Martin Banks, Personal Computer World 07/83 - checked

July 1983

I woke up this morning and looked at my reflection in the mirror, counted the odd new wrinkle or two that had appeared since the last time I had been brave enough to attempt this feat, and asked myself a question: 'Is it all passing you by, Banksey boy?'

Having decided that it probably was (and I hope at this point that you are beginning to feel slightly sorry for me), I asked myself how this could be. The answer, I decided, was that although I could remember the great events in my life - many of the personal computers I had seen, played with and/or written about in my time as a journalist - there was in the end little tangible evidence of these events.

Unlike some of my compatriots, I never bothered to acquire specimens of these machines as and when they had appeared on the market. Now they are gone, lost to the ravages of time.

Of course some of those machines are better lost to time than attempting to reside here in the present world as working systems. But even they have had their place in the great scheme of things, if only because they were such excellent demonstrations of how personal computer systems should not be designed, built and sold. There are others that could have been successes if only all the factors had been right. If only, for example, the people with the finance a few short years ago could have had the vision and courage that they are starting to show today, now that there is a track record of success to demonstrate.

A further thought occurred to me as I gazed at the vision of loveliness in the mirror (look, I'm writing this, so I'll choose my own adjectives, even if they are pure sophistry). The thought was that, even in the short history of the personal computer, it has built up a tradition and a folklore that are, in their own way, as important and fundamental to the path of development of the industry and products, as Spotted Dick and Morris Danc ing are to the way the English are now.

In a world of sanitated, greasy Yukburgers and two-dimensional French flies - sorry, fries -, Spotted Dick still seems remarkably real and wholesome, something to be relied upon. It's probably what made the British great. Without it, we might just slide away forever into some fast food shop's chip pan to be processed, sanitated, reprocessed and re-sanitated for ever.

In the same way, if we lose sight of the tradition of the personal computer industry, short in history though it may be, we will be continually selling ourselves on the next technological gizmo, purely because it is the next technological gizmo, and for no other reason: setting ourselves up to be processed, and re-processed, throwing away perfectly good products that actually serve our needs just because they have committed the final, cardinal sin. That sin, of course, is to become 'old' or obsolete.

What actually started off this train of thought occurred back in April. It was the London Computer Fair, a small show organised by the Association of London Computer Clubs. I went along to this affair, not to hunt out new and startling products, for I knew that such discoveries would be rare at such an event. No, instead I went to see if any old friends from the business were around, and to sniff the air among such a large collection of dedicated personal computer users.

I found some old friends to be sure, but I also met up with something else. This was a stand at the show taken by a company calling itself the Computer Junk Shop. At first I thought this was just another fun name for a company, but on investigation found that it was exactly what it stated, a company dedicated to selling old computer junk.

It was then that I thought 'here is history, and it's being knocked down at only a few pounds a time.'

To be fair, the stuff they actually had on the stand was not part of the essential folklore of the personal computer business. Some of it came close though, and it was all interesting. There were, for example, some old ICL 7500 series terminals going for around £40; there was even a Computer Automation minicomputer (definitely not part of the PC tradition) marked at £500, and an early Video Genie (definitely in as part of the tradition) on sale for £195.

There was nothing on the stand at the show that was earth-shattering or of immense historical importance, but there could have been. What if I had spotted an early Altair or Imsai on sale?. Closer to home, what if there had been an old Scamp computer?

Hands up those who remember the Scamp? I suspect that there are probably quite a few of you out there, but many more will know nothing about the machine. It was made by a company now long defunct (long at least in personal computer terms). The company was Bywood, the brainchild of the late, and lamented, John Miller Kirkpatrick. Today, the Scamp would be laughed at for masquerading as a computer, but with some better backing and some reasonable financial support, Kirkpatrick could have beaten Clive Sinclair at his own game!

He didn't of course, so perhaps it is no good crying over spilt milk, but Kirkpatrick and his Scamp computer have a place in the history of the personal computer business. I feel sure that many of the people presently working in the industry got their early experience on such a machine.

What is needed, therefore, is a museum, a place where all these artifacts of the business can be brought together for the interested to see and study. There are such museums elsewhere - for example, the Digital Equipment Corp has one in the USA - but there is nothing here, and we have contributed at least as much to the development of the industry and its products as any one else.

There are, to be fair, some individual collections of such artifacts in this country. For example, journalist and writer Robin Bradbeer has one that he has assembled over the years - though, because it has come from his own pocket, or from what he could beg borrow or steal (in the nicest possible way, of course), it is far from complete in its coverage of the industry and its products.

Much more of what has appeared in the personal computer business should be saved for posterity, I feel. It should be kept together in one place where those that are interested in how the products and the industry developed can study the subjects at their leisure.

Ideally, of course, such a museum should be a national archive, though this perhaps is an unlikely hope. I know that the Science Museum carries some displays of this type, but these are far from complete, for the museum has to cover many other areas of science. Indeed, if Robin Bradbeer is to be believed (and why not?), a fair amount of what has been exhibited there has come from the man's own collection. (Perhaps we could start by saving Bradbeer for the nation!)

Failing that, it does seem to me that a magazine of some standing in the business - such as Personal Computer World - could easily be the benefactor of such a museum, especially if some college or university were to provide the important facility of a place to keep the exhibits.

But why, I hear a voice enquire, should we bother with what has gone before when there is so much currently happening on the scene that is new and exciting. Answer precisely because there is all this new stuff. The pace of development in personal computers means that some systems - especially those that take their time in actually appearing after their announcement - run the grave risk of being superseded. They are becoming obsolete before they ever appear on the market. They may never have a place to rest except in a museum!

This is certainly the case in the area of whiz-bang technology, where business machines have grown from 8-bit machines driving 4k of memory to 16-bit machines running 256k in about seven years, and where home computers have gone from having 1k to 48k in under three years. In each case, the unit price has barely changed.

I'm not saying for one second that this development is in any way bad, but I do feel that when a home computer, offering 16-bit processing, 128k of memory and hi-res graphics on the TV, will probably appear with a price tag of under £150 by the end of this year, it is time to start keeping a sense of proportion. By charting what has been, both good and bad, we will be able to work out better whether, and how, such developments have any real value.

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