Uploaded September 2021 | Updated September 2026, 14 hours ago
The BBC Micro: the computer that in the 1980s and early 1990s, so many people first learned to programme on. Created by Cambridge computer company Acorn as part of the BBC's Computer Literacy Project, it was far more successful than expected. The BBC estimated demand of 12,000 but it went on to sell 1.5 million. In this video, the BBC Micro's co-designer Sophie Wilson, an alumna of this Department, tells the story of her journey to computer science at Cambridge, to working with Acorn, and to creating the prototype BBC Micro - in just one week. She is followed by Eben Upton, also an alumnus of this department. He had owned a BBC Micro as a child and after finishing his computer science PhD, he started developing the Raspberry Pi to do what it had done - inspire widespread interest in computer programming.
The BBC Micro: the computer that in the 1980s and early 1990s, so many people first learned to programme on. Created by Cambridge computer company Acorn as part of the BBC's Computer Literacy Project, it was far more successful than expected. The BBC estimated demand of 12,000 but it went on to sell 1.5 million. In this video, the BBC Micro's co-designer Sophie Wilson, an alumna of this Department, tells the story of her journey to computer science at Cambridge, to working with Acorn, and to creating the prototype BBC Micro - in just one week. She is followed by Eben Upton, also an alumnus of this department. He had owned a BBC Micro as a child and after finishing his computer science PhD, he started developing the Raspberry Pi to do what it had done - inspire widespread interest in computer programming.
