ZX Spectrum vs BBC Micro: the TV drama

By Oli Welsh Published 1 July, 2009

BBC4 to portray Sinclair/Curry rivalry.

BBC4 is making an "affectionately comic" TV drama celebrating the central rivalry in British home computing in the 1980s: between Sir Clive Sinclair, creator of the ZX Spectrum, and his former colleague Chris Curry who went on to design the BBC Micro.

The (very clever, if you ask us) working title for the 90-minute film is Syntax Era. It will star Alexander Armstrong of comedy duo Armstrong and Miller as Uncle Clive, and The Office's Martin Freeman as Curry.

Extra nostalgic value will be extracted by the use of archive footage from the time, including clips from the likes of John Craven's Newsround, according to The Guardian's report.

Although the gaming battle for the UK's households in the eighties was really fought between the Spectrum and US import the Commodore 64, it was Sinclair and Curry's easy-to-program computers which hooked a generation of British boys on computing and spear-headed the particularly early and prolific growth of the UK videogame industry.

The cheap and flexible Spectrum flooded British homes, while Curry's sturdy, establishment-approved slab of a machine could be found in virtually every school in the nation.

"Those of us who lived through the 1980s will remember the sense of excitement when gadgets and technology started to appear in our homes, but not many of us will know the fascinating stories behind their arrival," said BBC4 controller Richard Klein.

"Alexander Armstrong and Martin Freeman are excellent choices to portray Sir Clive Sinclair and Chris Curry at a time when battling to have the UK's most-loved home computer was their number one priority."

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (71) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • mashk #1 3 years ago

    What? No Digital Foundry pixel by pixel analysis to accompany said screenshots. Eurogamer is getting fucking lazy! Not good enough.

  • Darren #2 3 years ago

    I remember the BBC Micro fondly from school as I spent many a happy break and lunch hour playing Chuckie Egg, Frakk! and Elite.

    I certainly don't remember it being a rival for the Spectrum though as that was the Commodore 64, which I owned as my first computer, and is the one I have very happy memories of. Ah those were the days. :)

  • DFawkes #3 3 years ago

    BBC Micro! I loved that machine, thank to being the ones we used at primary school. Some of the games were great too, like Imogen, Strykers Run, and Repton.
    Edited by 1 at 01/07/09 @ 10:44

  • Evolution #4 3 years ago

    I was handed down an Acorn Electron by my brother, such an amusing device.

  • GreyBeard #5 3 years ago

    The C64 had every bit as much influence on the UK bedroom-coder generation as the spectrum did. Arguably more so as the C64's basic interpreter was too slow and limited to do anything much at all, forcing would-be game makers to learn assembler - an absolute requirement for professional coding back then.

  • darkmorgado #6 3 years ago

    "What? No Digital Foundry pixel by pixel analysis to accompany said screenshots. Eurogamer is getting fucking lazy! Not good enough. "

    Not needed... we all know by now that games look better on Spectrum than PS3 ;-)

  • CHAZBIGPOTATO #7 3 years ago

    I hope they include the Acorn Electron, that was a beast!

    Superior software always came up with good games for the Beeb, remember Exile by David braben and Ian Bell [link url=http://www.retroalphabet.com/game.asp?Game_Name=Exile ]http://ww w.retroalphabet.com/game.asp?Ga...[/link]

  • darkmorgado #8 3 years ago

    Exile was all kinds of awesome, I'd really love to see a remake of that on XBLA. Still 2d, but with better physics and spruced-up HD loveliness. The atmosphere of that game was awesome.
    And I still say that the Acorn Archimedes version of Elite was the best. Archimedes had some awesome games.

  • penhalion #9 3 years ago

    Exile!

    Frak me that was an awesome game. I remember the robots, the exploration and the AI life that was floating around. I recon that coding for a small amounts of memory should be a requirement for any software degree. It seems that this kind of creative thinking is slowly being taught right out of the industry. I haven't met a programmer who knows assembly in years!

  • drewman5150 #10 3 years ago

    Ah, I remember it well, the posh kids at school had the BBC, the rest of us had Spectrums - although there was a split in the ranks there too, those with 16k those with 48k (almost forgot the other lot with the wobbly RAM Pack...)

  • MoGamer2006 #11 3 years ago

    Yeah, the Beeb was for poshos who got driven to school by their mums in big cars... Me and my homies kept it real and stuck it to the man with our Speccies! Colour clash - RESPEKT!

  • penhalion #12 3 years ago

    God you guys are sending me on a nostalgia trip!

    I had a C64 and used BBC micros at school. My mate had an electron and one had an Amstrad 464. I then had one of the 128k spectrums and played fairlight, knightlore etc. etc for hours after school.

    I am definitely watching this comedy thing when it comes out.....which is when exactly?

  • StooMonster #13 3 years ago

    I had one of the first C64 in the UK, something like 0000005 was the serial number; I pre-ordered it months before and counted down the days until release day, and I think it came through pre-release. Didn't even have proper PAL set up on the mobo, it had a Heath Robinson collection of wires solder to inner chips.

    No-one else had one for months, it was best part of a year before software started to arrive. Had to make my own fun before I could buy stuff off the shelf; had that big fat Programmers Guide book. Marvellous fun, although stopped me studying at school, and made me end up in the 1980s games industry.

    TV show sounds great, looking forward to it already.

  • StooMonster #14 3 years ago

    I always felt sorry for the kids whose parents bought them a "computer" in a sale, at Boots (which used to sell them) or other retailer who had jumped on the bandwagon.

    Dragon 32? I still laugh at those kids now. Texas Instruments thing? Rubbish. Oric Atmos? There was one kid at school who used to try and convince everyone that Oric was more powerful than their Speccys and C64 and it was only a matter of time before we'd see great software.

    Yes, posh kids has BBC Micro but my really well of mates had Atari 800s with disc drives and quality software from the USA.

  • Garulon #15 3 years ago

    The only kid I ever knew with an Electron had religious maniac parents. He ended up a creationist.

  • mingster #16 3 years ago

    The only thing worth having a BBC for was Elite.
    Otherwise it was C64 v Speccy all the way.

  • Goffee #17 3 years ago

    In the inevitable U.S. remake, Sam Tramiel (Danny DeVito) repeatedly punches himself in the face while Trip Hawkins' (Tom Cruise) nose grows with every promise.

  • mkreku #18 3 years ago

    I had a Commodore 128! I probably started it up in C128 mode like.. five times.

  • kangarootoo #19 3 years ago

    I don't really recall there being much of a battle between the Speccy and BBC Micro in the home.

    As I recall it, the home system was the ZX48 and schools had the BBC (plus the odd rich kid, who could ace BBC games due to practice at home).


    My childhood nostaliga seems to be divided into episodes based on the computer we had at the time. Most of my early years were spent on the ZX48 (christ that system had a long life, and we talk about 10 year plans these days). Whereas the C64 came along round about the time I was able to actually buy my own games (Kickstart 2, a polished work of genius, £1.99). I seem to remeber Green Beret coming out around the tipping point.

    Edit: now I think on it, what about the ZX81. My first experience of home computing. 3D Monster Maze was the scariest shit I had ever seen in my life.
    Edited by 1 at 01/07/09 @ 11:37

  • MaxiSleep #20 3 years ago

    Looking back I dont think people realized just how powerful the speccy was for the price. Some of the 3d stuff it did was quite amazing.

  • kangarootoo #21 3 years ago

    Wasn't it very good with detailed sprites, but not so hot on lots of colours onscreen at once?

    I recall a lot of the later speccy games (arcade ports and so on) had relatively detailed sprites, but would be monochrome over a yellow background.

  • HuggyAtHome #22 3 years ago

    Spectrum, (with thousands of copied C15 tapes), followed by an Amstrad 128 followed by an Amiga.

    Happy happy days. Games cost a fiver and you bought them so rarely because game 'sharing' was rife.

  • MrChuckles #23 3 years ago

    I wanted a spectrum when i was a kid. My parents bought me a BBC B in about 1982 so i could 'program my own games'...

    I did, and now i've been working in the games industry for 14 years... Thanks Mum & Dad! :)

  • mashk #24 3 years ago

    8bit computer wise, the Amstrad CPC 464 was far better than both the C64 and the Spectrum. It had the colours of the C64 and the detailed sprites of the Speccy.

  • CHAZBIGPOTATO #25 3 years ago

    Nah Mashk, C64 was best out of all of those. Was always jealous of my mates games for the C64.

  • StooMonster #26 3 years ago

    C64 has American titles and European titles as well as British ones, Speccy was limited to UK and Spain, Amstrad CPC had a few British titles; if you had a disc drive for C64 you were well away with some really great multi-load stuff and were not limited to RAM size being filled by a cassette load.
    Edited by 1 at 01/07/09 @ 12:28

  • skillian #27 3 years ago

    I had hundreds of copied cassettes for my Spectrum ZX, and even got collared by a policeman for stealing a £1.99 copy of Dizzy from Woolworths at the age of 11.

    God, I was an unethical bastard back then.

  • schnide #28 3 years ago

    Sounds like a great idea to me! Nice one Beeb.

  • GamesConnoisseur #29 3 years ago

    Ah!

    The other day I opened a big box and saw all the old C15/C90 tapes for Speccy!

    Sure the real rivalry WAS between Speccy and C64, however most of my gaming exposure was between Speccy at home and BBC at school, and there were a few games worth playing on BBC. C64 games were at my mate house and he often loved to show off Summer Games, Bruce Lee or such!

    Speccy was far better at Starglider type of game and which C64 stunks at! Only one mate of mine at the time had Amstrad and I would second Amstrad had the best of both world but at the end just too much of in a third place like a well known console today!!

  • StooMonster #30 3 years ago

    Also, first got online with C64 ... in 1984 ... and have been plugged in ever since. :) Your Speccy and Amstrads and BBCs weren't connected to CIX and the like.

  • Coughthulu #31 3 years ago

    @CHAZBIGPOTATO

    Sorry, I know this is pedantic. :(

    Exile was by Peter Irvin (who wrote Starship Command) and Jeremy Smith (who wrote Thrust). Elite was David Braben and Ian Bell.

  • Dr_Wadd #32 3 years ago

    I still have a set of BBC B kit sitting in the spare bedroom, might even be an old Microvitec Cub monitor in there as well, somewhere. I must get around to firing it up sometime and checking that it still boots, I fully expect it will, damn robust bits of kit. Ah, the memories of swapping out ROMs using a spoon to prise them from their sockets.

    I`m always amused by the comments that the Beebs were for posh kids, a sentiment I`ve seen expressed more widely than just here. I never consider us to be a posh family, but the parents wanted something that would be of more use than just games (much to my initial chagrin). In hindsight I`m very glad that we went for the BBC B over the Spectrum.

  • bioreit #33 3 years ago

    @ drewman5150

    "Ah, I remember it well, the posh kids at school had the BBC, the rest of us had Spectrums - although there was a split in the ranks there too, those with 16k those with 48k (almost forgot the other lot with the wobbly RAM Pack...) "

    Had both

    *is smug*

    And a Commodore 64. And a 128. And a Dragon 32. And Atari 520 ST, then a 1040. Never had an Amiga, though, or an Amstrad.

    *so smug his head will explode*

    Actually found our old Commodore 128 a few months back - still boxed, wrapped in its plastic, with the external floppy drive (didn't have the 'D' model 128). Not sure, but I think Dad might have chucked it out when he moved house... :-S
    Edited by 1 at 01/07/09 @ 13:10

  • StooMonster #34 3 years ago

    We used to use BBC Micro as development workstations for Speccy, C64, and Amstrad -- they had high resolution green/amber screen monitors (80 characters wide), a great text editor in ROM, compilers for Z80 and 6502 in ROM, floppy drives, and fantastic RS232 support so we could download to target platforms with ease.

    Previously people used 'Trash 80' and Imagine Software used Sage things with 68000 chips in them and dumb 80-character terminals.

    Edit: bad spelling today.
    Edited by 1 at 01/07/09 @ 13:14

  • cherryuk #35 3 years ago

    This sounds great as i've had many spectrums in my day - and all because of the +2's play button snapping off - yes they were very cheap!

  • pantherboy #36 3 years ago

    Spectrum all the way - hunch back, manic miner, jet set willy (what names!) love it!!

  • Vroom #37 3 years ago

    /Takes out grid paper

    Right lets go!

    10 FOR i=USR "a" TO USR "b"+7
    20 READ b
    30 POKE i,b
    40 NEXT i
    50 RETURN
    60 REM EG Logo
    70 DATA 0,60,126,126,126,126,60,0
    80 REM EG Logo
    90 DATA BIN 11110000
    100 DATA BIN 10000000
    110 DATA BIN 11100000
    120 DATA BIN 10000000
    130 DATA BIN 11110111
    140 DATA BIN 00001000
    150 DATA BIN 00001001
    160 DATA BIN 00000111

    Yip, that looks good!

    Anyone see what I did there? ;)
    Edited by 1 at 01/07/09 @ 13:26

  • owl #38 3 years ago

    i remember when games used to have multiple screenshots from different systems on the boxes. atari st always looked awesome, c64 looked pretty good and spectrum (which we had) invariably looked balls. sigh.

  • MrWonderstuff #39 3 years ago

    Yea speccy here....48k then had the spectrum + that looked like a stripped down QL. My gaming hobby started with that really. Great days.

  • photoboy #40 3 years ago

    @Vroom!

    Type mismatch on line 10? ;)

  • Vroom #41 3 years ago

    @photoboy

    Ah bugger! there always is one somewhere.

    I forget a bloody semicolon every day of the week :)

  • mashk #42 3 years ago

    Whsmiths circa 1986.

    10 PRINT "Mashk is teh bestest"
    20 GOTO 10.

  • skillian #43 3 years ago

    Why did anyone ever think that rubber keys was a good idea?

  • Vroom #44 3 years ago

    @skillian

    Easier to put together init.

  • TOOTR #45 3 years ago

    hmm.....BBC B : Elite ( had my picture displayed in Computer & Video Games AND got the little Elite badge thiing and Elite certificate from Acornsoft on sending in the competition code). what a game.

    Repton, zalaga, frak, exile,CHUCKIE EGG, Good call on Imogen, Castle Quest, Twin Kingdom valley,thrust,s Killer Gorilla, Philosophers quest and my first Ultimate (or Rare for you youngsters) game was bought on the beeb. Sabre wulf then alien8 and knightlore.

    Yes the speccy had most of these games but the beeb keyboard was the best. posh kids lol - wow its quite amazing to remember how much I loved that keyboard and yet in those days we never used a mouse!

    I was an absolute demon playing Planetoid aka defender with a z < > TAB space bar H Enter and am certain I would go further on xbla pacman 'snapper' using z x . ; instead of the xbox controller....


  • Garulon #46 3 years ago

    @kangarootoo

    "Wasn't it very good with detailed sprites, but not so hot on lots of colours onscreen at once?

    It was basically a framebuffer, and a weirdly laid out framebuffer at that - you had a monochrome bitmap of (IIRC) 256x192 then a colour overlay at a resolution of 32x24 allowing basically two colours per 8x8 pixel square, those could be any of about 16 and it could auto-flash (foreground/backgroun) them. No sprites or any of that malarky, just a quite good CPU running at 3MHz.

  • mashk #47 3 years ago

    Own up, who had 'rituals' they had to perform in order to make a dodgy tape load?

  • Twinkle #48 3 years ago

    @mashk

    We had an Acorn Electron, I (or my brother) had to listen to the tape carefully, if it started to go quiet/funny, the trick was to press the rewind button for a fraction of a second so the load could continue.

  • Yaz #49 3 years ago

    Ah yes, I have happy memories of my 48K ZX Spectrum (with it's third party keyboard and my home made joystick :)).

    Still have some of my Z80 code today, mostly for graphics, such as my assembler/machine code for drawing lines, area filling, 3D vector graphics, sprites, isometric 3D graphics (using masked sprites) etc.

    I remember spending so many hours optimizing the code for both speed and memory use (often by using of self modifying code). During those years, I learned so much about programming and about pushing hardware to the limits (for graphics that is).

    Those were the days..... *Sigh*. :)

    Enjoyed using the BBC Micro/Master too (school then University), although I could never find the time to learn 6502 machine code.

    As for the C64, I couldn't afford one at the time it was popular, but wished I had one because of the graphics (I think it was the first home computer to have brown in the colour palette). The ZX Spectrum was extremely limited when it came to colour, since the colour resolution was that of the characters, and only 2 colours per character (i.e. 2 colours per 8x8 pixels). Still, it forced people to be more innovative with the graphics.

    I could talk about this all day, but alas, back to work.....
    Edited by 3 at 01/07/09 @ 14:40

  • Dillinger #50 3 years ago

    @Garulon >>The only kid I ever knew with an Electron had religious maniac parents. He ended up a creationist.

    wierd, the only person I knew with an Electron was also from an incredibly religious family! did they advertise in the bible or something?

  • Vroom #51 3 years ago

    @Yaz

    Agree totally. Its so easy to be lazy these days. (including myself here)

    I felt we were being pushed harder in those days. The hardware limitations forced you to think outside the box more.

  • m0thr4 #52 3 years ago

    @kangarootoo
    Edit: now I think on it, what about the ZX81. My first experience of home computing. 3D Monster Maze was the scariest shit I had ever seen in my life.

    Ah... also my first experience of home computing and the wonderful world of 3D gaming. I was nine at the time and within minutes of opening the ZX81 manual, I knew I'd be spending the rest of my life coding.
    Edited by 1 at 01/07/09 @ 14:39

  • Redeye #53 3 years ago

    Really looking forward to this; the 8-bit era really was an amazing time, where people like Uncle Clive, Chris Curry, Al Charpentier, Jay Miner and many others brought home computing to the masses, and freewheeling bedroom coders created all sorts of mentalism that wouldn't even be sniffed at by today's publishers.

    And yes, said publishers could do a damn sight worse than having a trawl down Emulator Lane and snapping up some golden-age brilliance for release on today's systems.

  • CHAZBIGPOTATO #54 3 years ago

    @Couthulu

    Oh shit, yeah! :-)

    My bad, my rose tinted glasses are a bit scratched. Too much fun in the nineties (Curse you, recreational drugs)
    On a side note: Thrust! What a fucking immense game that was!!

  • antikewl #55 3 years ago

    Oh, they both sucked.

    I had Sinclair ZX81 but moved onto an Atari 800XL. I always felt sorry for anyone with a Spectrum (hope you don't like too many colours!) or a BBC Micro (*that's* what you call a joystick?!).
    Edited by 1 at 01/07/09 @ 16:57

  • Yaz #56 3 years ago

    "I always felt sorry for anyone with a Spectrum..."

    Snob!

    ;-)

  • henza #57 3 years ago

    "hooked a generation of British boys on computing"

    Hey! Girls played on BBCs and Speccys too! Please amend!

  • AOFanboi #58 3 years ago

    Will they have Timothy Dalton as Alan Sugar in the last episode, grinning evilly as he buys the last remnants of the once-powerful Sinclair empire? "I'll have all your computers, and your little C5 too!"

    Edit: I was one of the outsiders as an Oric-1 owner, but had friends who owned C64s and Amstrads.
    Edited by 1 at 01/07/09 @ 18:19

  • Retroid #59 3 years ago

    Awww, this sounds (like it could be, unless they bugger it up) great! :D

    Seeing as it's on BBC4 I'll give it the benefit of the doubt, interesting angle too.

    I look forward to some vintage beards and 'taches.

  • Retroid #60 3 years ago

    There wasn't a battle between Spectrum and BBC Micro in the home at all, the only kids I knew at the time with BBCs had teachers / wannabes as parents, the rest of us had C64s, Spectrums and a few with CPCs.

    Oh, and good god.... the CPC had the best of both worlds?! O_o It was superb for isometric games like Head over Heels and such, but stunk at scrolling and trying to fly sprites around the screen for the most part. I was always jealous of the CPC versions of Renegade and the like, though :)
    Edited by 1 at 01/07/09 @ 19:18

  • Dr_Wadd #61 3 years ago

    @ CHAZBIGPOTATO

    Thrust was the game that taught me that some CRT monitors really don`t like being turned upside down, discovered by my ultimately less than cunning plan to complete the inverse gravity levels by flipping the monitor over.

  • clockworkzombie #62 3 years ago

    @StooMonster
    I too first went online with a C64. In australia it had a black box modem thing that auto connected to a Bulletin Board setup and I purchased Bards Tale III online. Got it weeks before the shops. Should have called the "The Thief of Time" not fate. :)

  • 3william56 #63 3 years ago

    All sorts of brilliant.
    I want the end with Clive going over a cliff in a C5, thelma and louise style.

    Beeb FTW! I think Starship Command was the first moddable game - could change out the ship sprites for anything. I had a full suite of classics - Galactica, flash gordon's rocket, and a Barbarella Kn*b ship.

  • Merlinho #64 3 years ago

    I had an Acorn Electron. Waiting 30 minutes for a game to load somehow made you more appreciative of the games. I remember with fondness Starship Command, Thrust, Frogger, Killer Gorilla (rip off!), Superior Soccer, Graham Gooch's test cricket, Footballer of the Year, Steve Davis Snooker, Stryker's Run, Howzat, to name but a few.

  • mooseman721 #65 3 years ago

    Anyone remember the wild bunch? I loved that game so much.

  • smelly #66 3 years ago

    >"I always felt sorry for anyone with a Spectrum..."

    Why? it easily had the better games!

    Graphics dont make a game.. gameplay makes a game.. graphics are just "fluff". Kinda like how a hollywood movie isnt made "better" by special fx (well unless you're a sad dweeb)

  • Simonkey75 #67 3 years ago

    Lost my gaming cherry to a Spectrum 48k - wonderful machine (and tender and gentle with me). The good old days of thumbing through revolving stands full of £1.99 games at the local paper shop reading the tatty cassette sleeves in awe at the unlimited possibilities they seemed to offer :) Happy days! Or they were until mine spontaneously combusted, shooting flame out the expansion slot and permanently singing the carpet in front of the telly. Mum took a lot of convincing (and slavish completion of chores) to buy a C64 a few months after.

  • IronCladChicken #68 3 years ago

    Just gotta remember to tip-ex the cassette players volume wheel!

  • Beetroot_Bertie #69 3 years ago

    Oh yes, I had tip-ex on the volume wheel :) It was a tricky bugger to get just right.

    I had an Acorn Electron but we got one when they were practically giving them away. At that stage the Speccy was already a more successful machine (but more expensive). My dad went to town for a new portable telly from Currys or Dixons (whichever did Saisho tape players) and they bundle one in with some Acornsoft games and a cassette player for an extra £50 if I recall correctly. The games came in a plain cassette box which sat inside a hole in a cardboard book-sized box. Seemed quite special at the time :)

    I remember excitedly playing Hopper and Boxer that night. We had Arcadians too but it took ages to load and tended to cock up right near the end. Lots of "Data. Rewind tape" messages :)

    It's pretty amazing to me what the programmers got out of 32k or whatever was left after the basic OS. When Crazee Rider came out and the track had corners (as opposed to Overdrive's straight road) I was in awe. I had this Summer games collection by Tynesoft and rather cleverly they used a command to click the cassette player's motor lock to create the clicking reloading sound of the gun during the skeet shooting.

    I don't suppose many of the games would hold up that well today but I was very fond of Chuckie Egg, Frak!, Codename Droid, Deathstar and Mousetrap. Later on I really liked a Ghost and Goblins type games called Hobgoblin and it's sequel. I managed to pick up a cheap Plus 1 interface later on and played Hopper a lot on cartridge because i didn't have to wait for loading :)

    Oh, and Zany Kong Junior which was a rather excellent copy of Donkey Kong Jnr.
    Edited by 1 at 05/08/09 @ 20:33

  • MinerWilly #70 3 years ago

    I could read these comments all day , and to think I thought I was the only old git who still loves gaming . I was a Spectrum 48k dude as well but I remember in our Lunch times we used to play a great platform game on the BBC Micro called Magic Mushrooms ! it even had its own level editor . Makes me laugh when they call LBP innovative !
    Someone mentioned Fairlight , what about 3D Ant Attack by Sandy White . Now that game really will be looked upon as something very very special in years to come .
    Edited by 1 at 17/08/09 @ 20:23

  • db3 #71 2 years ago

    I had one of the first spectrums (16K) and from what I recall when I later upgraded to a BBC B it was that which were pitching against the C64 at computer club :)