Electron and the Acorn Archimedes. Acorn's BBC Micro computer dominated the UK educational computer market during the 1980s.
Sophie Mary WilsonDistFBCS is an English computer scientist, who helped design the BBC Micro and ARM architecture.
Acorn Archimedes is a family of personal computers designed by Acorn Computers of Cambridge, England. The systems are based on Acorn's own ARM architecture processors and the proprietary operating systems Arthur and RISC OS. The first models were introduced in 1987, and systems in the Archimedes family were sold until the mid-1990s.
RISC OS is a computer operating system originally designed by Acorn Computers Ltd in Cambridge, England. First released in 1987, it was designed to run on the ARM chipset, which Acorn had designed concurrently for use in its new line of Archimedes personal computers. RISC OS takes its name from the reduced instruction set computer (RISC) architecture it supports.
Acornsoft was the software arm of Acorn Computers, and a major publisher of software for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron. As well as games, it also produced a large number of educational titles, extra computer languages and business and utility packages – these included word processor VIEW and the spreadsheet ViewSheet supplied on ROM and cartridge for the BBC Micro/Acorn Electron and included as standard in the BBC Master and Acorn Business Computer.
Econet was Acorn Computers's low-cost local area network system, intended for use by schools and small businesses. It was widely used in those areas, and was supported by a large number of different computer and server systems produced both by Acorn and by other companies.
Repton is a video game originally developed by 16-year-old Briton Tim Tyler for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron and released by Superior Software in 1985. The game spawned a series of follow up games which were released throughout the 1980s. The series sold around 125,000 copies between 1985 and 1990 with Repton 2 selling 35,000 itself. The games have since been remade for several modern systems, including iRepton for the iPhone / iPod Touch in 2010, and Android Repton 1, Android Repton 2 and Android Repton 3 from 2016 to 2018.
Xara is an international software company founded in 1981, with an HQ in Berlin and development office in Hemel Hempstead, UK. It has developed software for a variety of computer platforms, in chronological order: the Acorn Atom, BBC Micro, Z88, Atari ST, Acorn Archimedes, Microsoft Windows, Linux, and more recently web browser-based services.
The Acorn Business Computer (ABC) was a series of microcomputers announced at the end of 1983 by the British company Acorn Computers. The series of eight computers was aimed at the business, research and further education markets. Demonstrated at the Personal Computer World Show in September 1984, having been under development for "about a year" and having been undergoing field trials from May 1984, the range "understandably attracted a great deal of attention" and was favourably received by some commentators. The official launch of the range was scheduled for January 1985.
Personal Computer World (PCW) was the first British computer magazine. Although for at least the last decade it contained a high proportion of Windows PC content, the magazine's title was not intended as a specific reference to this. At its inception in 1978 'personal computer' was still a generic term The magazine came out before the Wintel platform existed; the original IBM PC itself was introduced in 1981. Similarly, the magazine was unrelated to the Amstrad PCW.
The Machine Operating System (MOS) or OS is a discontinued computer operating system (OS) used in Acorn Computers' BBC computer range. It included support for four-channel sound, graphics, file system abstraction, and digital and analogue input/output (I/O) including a daisy-chained expansion bus. The system was single-tasking, monolithic and non-reentrant.
Acorn User magazine was founded by Acorn Computers in 1982, contract-published by Addison-Wesley, to coincide with the launch of the BBC Micro. It covered the range of Acorn home computers, the BBC Micro and Atom at first and later the Electron, Archimedes and Risc PC.
Torch Computers Ltd was a computer hardware company with origins in a 1982 joint venture between Acorn Computers and Climar Group that led to the development of the Communicator or C-series computer, a system based on the BBC Micro with a Z80 second processor and integral modem, intended as a viewdata terminal.
The Micro User was a British specialist magazine catering to users of the BBC Microcomputer series, Acorn Electron, Acorn Archimedes and, to a limited extent, the Cambridge Z88. It had a comprehensive mix of reviews of games, application software, and the latest Acorn computers; type-in programs, a correspondence page offering help with computer problems, and approachable technical articles on programming and the BBC Micro's internals.
The A7000 and A7000+ were Acorn Computers' entry level computers based somewhat on the Risc PC architecture.
The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphasis on education, it was notable for its ruggedness, expandability, and the quality of its operating system. An accompanying 1982 television series, The Computer Programme, featuring Chris Serle learning to use the machine, was broadcast on BBC2.
The Advanced Disc Filing System (ADFS) is a computing file system unique to the Acorn computer range and RISC OS-based successors. Initially based on the rare Acorn Winchester Filing System, it was renamed to the Advanced Disc Filing System when support for floppy discs was added and on later 32-bit systems a variant of a PC-style floppy controller.
RISC OS, the computer operating system developed by Acorn Computers for their ARM-based Acorn Archimedes range, was originally released in 1987 as Arthur 0.20, and soon followed by Arthur 0.30, and Arthur 1.20. The next version, Arthur 2, became RISC OS 2 and was completed and made available in April 1989. RISC OS 3 was released with the very earliest version of the A5000 in 1991 and contained a series of new features. By 1996 RISC OS had been shipped on over 500,000 systems.
Archive is a membership magazine for users of the Acorn Archimedes personal computer and related RISC OS hardware. It is the oldest and longest-running RISC OS magazine.