Micromen .. did anyone see it ? any good ?

[eliquant]

Micromen was aired on BBC3 or 4 last night, it was about the founders of the 8-bit home computers in the UK in the 80s, Sir Clive Sinclair etc ...


Did you see it ? was it any good ? was Alan Sugar portrayed for the Amstrad ?!?!?

Was it totally sad ? was it a comedy ?!? Someone get me my anorak and thermos flask... !!!

[gingerjedi]

I recorded it, there was series link too?

Is it for Micromen or just the general geek season?

[TimberWolf]

Yeah, I saw it. It was so-so. They used clips of Alan Sugar rather than have someone play him. I like the way Sinclair described Sugar as a "barrow boy", which as is turned out was right. The film gave the impression that the UK had invented the small computer and were later overtaken by an American juggernaut. I don't know whether we actually held such a lead in micros - there was the TRS80, UK101, Pet, etc around the same time - I missed the beginning so these may have made an appearance, but I didn't see them. The closing scene was of Sinclair riding in his C5 being overtaken by a Microsoft emblazoned juggernaut.

Weird how I just flick on Freeview at some ungodly hour to find something interesting on. The night before it was Boris Johnson et. al. and the Bullingdon club, although I fell asleep and missed most of that.

[scott_free]

I enjoyed it, it brought back memories of my early days in computing seeing those clips of BBC programmes, and the new models as they came out - waiting lists for Sinclair QL !

Smoking at desks, seems like yesterday, that made me laugh

[hyperD]

Couldn't get over the way that minions called him "sir" (even before he was knighted). I've never called anyone "sir" since I left skool.

I called a policeman sir many, many years ago. I floored my decatted TVR 5.0l V8 Griff in a town centre briefly and lifted off - because of the high buildings it sounded like and explosion followed by lots of loud bangs. I stopped at a roundabout. Right in front of a policecar on the adjacent side who immediately blue'd and two'd and pulled across me.

Eating lots of humble pie as he berated me at great lengths for what amounted to nothing more than "making children cry in a town centre".

I called him sir a lot and he liked that.

Oh those stupid halcyon days...

[Scary]

Next week's ep is about Robert Noyce.

The guy who made it all possible by "inventing the silicon chip" as the voice over for the trail informed us.

That's Dummer & Kilby out of the running then.

Font of all knowledge Wikipedia says that Kilby's chip (6 months earlier) was made of germanium, and not silicon. And that Dummer published his ideas years earlier, but was unable to put them into practice.

[Iron Condor]

Great stuff.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...b92/Micro_Men/

[TheFaQQer]

I recorded it and haven't watched it yet.

Please don't tell me how it ends.

[Scary]

Not seen it, but Amiga and ST vs SAM Coupe... I could take a guess how that's going to end.

ETA: oh, there was the Archimedes too (too expensive)

[sasguru]

I recorded it and haven't watched it yet.

Please don't tell me how it ends.

IT gets outsourced to India and we all lose our jobs.
Britain becomes a 3rd world country because we vote for stupid career politicians to lead us.