A tale of insane gender confusion, rot at the BBC and commercial incompetence. Updated February 2005.

The BBC held a competition of BASICs to choose one for a computer literacy series and Acorn's BASIC won it. Thenceforth it was adopted by the BBC and called BBC BASIC.

The PC version of BBC BASIC was written by Richard T. Russell, Jeffrey Raynor and Brandon Butterworth, all then working at the BBC Designs Department in Western House, around the corner from Broadcasting House. The BBC Designs Department was a centre of cleverness but then it was squeezed, both financially and psychologically. (Practically the only way you can be fired from the BBC is being discovered without a TV licence, so if they want to shed some staff techniques of psychological attrition are used.) The illegal immigrants and ultra-liberals who have taken control of the BBC decided that broadcasting large amounts of propaganda promoting race-mixing and other malign drivel during the evenings was not enough: they wanted to do it all day as well. The Designs Department was squeezed to pay for it.

These were the days in which RTR once called a BBC security guard in an attempt to have me thrown out of Western House for arguing that MS-DOS was better than CP/M. RTR was commonly referred to as 'God' and notorious for being impossible to prise even a copy of Wordstar out of.

M-TEC, the firm which retailed the first PC version of BBC BASIC, went bust. Now "native" BBC BASIC is called BASIC V and has lots of bells and whistles, but the company which inherited it from Acorn refuse to divulge any information about it. An employee was finally asked: "Aren't you going to send me technical info. to help me support your products?" and replied:

'Not looking likely at the moment is it.

'Perhaps if you told me who you are, what you are trying to achieve and how this is to benefit the world in general, I would be more inclined to help.

'BTW, I assume you are aware of the HELP function built into BBCBasic.'

A Mac version was promised for the BBCBASIC.COM website but it never materialized. That website was maintained for six years gratis; though when I needed a full version of BBC Basic I still had to pay cash up front. Now a Windows version of BBC Basic has been developed but Russell treats it as his personal pet, in effect only selling copies to "family and friends." Thus most people nowadays have never heard of the program, and likely never will.

BBC Basic for Windows Company Staff: