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My exploration into the 8-bit world of the BBC Micro has led me to lots of old publications. I present excerpts from advertisements here for your perusal. Bear in mind that most of this software was crap, even by the standards of the day.
A respected publication, probably relatively expensive to advertise in. Carried many large adverts from reputable suppliers that were just lists of products, specs, and prices. I like adverts like these. It also contains shorter adverts from smaller companies, typically with more hyperbolic narrative, sometimes outright disdainful of their competitors.
Microage Electronics: ATTENTION!! All Lynx, Uric, BBC, Commodore 64 owners, we pay top royalties for quality software programs. Please write or phone for details.
This was the age of hobbyists trying to break into a publishers world, with most probably earning next to nothing. Sounds a bit familiar.
MicroStyle: The B.B.C. Microcomputer Model B, available today, but designed for the future...
That old chestnut, future-proof, will last forever. In a way, it kind if is I suppose, because I am using one 37 years after it was made!
BEEBTAPE: Are you tired of typing printed listings into your BBC micro? Are you fed up with paying high prices for mediocre software? Well with BEBTAPE you can build a library of ready to run software at a low price.
And all of it crap!
EDUCATIONAL-1: Hours of fun and learning for children aged 5 to 9 years. Animated graphics will encourage children to enjoy maths, spelling and telling the time. The tape includes MATH1, MATH2, CUBECOUNT, SHAPES, MEMORY (Model B only), SPELL and CLOCK.
I can almost see the indifferent child, absent mindedly poking the keyboard to keep her parents happy.
KATAKOMBS: Are you cunning enough to discover and seize the treasure in the Katakombs AND return alive? What and where are your enemies? Can you Outwit them? Yes? Then your adventure will take you through unending forests, beside tumbling streams, over lonely plains to desolate ruins and finally underground to the tortuous Katakombs.
Yet, it will just be more words, with rigid and awkward gameplay. Probably.
THE FROG: THE MOST FANTASTIC ACTION GAME FOR THE BBC MICRO! FAST ARCADE PLAY! MODE 2 COLOUR GRAPHICS AT ITS BEST! FIVE TUNES! INCREDIBLY ADDICTIVE! ONLY £8.95
Five tunes!
ALIEN DESTROYERS (32K): Sensational, high speed 'INVADERS' program with an abundance of features. This program has many unique extras e.g.; 'Battle Analysis showing the number of each alien type shot down.
The thing I've always thought differentiates space invaders is knowing how many of each type I managed to hit.
SWOOP (32K): The new GALAXIANS IT'S HERE AT LAST! Galaxian style machine code arcade game. 30 screaming, homing, bomb-dropping, explosive egg-laying BIRDMEN, swooping down in ones and twos to destroy your laser bases. The explosive eggs feature makes a normally difficult game into a challenge 'par excellence'.
Par exellence. The first and only time this has been used to describe a video game.
A software publisher who were very wordy in their adverts, and a little catty to be honest.
If you only play the arcade type of game, needing just a couple of keys and the space bar to play, then this is most certainly not for you.
Controls? A mind boggling 36 of them!
Eventually you will master the take-off, then even manage to fly and at long last manage to land. But unlike all other games at this stage you don't put it away for ever, for you have seven different destinations, all on different courses and distances...
I'll admit, this is kind of compelling to play. Partly because I have no manual, and have to figure out what the keys are (36 of them!). I learned quite a lot about BBC basic trying to reconstruct the manual from the source code.
With everything illustrated in colourful graphics, this is a delightful example of the programmers' art and refreshingly different from anything ever done before.
Tedious, though children often don't notice tedium when they think there's more to come.
We have been amazed at the number of people who just will not accept that we DO operate a return first class post service.
It seems that so many of you have been let down so many times by the upstart software houses, that it is obviously going to take some while to accept professional service.
Kansas dissed the entirety of the software industry as 'cowboys'. Except them, of course.
You've seen the pictures of all the others -— they are all surpassed by the Kansas Frogger!
Without any fear of contradiction we state that no other frogger offered by anyone gives as much or is so like the original we'll stake our reputationon on it... In high resolution Mode 2 of course.
Without *any* fear of contradiction. They never stake money on their claims, just their reputation. They value money more than their reputation.
This jumped out at me bacause of the top feature in the list:
14K MACHINE CODE FOR MODEL B OR 32K MODEL A
Because I always buy my software by the opcode - at £5.95, that's only £0.0004150390625 per byte!
This company, based in Cornwall, seems to have been very honest and trustworthy. What struck me was that their advert had the following sections:
Such a diverse product range! Anyway, what I found quaint was the sort algorithm they sold, just look at the performance stats, which I presume were actually quite reasonable for the time.
Sortbas: A very fast BASIC sort. 1000 items in 42 secs.
I find it hard to properly appreciate just how far and how fast technology has progressed.
A flier from 1985, from a software publisher Kansas. Very wordy!