{"id":10381,"date":"2009-10-14T04:49:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-13T17:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2009\/10\/14\/micro-men-on-the-bbc-sinclairs-acorns-and-the-knack\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T04:22:20","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T18:22:20","slug":"micro-men-on-the-bbc-sinclairs-acorns-and-the-knack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2009\/10\/14\/micro-men-on-the-bbc-sinclairs-acorns-and-the-knack\/","title":{"rendered":"Micro Men on the BBC: Sinclairs, Acorns, and the Knack"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Now these guys look like some proper British boffins!
Tony Fishpool, G4WIF, sent me this link to a wonderful new BBC program about the early days of home computing: http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/technology\/gamesblog\/2009\/oct\/08\/armstrong-freeman-micro-men-bbc<\/a><\/p>\n

Tony also sent me his own story of computer derring-do in the early days. Here Tony once again marks himself as a true Knack victim, and a true wizard. Commenting on the BBC show, Tony wrote:<\/p>\n

…I enjoyed a huge dose of nostalgia. I<\/span> owned both Sinclair and Acorn computers back then and I suppose they launched<\/span> me on a geek career that’s put food on the table ever since.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the first Christmas’s of my early married life tested my new bride’s<\/span>
patience with a knack victim for a husband.<\/span><\/p>\n

A long awaited Acorn Atom kit computer finally arrived on Christmas Eve. All<\/span> during Christmas day I was hunched over a steaming soldering iron installing<\/span> every capacitor, resistor and semiconductor in the computer’s printed<\/span> circuit board.<\/span><\/p>\n

That evening after the last component was installed I applied power and<\/span>
there was a beep and the TV (which should have been showing Christmas<\/span>
movies) displayed :-<\/span><\/p>\n

Acorn Computers<\/span><\/p>\n

Ready><\/span><\/p>\n

Wow!<\/span><\/p>\n

How I managed to get that computer working first time still amazes me to<\/span>
this day. How I am still married amazes me even more – but I was “in the<\/span>
zone” and that computer just had to be built.<\/span><\/p>\n

The TV show is called “Micro Men” so look out for it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kind regards<\/span>
Tony<\/span> G4WIF<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now these guys look like some proper British boffins!Tony Fishpool, G4WIF, sent me this link to a wonderful new BBC program about the early days of home computing: http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/technology\/gamesblog\/2009\/oct\/08\/armstrong-freeman-micro-men-bbc Tony also sent me his own story of computer derring-do in the early days. Here Tony once again marks himself as a true Knack victim, and … Continue reading “Micro Men on the BBC: Sinclairs, Acorns, and the Knack”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10382,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[260,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-minimalist-computing","category-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10383,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10381\/revisions\/10383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}