Acornsoft

"VIEW" redirects here. For other uses, see View.
Acornsoft
Privately held company
Industry Software industry
Founded 1980
Founders David Johnson-Davies, Hermann Hauser, Chris Curry
Headquarters Cambridge, England
Key people
 David Johnson-Davies, Tim Dobson and Chris Jordan
Products
Website acornsoft.co.uk

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.

While some of their games were clones or remakes of popular arcade games (e.g. Hopper is a clone of Sega's Frogger, Snapper is Namco's Pac-Man, Arcadians is Namco's Galaxian), they also published a number of original ground-breaking titles such as Aviator, Elite and Revs which went on to spawn entire genres that live on to this day. Acornsoft also published a number of text adventure games by authors such as Peter Killworth, including Philosopher's Quest (previously titled Brand X) and Countdown to Doom, that remain highly regarded within the interactive fiction community.

Acornsoft ceased to operate as a separate company upon the departure of David Johnson-Davies in January 1986. 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 and rereleased 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.

Branding

Loading screen for LISP

Acornsoft titles extended their consistent branding to the software's loading screens.

Select titles

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.

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.

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.

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[5] similar to PipeDream on the Z88.[6]

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.

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.

The range took on various themes including Creative Sound (X26).

References

  1. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Emp6zKh8KW8
  2. ↑ Ian Bell. "Free Fall". Retrieved 9 May 2015.
  3. ↑ http://www.stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6243
  4. ↑ http://www.stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3347
  5. ↑ "View Professional review". Beebug. 6 (4): 16. 1987.
  6. ↑ "Cambridge Z88 review: A Beeb By Any Other Name?". Beebug. 6 (7): 8. December 1987.
  7. ↑ Richards, John; Jobson, Chris (1983). BCPL for the BBC Microcomputer: User Guide. ISBN 9780907876106.
  8. ↑ Acornsoft (1984). Forth for the BBC Microcomputer – Fitting the Forth ROM (SBL13/B). Acornsoft.
  9. ↑ Thorton, Roy; Christensen, Paul (1984). Comal on the B. B. C. Microcomputer and Acorn ELECTRON SBD 19. Acornsoft. ISBN 978-0907876908.
  10. ↑ "A Choice of Programming Languages for the British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System" (PDF). Chris Acorns. Acorn. Retrieved 29 September 2015.

External links

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