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by darreninthenet 1060 days ago
Interesting fact - the BBC has always been around experimenting with new media etc - in the early days of ISPs in the UK, the BBC was one of the first and in fact had the best (ie carried the most newsgroups) UseNet server from a UK based ISP at the time.
3 comments
ta1243 1060 days ago
BBC ran public multicast trials for live streaming back in 2006 -- https://www.bbc.co.uk/multicast/

Alas didn't go anywhere. Now nearly 20 years later many companies (amazon, netflix, bbc) still struggle with live streaming at scale

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pessimizer 1060 days ago
Sadly, years ago they tossed their massive, intricate website that was filled with goodies (you could even download study guides for documentaries they broadcast years ago, or go through their citations), replaced it with a modern nothing, and hid their streams behind crappy apps.
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yung_steezy 1060 days ago
Product owners eventually do this to every tech platform to justify their existence
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Barrin92 1060 days ago
and not just new media either. They also sold about a million BBC Micros. In the early 80s most British schools had one. The British public system has produced a lot of pretty cool tech.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro

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darreninthenet 1060 days ago
Yup I grew up with one of those, my dad got some bonus at work and bought a BBC Micro B (with a 5.25" floppy drive, gasp!) when I was 7 and it was my first encounter with a computer... and then he got the (original) Elite game and I was hooked on computers ever since
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lttlrck 1060 days ago
We also got a model B when my dad got a bonus (he was away for weeks during the miners' strike of '84) but we had a Radio Shack tape recorder [1] - not a floppy drive!

Some years later we went to a store to buy a floppy drive but I ended up with an Atari ST instead. For not a lot more money...

[1] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b1/57/59/b15759f5425af9f2f650...

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