Acornsoft was the software arm of Acorn Computers, and a major publisher of software for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron. As well as games, it also produced a large number of educational titles, extra computer languages and business and utility packages – these included word processor VIEW and the spreadsheet ViewSheet supplied on ROM and cartridge for the BBC Micro/Acorn Electron and included as standard in the BBC Master and Acorn Business Computer.
History
Acornsoft was formed in late 1980 by Acorn Computers directors Hermann Hauser and Chris Curry, and David Johnson-Davies, author of the first game for a UK personal computer[1] and of the official Acorn Atom manual "Atomic Theory and Practice". David Johnson-Davies was managing director and in early 1981 was joined by Tim Dobson, Programmer and Chris Jordan, Publications Editor.
As a result of the publication of a method to circumvent copy protection measures employed by Acornsoft titles,[2] a High Court injunction against Computing Publications - publisher of Personal Computer World - was granted to Acorn Computers "requiring all copies of the January 1984 issue of PCW to be withdrawn from sale", with the article concerned being regarded as inciting readers to "duplicate computer programs". This injunction was subsequently lifted as a consequence of an out-of-court settlement between the parties involving a damages payment of £65,000 plus costs to Acorn "to meet Acorn's expenses in developing a new locking device".[3] The article's author, Guy Kewney, and the magazine's editor, Jane Bird, argued that printing a software routine showing how to save Acornsoft cassette software to disk was a service to the magazine's readers. The cost of printing the magazine issue concerned was estimated at £100,000.[4]
Acornsoft became a subsidiary within Acorn Computer Group, distinct from Acorn Computers who were responsible for the development of Acorn's microcomputer systems,[5] but Acornsoft ceased to operate as a separate company upon the departure of David Johnson-Davies in January 1986.[6] Past this date, Acorn Computers used the Acornsoft name on office software it released in the VIEW family for the BBC Master series. In 1986 Superior Software was granted a licence to publish some Acornsoft games[7] and re-released many, individually and as compilations such as the Play It Again Sam and Acornsoft Hits series. By agreement, the Acornsoft name was also used on the packaging of some of the subsequent Superior games. Superior chose not to take on Acornsoft's text adventure games, most of which were released in updated versions by Topologika along with some sequels from the same authors.
In 1997, Acorn sought to revive the Acornsoft brand for new software releases, such as upgrades to RISC OS, programming tools, a new Web browser, multitasking movie playback (using Acorn Replay), and Java for RISC OS. A stated objective was to demonstrate that a "wide range of innovative software at competitive prices" was available for RISC OS, with support also being potentially offered to third-party software producers. Acornsoft products themselves would be supported by marketing, including advertising, and the provision of press review samples.[8][9]
Black Box & Gambit - 2 board game type games which were the winning entries of a 'design a game' competition on ITV's The Saturday Show. Black Box was a licensed version of the Waddingtonsgame of the same name developed by Ben Finn who would go on to co-write Sibelius. Gambit was created by the Oliver Twins and their first commercially released game
Volcano – A game in which you rescue people from the other side of an active volcano with a helicopter
Acornsoft Games range
Including all arcade, text adventure and board games. All games were compatible with the BBC Micro Model B. Games followed by Model A & B were compatible with both machines. Games followed by Electron were also released separately for the Acorn Electron. Games are listed by their catalogue numbers which are roughly the order of release of the BBC versions.
G01 Philosopher's Quest (BBC 1982, Electron 1984)
G02 Defender (BBC 1982) deleted for legal reasons and later re-released as Planetoid
G02 Aviator (BBC 1983) released with G26-G28 but re-used the deleted Defender's number
G03 Monsters (BBC 1982, Electron 1983)
G04 Snapper (BBC 1982, Electron 1983)
G05 Rocket Raid (BBC 1982)
G06 Arcade Action (BBC Model A & B 1982) 4 games: Invaders, Breakout, Dodgems and Snake
G07 Sphinx Adventure (BBC 1982, Electron 1984)
G08 Cube Master (BBC 1982)
G09 JCB Digger (BBC 1983)
G10 Chess (BBC 1982, Electron 1983)
G11 Maze (BBC 1982, Electron 1984)
G12 Sliding-Block Puzzles (BBC 1982)
G13 Meteors (BBC 1982, Electron 1983)
G14 Arcadians (BBC 1982, Electron 1984)
G15 Planetoid (BBC 1982, Electron 1984)
G16 Super Invaders (BBC 1982)
G17 Castle of Riddles (BBC 1982, Electron 1984)
G18 Missile Base (BBC 1982)
G19 Countdown to Doom (BBC 1982, Electron ROM Cartridge 1984)
G20 Draughts & Reversi (BBC Model A & B 1983, Electron 1983)
G21 Snooker (BBC 1983, Electron 1984)
G22 Starship Command (BBC 1983, Electron 1983)
G23 Hopper (BBC 1983, Electron 1984)
G24 Carousel (BBC 1983)
G25 Kingdom of Hamil (BBC 1983)
G26 Crazy Tracer (BBC 1983, Electron 1984)
G27 Drogna (BBC 1983)
G28 Free Fall (BBC 1983, Electron 1984)
G29 Meteor Mission (BBC 1984)
G30 Gateway to Karos (BBC 1983)
G31 Boxer (BBC 1984, Electron 1984)
G32 Tetrapod (BBC 1984)
G33 Volcano (BBC 1984)
G34 Black Box & Gambit (BBC 1984)
G35 Bouncer (BBC 1984)
G36 The Seventh Star (BBC 1984)
G37 Acheton (BBC 1984)
G38 Elite (BBC 1984, Electron 1984)
G39 Firebug (BBC 1984, Electron 1984)
G40 Quondam (BBC 1984)
G41 Labyrinth (BBC 1984)
G42 Go (BBC 1984, Electron 1984)
G43 Revs (BBC 1985)
G44 Revs 4 Tracks (BBC 1985) extra tracks for the main game
There are also a number of completed but unreleased games that have found their way into the public domain such as Crazy Balloon, Hellforce and Bandit that date from around 1983.
Acornsoft Education range
Acornsoft produced a wide range of educational titles aimed at many different age groups.
E01 Algebraic Manipulation (BBC Model A & B 198?)
E02 Peeko-Computer (BBC Model A & B 198?, Electron 1984)
E03 Business Games (BBC Model A & B 198?, Electron 1984) 2 games: Stokmark and Telemark
E04 Tree of Knowledge (BBC 198?, Electron 1983)
E05 Word Hunt (BBC 198?, Electron 1984)
E06 Word Sequencing (BBC Model A & B 198?, Electron 1984)
E07 Sentence Sequencing (BBC 198?, Electron 1984)
E08 Number Balance (BBC 198?, Electron 1984)
E09 Missing Signs (BBC Model A & B 198?, Electron 1984)
E?? Speed and Light (BBC 198?)
E?? Density and Circuit (BBC 198?)
E12 Chemical Analysis (BBC 198?)
E13 Chemical Simulations (BBC 198?)
E14 Chemical Structures (BBC 198?)
E15 Jars (BBC 198?)
E16 Temperature Control Simulation (BBC 1983)
E17 The Examiner (BBC 198?)
E18 Spooky Manor (BBC 198?)
E19
E20
E21
E22 Talkback (BBC 1984, Electron 1984)
E23 Workshop (BBC 1984, Electron 1984)
E24 ABC (BBC 1984)
Acornsoft also published and distributed a range of educational software developed by ASK (Applied Systems Knowledge) that were widely used in schools running BBC Micros. These included Podd (find out which actions a red blobby character can perform (e.g. jump, smile, dance), Squeeze (a two player strategy game of squeezing shapes onto a board) and Cranky (solve maths problems to repair a living calculator). These titles were part of the Acornsoft catalogue but used a different code (XBE?? – all other Acornsoft titles began with S so the Education range on BBC Micro cassettes would be SBE??). They ran on both the BBC Micro Model B and Acorn Electron.
The Ivan Berg Software range was also mainly educational but had its own distinct code (XBX??). This included the 6 Grandmaster Quizzes (Theatre, Crime & Detection, Music, History, Science Fiction and Royal), relationship aids "..I Do" Your Guide to a Happy Marriage and The Dating Game and GCE/CSE revision guides (Mathematics, Biology and English).
Acornsoft also distributed other ranges of educational programs developed by companies such as ICL, Good Housekeeping and Bourne but they are not considered part of the official catalogue.
Acornsoft Business range
Acornsoft produced a range of office software for home and business use.
B01 Desk Diary (BBC 198?, Electron 1984)
B02 Forecast (BBC 198?)
B03 VIEW (BBC 198?, Electron ROM cartridge 1984)
B04 VIEW Printer Drivers (BBC 198?)
B05 Personal Money Management (BBC 198?, Electron 1983)
B06 Database (BBC 1983, Electron 1984)
B07 ViewSheet (BBC 1984, Electron ROM cartridge 1984)
The series continues but mainly with add-on products for the VIEW word processor such as ViewIndex (an automatic index generator) and ViewSpell (spell-checker) as well as newer versions.
View Professional (1987) was a combined wordprocessor, spreadsheet and database[14] similar to PipeDream on the Z88.[15]
Although primarily a programming language suite, Acornsoft released its P-System product featuring UCSD Pascal and Fortran 77 compilers as part of its business range.[16] Developed by TDI for Acornsoft, the product required a 6502 second processor and disc system, preferably with two drives. Despite the £299 price, various tools including an assembler and linker were omitted from the product, these being made available in a separate Advanced Development Toolkit from TDI.[17]
Acornsoft Languages range
Acorn systems came with a version of the BBC BASIC programming language as standard but Acornsoft also produced a wide range of other languages that could be loaded in by cassette or disc or in some cases, supplied in ROM form.
L01 FORTH (BBC 1982, Electron 1983)
L02 LISP (BBC 1982, Electron 1983, Electron ROM cartridge 1984)
L24 ISO-Pascal Stand Alone Generator (BBC 198?)[21]
The relative performance of some of Acornsoft's languages was evaluated using a benchmark based on the Takeuchi function, Tak by former Acornsoft managing director, David Johnson-Davies, noting that "it is difficult to imagine a language that performs badly on Tak being much use for anything", illustrating a diversity amongst these language implementations in terms of readability, speed and generated code size.[22] A follow-up article expanded the comparison to other language implementations such as Oxford Pascal, Z80 versions of BBC BASIC, Turbo Pascal and Small-C.[23]
Acornsoft Graphics range and more
The graphics range was used to demonstrate the graphical power of the Acorn computers but only three titles were made available. The X?? code was then used for other types of software.
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