[Z-T-T]

> I was born ‘89 and in the midlands of the UK, so I missed these programmes

In the real world, outside of BBC fantasies about its own importance, no kid in the 80s (ie, an inconsequential number) became computer literate a) at school or b) on a BBC Micro or c) due to a boring TV series about a computer they didn't own, couldn't afford and couldn't use, because virtually no teacher had any idea what to do with one.

Sir Clive Sinclair (character assassinated by the BBC in a drama about itself, Micro Men) is virtually single-handedly responsible for the computer literacy of British kids in the (certainly early/mid) 1980s, producing the affordable multi-million selling computers they actually used, typed programs into and established a gigantic British gaming industry with.

[jacquesm]

> In the real world, outside of BBC fantasies about its own importance, no kid in the 80s (ie, an inconsequential number) became computer literate a) at school or b) on a BBC Micro or c) due to a boring TV series about a computer they didn't own, couldn't afford and couldn't use, because virtually no teacher had any idea what to do with one.

Well, I lived in the real world. And not even in the UK and if it wasn't for the BBC micro I probably would have picked a different career. It had a lot more impact than you give it credit for, I know plenty of people who, like me, really grokked computers for the first time because the 'beeb' and the excellent software and documentation that came with it.

By then I'd already consumed a lot of other 8 bitters but none of them offered the interfaces, the quality of engineering and the software that the bbc did, including a very nice version of basic, which was light years ahead of whatever else was available at that time.

[dijit]

Aside from the obvious response, that as stated in my comment my mother knows programming.

I could point to the UK demo scene and resulting rise in the gaming industry as an example of efficacy. If not directly then at least fostering a culture that made it possible.

DMA design (later called rockstar games) was borne entirely out of this culture. I think it’s not right to underplay the BBC micro in this area.

But I wasn’t born, I could be wrong.

[Z-T-T]

The multi-million UK games industry was established in the early/mid 80s not by a "demo scene" or by the BBC, but almost entirely on the back of popular Sinclair home computers (ZX80, ZX81 and ZX Spectrum), by people programming games at home and software houses that in some cases became giants.

DMA/Rockstar is in fact a prime example of the later echoes - see also Ocean, Ultimate, Gremlin et al - of that Sinclair-inspired industry; its origins are in a Scottish computer club in the early 80s, using and writing games for the Spectrum.

(As an aside, GTA itself was probably influenced by a popular and pioneering Spectrum game from 1986, Turbo Esprit).