1983: Meet the COMPUTER ADDICTS | Newsnight | Retro Tech | BBC Archive

morning Chris Carter works for a large burough Council he's their operations manager in the computer Department he works hard but not so hard as to leave no time for pleasure at lunchtime he goes to the pub actually he doesn't like pubs all that much but then he doesn't go there to drink and social I as long as there's a computer game in sight Chris Carter is Happy pubs without machines don't have a lot for me I'm not interested in filling myself full of B if I found a machine I'll stay with it until I master it usually I can achieve some startingly high scores by finding the chinks in the armor of the person that programmed [Music] it there are disadvantages usually Chris has mastered the latest game within 2 or 3 days while the machines are only changed over once a month and he doesn't like the smoke and noise in the park it hinders concentration so in the evenings he stays at home where he can get on with his Hobby in peace and quiet Chris Carter has spent thousands of pounds on micro computers the kind you can just about fit into the spare bedroom he puts in 20 to 40 hours a week at the keyboard day and night often right through the night the revolution that brought the computer into the home didn't change his social life it destroyed it so great is Chris's enthusiasm that he's even got his three-year-old daughter Joanna learning some of the basic skills she'll be even better at Computing when she's learned the alphabet but what Chris is grappling with at the moment is the kind of program that could transfer huge areas of professional expertise into the computer so that he could have the knowledge of the doctor the lawyer or the architect at his fingertips I've been doing one on um house selection or house design and the method of doing this is putting in the parameters which will tell you what sort of house would be best in what sort of area and what sort of soil now how long did it take you to work there system out um well there's two components to it writing the program will probably take most of my free time for about three months and then assimilating all the knowledge uh to put into the program and it'll be it'll be far from complete we'll probably take the same amount of period do you think you'll use it will it be of any practical value at all you're joking I love a house by then I'm looking for at the moment I doubt very much that it would be a real use to me so why' you do it it's a problem it's there why do people climb mountains I mean some people might think that you've really become obsessed with it addicted that's a possibility it's a possibility um it's not more it's not a major addiction it's not one that cost me a lot of money in real terms it cost me a lot of time but it's time when my wife's asleep normally I mean there are some weeks when he'll get up at 5: in the morning cuz he's working on an idea and he'll W as soon as he wakes up he'll go and sit down on the machine and start working on it and I'm semiconscious and I hear tap tap tap tap tap from the spare room I mean if the same situation had gone on for years you know I would begin to think Chris would be better off in a room on his own as to the micr computer and because that's what he was absorbed doing all of his all of his time you have to remember the benefits there are benefits in this oh there are but it's just I want to see something of you as well you see yeah it's a bright and sunny day just right for a stroll in the fresh air but businessman grahe Hawker has got a problem that's keeping him indoors he's trying to locate the princess of Serenia who's been abducted by a wizard but on the way to the Wizard's castle in the mountains his way is blocked by a giant it turns out that he can charm his way past the giant by playing the harp this kind of computer game is partly a question of trial and error incorrect moves by the player are greeted with suitably dismissive replies greme Hawker admits that his relationship with Home computers has been little short of obsessive what is the thrill though that you get out of pitting your wits against a computer well I think there are two things the first is that the computer's perfect it doesn't make mistakes it responds in an absolutely predictable way so in exploring anything that the computer's doing with you anything that happens that you didn't want to happen is purely your fault it can't be the other side the other side's perfect so in a sense you're you're pitting yourself against a perfect machine trying to prove that you're just as [Music] perfect hello Hello computer addicts tend to be men or boys but Phyllis Arendale who runs a sweet shop in Harford proves that you don't have to be male to be computer mought one to help out with the accounts the computer did in seconds what had previously taken her four or five hours of paperwork every night thanks a lot and what did she do with the time she saved she became a computer Enthusiast but devising her own programs and getting inside the mind of the machine wasn't good enough for her my latest project is um see the link with the shop the Box uh I'm that's a potentiometer I'm uh doing my first project which is um printed circuit board PCB what's that uh well the printed circuit board it's the beginning of the computer uh in making actually making your own computer your um your own electronic uh Gadget as it were and that is a potentiometer that I'll need that I need for the um my first project that's a dual potentiometer and that is the single one and uh uh these are the capacitors and uh this is quite amazing I mean you're not content with programming computers you want to make them yourself now well that's the it's challenge it's exciting and after all this is the very beginning of the whole thing so I like to know I like to start uh at the uh at the beginning and then I'll know how the uh the computer even begins to operate before uh I can take uh do any more peripherals if I'm successful with this project I shall do something a little more adventurous you're not becoming a sort of computer addict are you well I don't know I may be an addict but I I call myself an Enthusiast an Enthusiast not an obsessive person I'm in a bit of dilemma at the moment I don't really know what I want to use it for in 1982 the salesman had their best year so far with home computers are now about 700,000 of them in Britain the cheapest at about £70 has sold around half a million but something a bit more sophisticated could cost two or three times that amount it's worth me spending or spending 200 or whatever I the sales people freely admit that a computer won't magically take over your household finances they tend to stress the educational value for children what they probably won't tell you is that you just might find your relationship with the machine more intense than you [Music] expected

Channel: BBC Archive

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Keywords: bbc, archive bbc, classic tv, british tv nostalgia, bbc archive, archive, the bbc archive, nostalgia, legendary television, retro tv, vintage, past science, classic tech, classic technology, tech, gadgets, gadget, outdated science, outdated technology, retro tech, science and technology, vintage technology, 1980s technology, 1980s computers, 1980s computer games, computer addiction, computer programming, bedroom coders, computer enthusiasts, newsnight bbc, computing, mr do game

Id: jbu0kmCeLSI

Length: 8min 23sec (503 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 10 2024