I do love the BBC. It gets to make programmes that couldn’t possibly pass the muster, unless of course they were being pitched to Nick Cage (thanks to Kate for that).

Flicking through the channels whilst blogging this evening I came across the amusing Alexander Armstrong and the wonderful Martin Freeman as Clive Sinclair (of Sinclair Computers, the ZX Spectrum people) and Chris Curry (of Acorn Computers) respectively, in a dramatic retelling of the computer boom of the early 80s. Some wikipedia couchsurfing ensued so I could cross reference the history as it was going.

Fantastically British. Wonderfully sweet in its own way. Interesting for the tech geeks amongst us – I learned a bit of basic at primary school in Malaysia, and my brother had, back in the day, a ZX Spectrum complete with cassette tape games.

The epilogue, told in 8 bit green computer text tells the tragic end of the British computing boom, such as it was, with the sale of Sinclair to Olivetti and of Acorn to Amstrad, both for fractions of their peak value. Wonder what the likes of Tranquil PC have to say about that?

Clip below.