Computing for the Masses? Constructing a British Culture of Computing in the Home Tilly Blyth To cite this version: Tilly Blyth. Computing for the Masses? Constructing a British Culture of Computing in the Home. Arthur Tatnall. Reflections on the History of Computing : Preserving Memories and Sharing Stories, AICT-387, Springer, pp.231-242, 2012, IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology (SURVEY), 10.1007/978-3-642-33899-1_15. hal-01526798 HAL Id: hal-01526798 https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01526798 Submitted on 23 May 2017 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution| 4.0 International License Computing for the Masses? Constructing a British Culture of Computing in the Home Tilly Blyth Keeper of Technology and Engineering, Science Museum, London
[email protected] Abstract: The creation of the personal computer during the late 1970s and early 1980s is heralded as a time that people were liberated by computers as tools for everyone. The proliferation of affordable and relatively powerful computers changed the landscape of computing across the globe. This chapter looks at the introduction of one machine, the BBC Microcomputer, and its influence on the culture of computing in Britain.