Date   : Tue, 19 Jun 2001 23:39:14 +0100
From   : "Rob King" <rob@...>
Subject: Large collection of original BBC magazines for sale

Hi All,

[If you're not meant to offer things for sale on this list I appologise in
advance and I'll withdraw the message]

For over 10 years I've been lugging around nearly 200 original BBC micro
magazines - the beeb (model B) was my first computer (well, apart from a
couple of days on a ZX81) and I learnt to program on it so have a stupidly
high affection for the machine...  Although my parents have long since sold
the machine itself I could never let go of a whole bunch of original games
and what feels like 10 tons of magazines (Micro User, Acorn User and A&B
Computing).

I'd like to see the magazines go to a home where someone will scan in as
much as possible and preserve the knowledge for the future (i.e: publish it
on the net) - let me just list what I've got:

Micro User
=========
Vol 1 (1-6,8-12 | Missing issue 7, Issue 11 missing it's cover)
Vol 2 (1-12 | 2 copies of issues 1,2,8)
Vol 3 (1-12)
Vol 4 (1-12 | 2 copies of issues 7 & 12)
Vol 5 (1-12,12 | Missing issue 11)
Vol 6 (3-12)
Vol 7 (1,4,6-9)

A&B
==
Vol 1 (1,2,5,7-16 | Yes really vol 1 goes to 16)
Vol 2 (6-12)
Vol 3 (1-5,7,8,10,12)
Vol 4 (1-12)
Vol 6 (10)

Acorn Users
==========
Around about 60-70 of these, including I believe a couple of copies of the
first issue.

I've also got various other random magazine from that time with some BBC
related info in (as well as Spectrum, C-64 stuff etc...)

Now much as I'd like to give this lot away I have a nasty suspicion I'd see
the whole deal end up on e-bay in a few years time and change hands for a
lot of money which would be truly gutting having looked after them all for
so long.

Now I do own a scanner but in all reality I'll probably never get the time
again to spend scanning in articles (You know, back when a computer magazine
did a special pull-out on disk drives and REALLY explained what was going on
and what each pin on the standard disc drive bus actually did...)

So is anyone interested in putting a bid forward for the whole lot?  If
you're international (i.e not the UK) I warn you that 180 odd magazines
weighs a lot (each one comes in at around 435 grammes therefore approx 78
Kilogrammes of shipping costs) so I anticipate this would appeal more to
those in the UK who'd want to drive to London to pick them up.

If this is an inappropriate forum for this offer I apologise, it just seemed
like the right sort of place to find people who'd be interested/care for
this lot, rather than a simple e-bay auction.

If anyone is seriously interested I'll put up EXACTLY what Acorn Users I've
got, as well as the other odds and sods magazines from that era.  If I've
not heard anything back by say the 7th of July I'll reconsider where else to
offer them.

Kind regards,
Rob King
(rob@...)


p.s:  Here's an article I did get around to scanning in from many years
ago - I've sent it off to Ian Bell as a keepsake ;)

Limitless horizons for the Elite Team
Acorn World (Part of Acorn Program) December 1984 – pages iv, v

Nicole Segre sets out to discover what drives two top
flight programmers who are finding fame and fortune
as authors of the new chart?busting space odyssey from Acornsoft

FROM THE MOMENT the trading ship Avalonia slipped its orbital berth above
the planet Lave and began to manoeuvre for the hyperspace jump point …
       So begins the 50?page novel which accompanies Elite, the latest and most
ambitious game produced so far by Acornsoft. Greeted by rapturous reviews,
the game has already exceeded the company's wildest expectations by
rocketing straight to the top of the popularity charts and selling 13,000
copies within two weeks of its launch. Forecasts for sales during the
Christmas period are in the region of 100,000 – more than double those of
any other Acornsoft game so far.
       A complex combination of an arcade shoot?out and an adventure, Elite is
already said to have stopped work for weeks in more than one department
while highly?paid programmers struggle to improve their status as
trader?ship commanders ? from 'harmless' to the coveted 'dangerous' or even
'deadly' level.  Behind what promises to be a sales record?breaker are two
unassuming undergraduates at Jesus College, Cambridge, 20?year?old Ian Bell
and 19?year?old David Braben.  The pair wrote Elite in the spare time
allowed them in pursuit of a natural science degree and mathematics degree
respectively.

Hideous Shortage

       The original idea was from Bell who had already produced one successful
game for Acornsoft, Freefall. 'I wanted to follow that with a 3D simulation
game and it seemed logical to set it in space," he says." Then Braben added
the trading ship scenario and things just developed from there." The result
of their combined efforts puts the player under the guise of Commander
Jameson at the helm of a Cobra Mark 111 trading and combat craft.
Setting?off from the planet Lave, with its famous rain forests and its human
colonials governed by a dictatorship, the aim is to achieve fame and fortune
by exploring distant planets where goods, weaponry and possibly even slaves
can be bought and sold.  The choice ranges from places like Riedquat,
inhabited by harmless rodents and noted for its fabulous cuisine, to the
tedious industrial corporate state of Zaonce. Many more weird and wonderful
worlds lie outside Commander Jameson's initial fuel range of seven light
years.  Besides fine judgment in deciding which purchases to make before
starting on the inter?galactic trail , the player also has to display
considerable arcade skills. Space travel in Elite is beset by danger as
piracy and bounty?hunting spreads through the universe. Each battle against
marauding craft is influenced by the specifications of the craft in
question. On reaching a planet, the pilot must also dock the ship before any
trading can be undertaken, a task which may require hours of practice.

The huge variety of planets, aliens, spaceships and weapons, as well as the
complexities of space flight, offer almost endless scope for play.
Fortunately the game can be saved and resumed later, allowing the poor
addict time for rest and refreshment between bouts of hard flying, fighting
and trading. The graphics, too, seem set to earn favour among games buyers,
as simple dots, curves and lines convey speed and movement in a startlingly
effective way.

There is even a choice of views from the front, back or sides of the
spaceship and control panels At the bottom of the screen supply vital
information about the player's position  and fuel level.

Bell and Braben explain the wealth of detail in the game, an impressive
achievement considering what Braben calls the "hideous shortage of memory"
of the BBC, by saying that they started writing it and continued until they
had to stop. "If the BBC had more memory, we would probably still be writing
it, ",says Bell. "As it is, there is not a single free byte in the program."
The authors agree that careful, economical programming enabled them to
squeeze much more into the program than they would have thought possible
originally. "The main thing is to make sure that every instruction is a
useful one," says Braben.

It is astonishing that Elite took them only a year to write, during which
time they also had to attend to what Braben calls "little things like
college work and end?of?year examinations". Of that time, about half was
taken up with writing the program and the other half with finding and
eliminating. the bugs, some of which, like one particularly elusive
semi?colon, were infuriatingly difficult to trace.

"We think we have got rid of all of them" says Bell, "but you can never be
sure." Their working association began as a simple friendship, struck up at
dinner in Hall at Jesus. "It took us some time to admit that we were both
interested in computers," says Braben. "At first we were too embarrassed."

Both had owned computers since their, final year at their respective grammar
schools ? Braben owned an Acorn Atom and Bell a Tandy TRS?80. Neither,
however, has had formal tuition in programming, except for one term of
'computer lessons' which Bell had in the lower fourth. "They had no
computers at school in my day," says Braben, who learned to program from the
Atom manual. Both taught themselves machine code, for which Bell recommends
"poring over other people's listings."

Utmost Secrecy

Besides Freefall, Bell had already written one professional game before
embarking on Elite, a version of Reversi for the BBC Model A which was
marketed by Program Power. "I do not think it was a great seller," he says.
Of all his forays into authorship, he has enjoyed Elite most. "It was rather
an effort to finish Freefall," he says, "but Elite was sufficiently
interesting to keep us hacking away happily."

For Braben, Elite was his first professional effort and his first game for
the BBC B. Soon after the pair started work on the program, they took it to
Acornsoft and the company was sufficiently interested to supply Braben with
a BBC micro.

According to Bell, their close association with Acornsoft, which is based in
Cambridge, is nothing unusual. Peter Irvin, author of Starship Command,
another Acornsoft production, and a friend of Bell, is a student at St
John's. BBC micros are much in vogue among the undergraduate population and
micro clubs flourish. "People take their micros with them at the beginning
of term," says Bell. "I suppose they just like to mess around with them."

They finished writing Elite in January, 1984. "Then we finished it again ?
and several times more after that," says Bell.  Throughout the operation,
Acornsoft insisted that the utmost secrecy be maintained; somehow it was,
although many of their friends knew what the two authors were doing.  They
also managed to remain on the best of terms. "We never bickered says Braben.
"  If we did, we would never have finished the program." According to Bell
the secret of good relations was that "whenever we disagreed, we would blame
the assembler, not each other."

Having shared the work of writing the program, the two will also enjoy an
equal share of the proceeds from the game, which already promise to be
considerable. Bell thinks he will save his money for the future, while
Braben likes the idea of buying a car. Neither has plans to throw everything
aside and embark on a lucrative career as programmers.

"It is still a bit of a hobby," says Braben, who hopes to continue to write
programs while doing postgraduate studies. Bell says he would not recommend
programming games as an easy option. "It is still a good idea to learn? how
to program," he says, "but games will become increasingly difficult to
write, with the market becoming more competitive and machines becoming more
sophisticated."

Nevertheless, the two have what they call "bold plans" concerning their
future productions but neither is revealing those plans.

Judging by their performance they will no doubt manage to combine some
ambitious programming project with everyday activities such as studying,
playing squash and tennis in Bell's case, or sailing in Braben's, and
reading science fiction. Fortunately, neither is an avid games player and
although they try their hand occasionally at Elite, they have not progressed
beyond the "competent" stage. Braben sensibly limits his playing to an hour
"to see how far I can get."

With no such time limit on their programming, it seems likely that both will
go a long way.
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