
For Generation Xers, the introduction to the home computer was revolutionary. When Sir Clive Sinclair brought these machines out of the office environment and launched the first affordable home computer in 1980, it subsequently encouraged a whole generation of kids to take up gaming and programming. Some of these ‘kids’ are still prevalent in the business today.
A case in point is Andrew Morten, the author of Amstrads And Ataris. Morten’s interest in computers began aged 15, leading to a career in software design, and it’s that experience and knowledge that Morten has lovingly ploughed into this book. Nostalgia titles are dime a dozen, but this digs deep on several levels.
The author offers personal memories alongside factual titbits, and an extensive breakdown of hardware and software available for the main players such as Spectrum and Amstrad. But there’s also sufficient space for smaller computer companies – such as Tangerine and Wales’ own Dragon Data – who battled the big guns and made the 1980s a golden era for gamers. Far more than just a lazy slab of nostalgia, Amstrads And Ataris is a precise record of a billion-pound industry’s humble and somewhat innocent beginnings.
Amstrads And Ataris: UK Home Computers In The 1980s, Andrew Morten (Amberley)
Price: £14.39. Info: here
words CHRIS ANDREWS