The ‘BBC Micro Computer’ and how it changed my life and later the world.

I decided to write this post after being on a conference call today with some other internal Microsoft guys. As the call progressed I recognized something about another Microsoft employee who happened to be on the call. I recognized a familiar tone and rhythm which was a comfortable part of my life growing up. He had an accent, an accent I miss on a day to day basis, hearing his accent and working out where he was from made me start thinking about myself and my path in getting here. It’s funny because I still have what people call a heavy accent, but I never hear myself and live in a location that doesn’t have many people at all with similar accents, so hearing another person from my neck of the woods now is a strange but welcome experience.

The North East of England is a beautiful place and I would be doing it a huge injustice not to share this with you, below are some pictures which bring to life some of my memories from back home.

When I grew up in the north east of England, kids got into a lot of trouble and went down extremely bad paths, some of them never making it out of them and unfortunately, I lost many childhood friends over the years due to crime, drugs or never coming back from the armed forces. The lack of the need for a technical workforce or resources to build one was disheartening for many young people who felt that same ‘passion and drive’ to work in technology I know many people reading this are familiar with.

How the BBC Model B Micro Computer saved my life.

Now I promised the BBC Micro Computer would come into this post at some point, so I’ll start with the statement that this computer saved my life. Apparently when I was six years old I showed promise at my primary school with the one BBC computer the school had and the school approached my parents and offered to help obtain one of these computers for me as I showed natural aptitude for it.

When I was at primary school, technology being taught in school was very basic and my school only had one computer! However, I was lucky, I was a natural born geek, I'm not sure how this happened or why, but with my school’s help (they apparently noticed my natural aptitude toward their computer) and my parents literally breaking the bank to make it happen, I received my first computer, an Acorn BBC Micro Computer with 32K RAM. With my parents knowing nothing about technology, I received the computer with nothing but the base unit itself and a welcome cassette (which unfortunately I couldn’t use as no one told them I needed one to load or save things on the computer).

So how did the BBC Micro Computer save my life?

Well it’s simple, being forced to discover how to create on a computer at such an early age made me want to keep doing it and to seek out new ways to do it, and new things to do. I honestly believe those first 3-4 years between 6 and 10 are what did it. Had I the ability to load games and play them on my computer as many of my school friends did at the time, I wouldn’t have discovered the joy of creating something… Creating something one of a kind, written my way, doing what I want!

I believe as human beings we are wired in way that we want to solve problems, programming is the ultimate exercise for the brain in this regard. Unfortunately, with the progression of problem solving computer games and the increase in repetition rewards games (micro transactions), this is disappearing.

My dad asked me at 14 years old what I wanted to, I told him I wanted to move to America and work for Bill Gates. I still remember when I found out I'd got the position at Microsoft I'd applied for about 10 years ago. The first thing I did was call my dad and said 'remember that conversation about what I want to be when I grow up?', that is a moment I’ll never forgot, he simply replied 'you got a job at Microsoft huh son'. I now feel it has came full circle when my 9-year-old daughter asked if I would take her to a Minecraft Hour of Code at my local Microsoft Office in Time Square, NY.

If you don’t know what hour of code is and you have kids, it’s time to take look. This introduction to programming for kids is becoming huge. I believe it's success is because it touches the heart of soul of exactly what I described above. The feeling of creating something that is YOURS at that age is powerful and if we promote our children to do this, then we are taking the right steps to ensure we will have a passionate, educated generation who will take technology to the next level in the years to come.

But What about the BBC Micro changing the world?

Sounds a crazy statement I know, but it’s true, in 1985 Acorn the company behind making the BBC Micro for the British Broadcasting Corporation created the 32-bit ARM evaluation system, this add-on device for the BBC Micro added an ARM processor which could be programmed from the BBC Micro Computer. ARM actually stood for Acorn RISC Machine, not Advanced RISC Machine, it was renamed years later in 1990 when the ARM division was separated from Acorn after an acquisition and became it's own company.

I can guarantee (ok speculate and I'm probably right) that YOU personally do not have a day in your life where you don’t come across an ARM processor now.

When I say, it changed the world, these numbers should make you realize why:

• ARM technologies span 80% of the global population of the world.
• More than 86 BILLION ARM-based chips have now shipped worldwide.
• Every day over 40 MILLION ARM-based chips ship in products around the world, think about that for a second, that is roughly 1 ARM-based chip shipping every 2 thousandths of a second.
• 99% of ALL mobile devices use ARM processors

I find the success of Acorn, the BBC Micro, the ARM RISC processor to be an amazing example of what a single person can start and ultimately effect world change. If it wasn’t for Sinclair refusing to let one of its employees Chris Curry back in 1978 continue work on the Mk14 microcomputer, then he would have never resigned and formed what eventually became Acorn and went on to design the first RISC processor eventually leading to the ARM company we know today.

I hope you enjoyed reading a little of my history, the history of the BBC Micro and ARM processor, I've wanted to write about this for a while, thank you Steve Ramsey for giving me the inspiration I needed to do it :)