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Comment by jahewson | Hacker News Reader

Especially as ARM originated from Acorn, whose success came from manufacturing the BBC Micro, for a publicly funded organisation (the BBC).

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Ahem, Acorn paid the BBC a fee for every Beeb sold, as a licensing fee on use of the logo.

Acorn were also almost overlooked in favour of a company called Grundy, which had government backing, but inferior technology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grundy_NewBrain

On the other hand, the BBC Micro would almost certainly not have been the success it was without the Beeb and the lift it gave to Acorn in the educational market.

Look at it as very well-priced advertising, after all the BBC effectively promoted their product. They nearly lost out to Sinclair Research as well, but that's a well known story...

The BBC were careful never to say "Acorn" on-screen (same as they never said Sellotape, it was always "sticky-backed plastic", to the amusement of the entire population).

I actually had a NewBrain, think it's still around in my parents' attic somewhere.

I did quite a bit of real paying work on BBC Micros back in the day, and think they were great - but reading the way people tell the story today, one would be given the impression that the NewBrain was some kind of grim socialist piece of junk. It was actually a pretty decent bit of kit, quite a bit better quality than many of the other micros on the UK market at the time.

In an ironic turn, the company I worked for doing the BBC stuff later moved into Grundy's old premises in Teddington after they went bust.

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