[SIGCIS-Members] Two good recent TV programmes on the history of computing that are worth viewing.

James Sumner james.sumner at manchester.ac.uk
Fri Oct 16 00:22:02 PDT 2009


Thanks to Bernardo for the heads-up, and to Neil for the first-hand 
recollection. The historical material in the BBC4 'Electric Revolution' season 
seems to be attracting a lot of interest: I hope it'll soon be available outside 
the UK.

I thought I would chip in with some thoughts on _Micro Men_, as I research 
(slowly) in this area and have an interest in how technologies, and 
technologists, are portrayed for more general audiences. What fascinated me 
about _Micro Men_ is that it seemed to be two concepts welded together: a broad 
comedy about a caricatured version of Clive Sinclair, and a relatively careful 
attempt to make drama out of techie business history.

I'd be interested to know what others made of this. It seems reasonable to 
assume that the piece was commissioned on the strength of the appeal of a 
favourite national myth (such were Sinclair's triumphs and disasters in the 
1980s that he remains recognisable, I'd guess, to most people in the UK aged 
30+). 'Factual' content in popular broadcast media is almost generally deemed to 
require some sort of sugar-coating: the approach used here arguably has some 
merits over the usual alternative, which is to tell very loud and breathless 
stories about how whatever is under discussion has 'changed the world'.

The melding certainly had its problems. The pure farce scenes (Mensa groupies?) 
jarred with the plot, and the genre-clash was sometimes awkward. I particularly 
noticed the (non-)characterisation of Nigel Searle, who, as MD of Sinclair's 
firm, was perched on the interface between the Comedy Clive material and the 
attempt to portray real industrial developments. Conventional comedy logic would 
require Searle to be a stock henchman; strict representation, on the other hand, 
would have given no obvious grounds to differentiate him from the Acorn people 
with whom the narrative sympathises. In order to fit both halves, the fictional 
Searle became a cipher, relaying messages and influencing nothing. Meanwhile, 
the personalities assigned to the Acorn staff (Hauser as cosmic bluffer; Furber 
and Wilson as dull-and-duller; Curry, very improbably, as wide-eyed everyman) 
were as much inventions as Comedy Clive, and rather less upfront about it.

As to names, places and chronology, however, this was closer to the documented 
evidence than the vast majority of drama-docs. More importantly, there were 
earnest and sometimes very successful attempts to represent an episode in 
technological identity-forming and the trajectories of the businesses involved, 
rather than going down the easy legend-making route. Capital, in this drama, was 
raised not by self-evident visionary brilliance, but by pandering to the bank 
manager's prejudice. There was no hint of the 'lone developer' myth. Tension was 
wrung from overoptimistic sales projections. Above all, the fictional Clive 
Sinclair mirrored his real-life counterpart in rating the microcomputers which 
defined his public identity as a distinctly secondary concern.

It's in the nature of these productions to truncate, telescope and omit. There 
was only one simplification which I found seriously distorting: the virtual 
absence, until the closing scene, of the USA. Sinclair's principal rival from 
around 1982 was not Acorn but Commodore; the ill-fated Acorn Electron was an 
attempt to carve a share of a sector defined as much by Commodore as by 
Sinclair, while the even more ill-fated Sinclair QL was at some level a response 
both to the emerging office dominance of the IBM PC, and to Apple's visible 
commitment to promoting alternatives. Acorn's unreleased business machines, and 
both firms' adventures in the American retail market (via Timex, in Sinclair's 
case) further complicate the tale. Oddly, the show's closing caption -- "The 
home computer market is now dominated by giant American companies" -- presents 
the sloppiest message in the whole production.

Cheers
James


Roger Neil Barton wrote:
 > IMHO the Bob Noyce telebio last night was as brilliant as the other 
programmes in the series in the series were terrible.  In fact most lasted only 
a few minutes before I switched off and I missed the second (or more if there 
were more) part of the drama about Sinclair and Acorn.
 >
 > In Ken Tennet's blog he talks about "Acorn's descent into financial 
difficulty as the bank happily gives the company bigger loans for expansion, and 
it carries out an ill-advised stock exchange flotation."  Acorn was not a client 
and I didn't do the float but I did organise and host a conference ('84 or 85?), 
on the paperless office (ha ha), at the NCC in Manchester to which I invited 
Acorn.  I don't remember now but Acorn were represented either by Chris Curry or 
Herman Hauser.  It was required by Stock Exchange rules then, and is legally 
obligatory now, not to make any statement that provides new information to the 
market without a formal statement to the Stock Exchange.  The Acorn presentation 
included the jaw dropping news that sales were down some massive number and that 
the company would miss expectations by miles.  By the end of the immediately 
following coffee break the share price had collapsed and they hurriedly 
departed.  I'm sorry now I didn't persist with the drama but perhaps I'll catch 
up on the iplayer.
 >
 > kind regards
 > neil
 >
 >
 > Dr Roger Neil Barton
 > http://www.uclmail.net/~neil.barton/
 > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bernardo Batiz-Lazo" 
<bbatiz64 at googlemail.com>
 > To: <comban at sigcis.org>
 > Cc: <members at sigcis.org>
 > Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 12:34 PM
 > Subject: [SIGCIS-Members] Two good recent TV programmes on the history 
ofcomputing that are worth viewing.
 >
 >
 >> A heads up to Ken Tennet's Blog (he is part of the Business History
 >> Unit at the London School of Economics):
 >>
 >> http://kdtennent.blogspot.com/2009/10/recent-business-history-on-bbc.html
 >>
 >> He comments on two recent tv programs on the history of computing. Not
 >> sure if everyone will be able to download and play.But at least you
 >> can get an idea from Ken and if really keen, then ask for a copy for
 >> your uni's library.
 >>
 >> You can keep up with Ken via Facebook.
 >>
 >> Best,
 >> Bernardo
 >> University of Leicester
 >> _______________________________________________
 >> This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of 
SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and 
you can change your subscription options at 
http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members
 >>
 >
 > _______________________________________________
 > This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of 
SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and 
you can change your subscription options at 
http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members






More information about the Members mailing list