LORD FRED HARRIS jumped ship from MAKING THE MOST OF… momentarily to present his own amateur games-writing show, eschewing the BBC for the more popular Spectrum and Electron and knocking out such classic games as Monsterzap (Space Invaders, more or less) as he did so in good old BASIC. Avuncular atmosphere well to the fore, with Fred the Fellow Amateur throughout (“I don’t know about you, but we find the idea of wandering through pages and pages of computer code horrifying…”) You could buy the programmes on tape for a couple of quid after the programme, or (ah, was it really so long ago?) the listings to type in yourself.
Joanne Gray
February 19, 2017 at 8:03 pm
The BBC Model B was not really eschewed because it used the exact same programming language as the Acorn Electron. I bought an Electron (trading in my beloved Commodore 64) to help with my GCSE Computer Studies because I could try out stuff on my computer at home first, then do my practical work on the school’s Model Bs to much success.
Richardpd
January 2, 2024 at 10:46 pm
I remember my Brother having the tie in tape for our Acorn Electron with a few different (literally!) BASIC games. It came with a book that described the programming so that users could learn how to write similar games. A bearded Fred Harris was on the cover.
Unfortunately he leant it to someone who lost the tape, but claimed he had given it us back!