A Guide to Movie Based Video Games 2001 onwards by Christopher Carton - Book Review

It's been just over a year since I looked at the first volume of this movie based video games duo, and it's still a go to reference when I'm looking for gaming inspiration. A few weeks back, part two was released, picking up the subject of movie tie-ins from 2001 onwards. And times they were a changing. 

This is evident as soon as you look at the page count: just shy of 270 compared to the first volume's 200. A sure sign that a) corporate bods realised that there was money in them there reels and b) you were no longer restricted to a console or computer in order to shell out. That's right, kids, mobile phone gaming had arrived. 

Before we get to that though, check out the contents page:

As you can see, there's a good array of groupings, and although some of the titles featured in each group are linked only tenuously (I'd argue including Alexander in "Is this the Real Life?" section pushes the boundary of what could be called fantasy, ignoring the casting choices, anyway), nothing quite severs the connection completely.  

A cynic (moi, darling?) could think that this book should have been called "The complete guide to 21st Century Disney gaming", replete as it is with literally every franchise the Hoose of Moose had/has going, and you can't argue that the C-Suite MBA's don't know their stuff when it came to revenue generation. I mean, I'm not saying Star Wars as a franchise (and I hate that word) is dead, but sometimes less is definitely more. In this book, however, you get 37 titles over 23 pages! Thirty Seven! And that's not including Star Wars Jedi: Survivor due to publishing deadlines nor the five LEGO games. All told, that's equivalent to over two per year during the period covered by this book. 

It doesn't end there though, as a couple of chapters on you have "Disney Domination", featuring nine Pirates of the Caribbean games. But wait! There's more! "To Infinity" puts the spotlight on Pixar-related games, and guess who distributed Pixar movies before buying the company up? Yep, the Moose! Ok, I get it that Disney might not have owned Pixar for the first quarter of this 20 plus year focus, but if you look at the aforementioned series as well as the 20th Century Fox IP that also fills many of the pages, there is no escaping the juggernaut of the rodent-headlined behemoth. 

Still, there's plenty of room for the likes of Bond (9 titles), Harry Potter (15), Top Gun (9!) and... Days of Thunder? Yeah, I didn't know about that last one, a 2011 release coinciding with the "classic" film's 20th anniversary. The author's words, not mine, and grounds to request an intervention me thinks. Seriously, Mr Carton, a "classic"? Sheesh!

If anyone asks, here's how you milk dinosaurs...

Sarcasm aside, there is a lot to get your teeth into here and although some entries get quite the write up and a screen shot, others warrant just a quick note. That doesn't happen often, and I am sure the fans of The Fast and The Furious: Drift arcade game will be peeved at it receiving such short shrift, but space definitely feels at a premium here, so appreciate even this small gift (OK, I'll stop now). Where such brevity does occur, however, it never feels disrespectful. 

I usually say that tomes such as this are informative, and it is no less true here. Not only have I discovered the author's questionable definition of classic movies (that would make a fun discussion over a pint or two...), but I am now also aware of "gems" such as Beverly Hills Cop on the PS2. The write up is so good that I jumped onto YouTube to check it out and, yeah, it's, ermmm, a game. Definitely one of them. And if I can ever find a copy in passing, I might just convince myself into playing it, much like the concept behind the excellent French horror film, Martyrs, when pain and suffering could show you heaven. And just like that, we're (tortuously!) back to Days of Thunder...

... before screeching into the topic of video games as art. I believe they are, so reading this book, even more so than volume one, got me into a thinking mood (and that is always a good thing when you've read a book). Regardless of the approach by the actual developers and companies who created the titles featured within the pages of AGTMBVG 2001 onwards, the game's initial conception was more than likely the result of realising the quarterly revenue generation possibilities from both home console and mobile phone users - it's all about bringing in the Benjamins! Why else would you develop Beverly Hills Cop more than twenty years after its cinematic cousin's release? Unless it's a "classic", of course... True, there were some gems (looking at you, The Warriors), but also plenty of clunkers too. As an aside, given the current state of AAA games development and the huge number of job losses over the last couple of years, I am of the opinion that Indies and smaller scale publishers are the way forward. However, that is a topic that could be discussed ad infinitum. 

In that sense, this book has a greater value than just an enchiridion (ohhh, fancy!) to the movie game genre. It also charts how the games industry changed in the first two decades of this century, and how adapting a film licence was no longer an afterthought (or just a quick side hustle) but a planned exploitation of another art form, strip mining the consumer in the search for ever higher revenues. Not a great thought to finish a book review with, but a surely evidence that the author has written not only a quality guide, but also a thought-provoking one. 

You can pick up a copy of A Guide to Movie Based Video Games 2001 onwards direct from the publisher here, but also from the usual physical and online bookstores. You can also follow the author on X @chriscarton89

An 80's Naval S.A.G.A (Surface Action Group Affair).

The last Saturday in August saw another semi-regular gathering of the TWATS and in a sublime case of history repeating itself, I was in the chair for a game of Shipwreck and once again taking advantage of Steve's collection of Cold War floaty boats. If we do the same thing for the last Saturday in August next year, this could become a tradition. 

Iiiiiiin the Red corner!!!

There were five in attendance so I'd come up with an asymmetric scenario of four British destroyers and frigates against a lone Soviet cruiser. I had not counted on Steve being busy with his brushes and bring the Americans to the table. Oh well, best laid plans and all that.

Aaaaaand in the Blue corner!

Instead, we had a straight forward slug-fest, albeit it with a little room for tactical shenanigans. Andy and Shaun took control of the Soviet surface group made up of a Kirov-class battlecruiser, two Sovremmeny-class destroyers, an Udaloy-class destroyer and a Krivak II-class frigate. Paul and Steve had the American fleet, centred around an Iowa-class battleship, two Ticonderoga-class cruisers, a California-class cruiser and a Perry-class frigate. Yep, each side has a sacrificial target, but would they use them wisely?

In the middle of the area of operations were two small islands and each side basically had to get past the other. There were no aircraft to get in the way of the ship to ship combat. 

The Krivak in the distance looks kinda lonely.

The early turns were a selection of single and double moves to eat up the distance between the two forces, with the Americans switching on the Iowa's surface search radar but neither finding anything nor being detected itself. During this period, the Americans stayed in formation whilst the Soviets pushed the plucky little Krivak II out in front and eventually warmed up its radar, yet still detecting nothing. Someone had been thinking...

Turn 9 (these were very quick movement turns at this stage of the game) saw the Americans detect the Krivak's emissions and loft four speculative Harpoons from the Iowa. This led to the first combat phase, and with the Krivak beam on to the approaching US ships, it was able to use both its SA-N-4 mounts to take down the quarrelsome quartet in two combat turns (CT's). 

Back to the movement and the US go to flank speed. The Krivak got a radar fix the US's port wing consisting of a Tico and the OHP, yet still the US still hadn't picked up a hard lock on the Krivak. Even so, more missiles went a-flying. 

A pair a piece from the Iowa, port Tico and the OHP should have been enough, yet some deft Soviet missile fire (and some absolutely cracking dice rolls from Shaun) saw the last of the Harpoons downed without too much sweat, whilst the Soviet return of four SS-N-14's at the port Tico did raise eyebrows as the last of them was taken out by the cruiser's Phalanx. 

Vampires ahoy! (and guess who can't count!)

It was time for the gloves to come off, and with a good data link back to the main fleet, the Krivak did what it was supposed to do and let the gang know exactly where the Iowa, port Tico and OHP were. Each of the Soveremmeny's fired all eight of their SS-N-22's, one octet at the port Tico, the other at the OHP (overkill, I know, right?). The Kirov, having none of this "which is better?" bollocks, rippled all 20(!) of its SS-N-19's (no nukes in game, btw) at the Iowa.

Our American friends decided that the Krivak had lasted long enough, tasking the OHP to fire the last of its Harpoons at the offending frigate. Since they had not detected the main Soviet fleet, that was their only possible response. This began that last CT phase. 

The eight Harpoons were whittled away by the Krivak's dwindling supply of SAMs, with all but one of the SSM's succumbing to defensive missiles. It was at this point that the fortunate frigate ran-afoul of the flurry of fire, and some duff chaff dice rolling led to a single hit, bad enough to cripple the ship, yet not destroy it. Heroes of the Soviet Union medals all round me thinks. A tally of the remaining SAM rounds revealed a total of 2 remaining for the front mount - it was that close. 

Hard right turn, Clyde!

The American's were too busy to celebrate their first (and only) win as they had to deal with the incoming horde of SSM's. Both Tico's got in on the act, with the port ship proving the most capable as expected as they were an actual target, and it was never really in doubt that they wouldn't avoid some Sunburn issues. 

However, as the port Tico was busy saving itself, that left the OHP on their own, and that single arm launcher counted against it. They managed to down four of their Sunburn's, yet ineffective Phalanx and chaff dice rolls meant that it took four direct hits. The Krivak had been more than avenged as the Soviet claimed the first sinking of the game. Yet the game wasn't over yet...

Vampires ahoy! (With the right count now!)

There were still the issue of twenty "Shipwrecks" (not 22 according to one photo... oops! That was corrected before anything important happened though), and despite some truly fantastic AEGIS directed defensive shooting, nine still made it to CIWS range on the Iowa. Phalanx accounted for two of those, as did chaff, but the remaining five found their mark. Even with "on the fly" amendments for the presence of an armoured hull, there were too many well rolled hits and the Iowa was gone. And with that, the two fleets parted to lick their wounds, with the Soviets definitely the better off. 

Oh, Heavens Preserve us!

This was another fun game using Shipwreck and the addition of Steve's naval know-how demonstrated the benefit of having an umpire and players who know their stuff. Tis a game more than just about dice rolling. 

That being said, your humble umpire did offer both sides the opportunity to expand the game (to either or both side's benefit) via the liberal application of a fine single malt (there were several behind the bar) to the umpire, yet neither side did. Has there ever been a more fitting example of fair play from two competing sides? Probably, but hey, if you don't offer, you'll never know! Also, damn them!

A tough little ship, that one!

One thing that was was quite clear was that when the vampires were loose, there was a lot going on and much to keep track of, leading to my muttered comment of "Next time, can we do f-ing muskets?" 

I might return to the asymmetric scenario for our next naval game, but that'll be a while off yet (next August bank holiday weekend, gents?), as there are many more periods we can play with before a return to Cold War naval is warranted, and a benefit of being in such a varied group of TWATS.

Magazines of Yesteryear - Personal Computer Magazine - Issue 65 - June 1993

Five Years Later...

If 1988 was the year of talking up OS/2 as the next step(!) in PC operating systems, by 1993 the conversation had settled firmly on the future with Windows NT, and this issue of Personal Computer Magazine handily deals with that in their Pentium/Alpha face off given that DEC's new super chip could run Microsoft's power OS. If you want to know more about how NT came about, give Showstopper! by G. Pascal Zachary a read. It's a simple tale of folk being absolutely pummelled for the promise of stock options and pay outs whilst their personal lives are shredded all for the cause of "achievement." Yeah, well, that's a rant for another time...

Anyway, the news:

Compaq might have asked Intel to embargo all Pentium-related announcements until Compaq's own motherboard for the chip was ready for the prime time. Such shenanigans were denied but given that everyone else was having to use Intel-produced boards and Compaq wanted to shift boxes...

The battle for networking control was heating up with Novell Netware's pricing undercutting Microsoft's own Windows NT Advanced Server package, as well as PINning their hopes (you'll see) with their Processor Independent Netware (See!!!) initiative, which hoped to put Netware 4.0 on Alpha, PA-RISC and Sparc processors, as well as the then current Intel offering. Hey, it seemed to work out for the rest of the decade...

Meanwhile, AMD were spaffing 486 chips left, right and centre, handy since the 486 was the CPU of choice in the market. A court win against Intel regarding microcode infraction was also a plus point. At the same time, Intel were still litigating against all and sundry who tried to use AMD or Cyrix processors, with Twinhead (a prolific notebook manufacturer at the time), the latest victim of Intel's lawyerly legions. 

Apple were planning to move the "look and feel" of the Mac GUI to Unix workstations in an attempt to... well, it wasn't exactly clear what they were doing. Fighting Microsoft in the Unix sphere? Attempting to garner support for their forthcoming PowerPC-based machines? Piss around because at this point the wheels are starting to wobble? Speaking of wheels, they had fallen off the MJN Technology bandwagon, with the direct PC seller's fall leaving 70 people out of work. The brand would rise again as part of the Granville Technology Group, alongside brands such as Colossus, Time and Tiny. Yep, them!

Coreldraw 4.0 was winging its way to UK users for the princely sum of £395, with Coreldraw 3 dropping to £149! Ah, kids, serious software used to cost serious money back in the day. Also costing real money was IBM's PS/1 Multimedia System - a 25MHz 386 rocking an 85Mb hard drive, Philips CD-ROM, Audio Spectrum 16 soundcard and a 256-colour SVGA display. The £1,340 they were asking for it included DOS, Windows, Works for Windows, and a tutorial CD-ROM. Canny shoppers could get a similar spec a little cheaper, and it was arguable whether a 386 would cut the mustard for much longer. 

Word 6.0 (for DOS) was also due to meet the public, helping the marketing bods by matching version numbers with long time rival Wordperfect. Also due out by year end would be Word 6.0 for Windows, as well as a Mac version too. In more surprising news, Virgin (yes, them!) were planning to get into the PC hardware market, albeit using third party kit with a badge slapped on the box. And no, that's didn't work out either, pretty much in line with the commentary piece on page 47 - entering a mature market and thrashing the competition first time??? I mean, they had form, but this wasn't the airline market.

News analysis sections this month offered thoughts on possible competition for Microsoft as other companies try to leverage Windows applications with Unix and Macintosh - very much a storm in a teacup. VESA Local Bus standards were up next, or not as was then the case, with varying interpretations of what VL-bus actually meant doing the rounds. Another teacup-sized forecast as PCI was already fermenting nicely over at Intel, and that would prove far better suited to Pentium processors as they found their footing in 1994.

A proper 90's fascination up next and yes, it's the "what the fuck were they thinking" collision of the personal computer and television. Bill Gates had been demo-ing some marketing bollocks about tech permitting greater PC/TV integration and, well, it was a piss poor idea at the time, and truly didn't evolve until online connectivity could keep up with even basic video encoding standards. Given the current state of television and the streaming market, it's still ended up being a piss poor idea for those who create the content, as well as those who consume it. 

Speaking of which, here comes the D! (Not that, you filthy minded buggers!). No, we're talking about ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network), a way of guaranteeing two 64Kbps channels (and potential for up to 30 of them), at a time when your standard modem was giving 14.4Kbps, with forthcoming 19.2Kbps and 28.8Kbps specs and even (spoken in hushed tones), 56.5Kbps!!! You had to be there, kids, as well as being very patient. Although you could say the same today as you wait for the Satan-bating combination of cookie consent pop-ups and adverts to interrupt even the fastest of connections. The article does talk about ISDN's D channel (for flow control and error reporting, the B channels being the main data pipes), and also mentions the possibility of Broadband and 100Mbps. Fantasy for 1993 users, and maybe for more than a few 2024 ones as well, but the future looked bright, even if the then-present offering was still an expensive luxury - £400 for Basic Rate ISDN 2 (so 128Kbps) installation plus £84 per quarter line rental, but £3,025 for Primary Rate ISDN30 installation and £33.87 per quarter per channel line rental - and remember, you could have up to 30(!) channels! Now we know where Virgin Media get their pricing model from!

On to the reviews and before we get to the kit being covered, just a shout out to the headers for each piece. They are quite funny and I'll include them as I go. Hewlett Packard had a printer (Quite.a brainy type) that could do you 17 pages per minute at 600 dots per inch for £2,999 in the form of the Laserjet 4Si. For network use, the 4Si MX was yours for £4,449 with included Ethernet and Local talk cards, as well as Postscript, compatibility with ten networks OS's, optional Token Ring, and a parallel port for single user types. PCM declared this should become the standard in network printing. 

Dell placed their new Dimension 486/25S on the line (Dell to be different), and priced at £1,025 for a 25Mhz 486, 8Mb of RAM, a 120Mb hard drive and local bus graphics, it was a rather nice machine. The £30 delivery charge gets a call out, and when you consider that equates to just over £60 in today's money, they're not wrong. 

Microsoft wanted you to use their Mouse 2.0 (New moose in the hoose) but for £69 then, that was a lot of readies for your rodent, Quicken 2 for Windows (The Quicken wakes - one for Wyndham fans there) offered an excellent financial package for £59.95, and Norton Utilities 7.0 (Beautility and the beast) was another winner, both as a package and a title. 

NEC's latest colour laptop, the Ultralite Versa 25C (Your Versa-tile friend) gained points for future-proofing, with a degree of modularity that would have been used to justify its £3,195 price tag. That and the lovely (for the time) 9.5" 256-colour TFT screen. Finally, low-cost document image processing software, Watermark Discovery (That's the OLE point), harks back to functionality that has long been subsumed into more general packages. 

The cover stars are next and it's definitely more Pentium than Alpha-based. You get a long and highly detailed background as to why the Pentium chip is the Pentium, as well as the technology behind it. It's pieces like this that make these old magazines well worth reading, and it was certainly a school day after finishing those paragraphs. PCI is touched upon briefly (see above for my prior comment), as is whatever the P24T upgrade malarkey was (marketing tripe, mostly it seems, as people just upgraded the whole box as it would become clear that by 1994, a dedicated Pentium machine was the future), before we get to the high-end server products that Intel's latest was aimed at. 

ICL's Teamserver F5 started at £7,500 for a good tower option, whereas Viglen's EX Pentium was a much more affordable server/desktop at ££4,949 as tested. Elonex went straight to the simple "Pentium" moniker, and for £8,100 as tested, they could keep it. DEC's Alpha-equipped AXP proved a competitive offering, at least spec wise, as no pricing was mentioned. Benchmarks are a pleasant surprise and the general feeling is that DEC have a capable machine on their hands. The final question about whether they could leverage Windows NT on their new box was soon answered - the market said "Meh," and stayed with Intel. 

For those who have an accounting thing (Hey, I just test financial databases and associated logic! Those six years in finance were an aberration!), a round up of interviews with corporate types and how they handled LAN-based high-end DOS accounting packages could be of historical interest. As someone whose career has revolved around IBM i, there are some interesting connections here but it's a tad too dry, even for me.

A very definite period piece on the dangers of leasing equipment is an "oh, really?" read, given that times have changed, but the next sixteen pages really do confirm that the past is a different country: hard disks - what they are, how they work, and what to do when you run out of space, as well as other storage options. All that spinning rust... 

The main group test gives word processors for both DOS and Windows a run out, and there are some truly memory-raking names present and correct, all the more so after I've just read this wonderful article on The Register about WordStar 7. Yes, I'm going to be trying that out ASAP! Back in '93, Lotus Ami Pro received the best in show gong for Windows, whilst Wordperfect 5.1 clinched it for DOS, although honourable mentions were given to Starwriter and WordStar. 

The Platforms section, covering Unix, OS/2 and cross-platform issues takes a gander at NeXT's Intel port of NeXTSTEP. The pre-release version was handled by some loaned hardware that really missed the boat for the average user: 486DX2 66MHz, 16Mb RAM, 240Mb SCSI hard drive, and a 2Mb VRAM graphics adaptor - £3,500 plus £900 for the developer release of the OS. Even then, that didn't meet the suggested developer release spec from NeXT, which apparently needed 24Mb of RAM and 330Mb of drive space. It's an informative read but the conclusion does state that NeXT was competing at the high end of the workstation market, whilst also noting that some have said its real opponents are (the several years away) Microsoft's Cairo and IBM/Apple/HP's Taligent collaboration. As it turned out, Cairo never shipped although some elements appeared in Windows 95 (which won the consumer OS race with surprising ease), and Taligent fell apart. Our fruity friends then shat the bed with Copland and ended up buying NeXT in 1997, thus taking the "next step" on the journey to financial recovery. 

Back into the real world and the first part (of two) of a series detailing networking Netware LANs to Unix does provoke a slight yawn from me (apologies), before Bob Walder casts a gimlet eye on the release version of Netware 4.0, comparing it as he does so to Microsoft's LAN Manager 2.2 and Banyan Vines 5.5. Do I need to spell out the conclusion, or can the 90's veterans in the room guess? Yep, Netware is the best, LAN Manager is good and improving, especially if you're already using Windows for Workgroups, and Vines 5.5 has issues with complexity and a monumentally crappy copy protection system (a dongle that proved "troublesome"), so loses any chance of a recommendation. As noted in the news section, Novell retaliated by dropping its prices, but as end users were increasingly becoming equipped with machines running Windows for Workgroups, the buy in was simple enough for Microsoft to leverage. 

Back up options get a group test before we get to the tail end (a round up of Desktop Publishing books, anyone), but also this absolute classic from Richard Sarson under the training banner. Companies were being "delayered" of management, and this should bring about a change in recruiting practices as well as a move away from the idea of 40 years of progression before you get your pension. What makes this a fun commentary is the distance of thirty years and how much things haven't changed. You can see the full article ablve, but from actual experience, whatever "flat, competence-driven" structure companies might aim for, I can attest from my experience that deeds have not matched words, and that the vertical management culture is alive and well. 

It's the adverts and we begin at the beginning, with Apricot tying to convince potential shoppers that they were good value. As much as I loved the Xen desktop case design (we had a one at Tanfield Comp for the careers advisor to use), I don't believe £949 ex VAT for a diskless 33MHz 386 was good value, network security or no. And £1,299 for a 25MHz 486 was, as we shall see, a tad over the odds too. 

Now here's something more than a little strange! Apple with multi-page adverts! Indeed! This was at a point where the fruity fiends were pushing what was left of the 680x0-series range before the big move to PowerPC, and more importantly, highlight the benefits of using a Macintosh over Windows (something that the arrival of Windows 95 would begin to change very quickly). Much like logic puzzles beloved by adventure games and films, Apple poses this as a three part process: Macs weren't affordable, Macs were only for graphics, and Macs were not compatible. Here's their guide (with commentary) to the answers.

The Mac isn't affordable:

The LCIII 4/80 was only £1,150 ex VAT! A bargain! Well, for a Mac, pretty much. Three years prior, and that amount wouldn't have gotten you the box, never mind a display! That LCIII rocked a 25MHz 68030 and could also be found in its civilian guise as the Performa 450. But check out that Classic II - £695 ex VAT! It also had a 68030 but clocked at a lower 16MHz and on a cheaper/slower 16-bit bus. Still, the 4/80 configuration was a good budget option, yet one can't help but feel that the 9-inch 512x342 display was a step too far down the ladder. There were added benefits (networking and audio), so arguably, Apple weren't horribly wrong here, except maybe asking if you should buy one for the office, or the home, or both? That's a lot of saving up, and they didn't even have the benefit of cancelling Netflix subs to help out back then...

The Mac is only for graphics:

There's lots of professional packages for Mac users, and you can easily do whatever you can on a PC but also on a Mac. And no, that's not sarcasm. What should be noted is the focus on their being a Mac for whatever purpose. In all, 17 models. Now, let's be clear, that was quite restrained compared to what would happen over the next four years - Apple spattered the market with conflicting ranges and multiple configurations within those ranges. Just a quick check of a 1996 Mac mag makes for migraine inducing complexity, so maybe the next MoYY post will check that out. But as for 1993, there were (just) 17, which was still a worrying sign of things to come. 

The Mac isn't compatible:

Fair play, they were good for network connectivity, they could read MS-DOS floppies, and they could run MS-DOS programs via an emulator. Job done!

But not quite: there's some summer specials (four, on top of the 17 models mentioned above), and it's here that the messaging stumbles slightly. The only "special" that received coverage in the previous pages was the LCIII at that £1,150 price point. The cheapest option was the LCII at £850, which sounds good until you realise the model had been discontinued a couple of months earlier. A great upselling chance for the LCIII, perchance? That Centris 610 with a Personal Laserwriter NTR as a package for £2,795... What was that about affordable? The last "special" is a doozy, and also one of the most desirable combo's ever created (IMHO). The Powerbook Duo, all in for £2,495. Effectively an LCIII in portable form, the concept was neat but very expensive for the benefits it offered. 

Bless them, but IBM were trying with the aid of the Pink Panther. Here's an NEC ad from a few pages prior, and you can see the asking price for their 25MHz 486 was competitive, and to be honest, of the two, I prefer the aesthetic of the PS/ValuePoint range, but horses for courses. 

Nicely placed following the Alpha/Pentium dust up, this DEC advert targets the server end of the market, and I'm sorry, but adding "just" before those prices is an... interesting choice.

P&P were a dealer who were gunning for Compaq fans with these two offers, and that ProLinea for £999 ex is really good for the time, as is that bundle price including Microsoft's best offerings. 

Time Computer Systems Ltd. next and some duality there. That colour Amstrad laptop was good value at that price, but compared to the latest offerings from other manufacturers, was bulky, so definitely belonging to the previous generation of portable technology, whilst that IBM bundle is another good value option, though that 386 model for under a grand was an exercise in false economy - the 486 was at the grand-ish level and would only get cheaper. 

Not that that would stop the likes of Wearnes, whose 386SX-25 at £649 ex VAT was more for the budget conscious rather than anyone looking ahead a year or two. Good price on the 486SX-25 mind...

Nationwide Direct were slinging out 386 and 486's from IBM, Compaq and, yep, Alan, and Gawd help them, still trying to flog both the 7000-series and the Mega PC. The 7386 would do you a reasonable if un-expandable desktop, but trying to flog the 7286, even with that games pack? No. No, no, no! Same would go for the Mega PC. At least their dealer price for the IBM ValuePoint range makes them even more attractive, the 486 mentioned above was only £899 ex!

The Pen Pad: pointless, but I still wanted one.

Last, but not least, is Thripplewoods with some intriguing goods for sale. First up has to be Amstrad's Pen Pad PDA 600, the lower cost option for those who couldn't reach the heady heights (or public humiliation) of Apple's Newton. I've never seen on in the flesh but contemporary reviews were lukewarm at best, and those of a social climbing nature would probably have been better off with a Newton!

Another pointless piece of kit, still wanted one.

Moving passed the sextet of fax machines (you have to be of an age...), it's the MagicNote that steals the show. A word processor in a laptop form, it's something that would have appealed to my gadget freak side even though it was pricey for something Amstrad's own NC100/200 range of portables could have achieved. But hey, considering these days Freewrite ask for around £400 for effectively an e-ink typewriter...

Next time, the return of The Mac (that's a hint, that is...)

What if... RISC OS part two

This is the second of three articles published in the Wakefield RISC OS Computing Club newsletter last year. The articles focussed on three key years for the Acorn Archimedes and its successors - their original launch (with the Arthur OS) in 1987, the introduction of the A3000 (and RISC OS) in 1989, and finally, the belated attempt at the wider UK home computer market with the A3010 in 1992. 

I have taken the opportunity to expand each piece, and all views that appear here are my own, as are any omissions. I hope you like the slightly tongue in cheek approach to questions that were answered decades ago. No slights or offence intended. Please, enjoy.

Could 1989's A3000 have became the games machine of the period?

Nope. Article over, thanks for reading.

What? What do you mean I can't leave it like that? Oh, okay then! Just because it's you.

1989 was a pivotal year for home computing in the UK. The Atari ST was comfortably placed at the important price point of £299 (the same amount would get you the colour Amstrad CPC 464 combo, but that 8-bit offering was looking at tad tired by now), whilst Commodore's Amiga A500 was a ton more. Both connected to a standard TV via an RF input and were more powerful than any 8-bit machine, even the SAM Coupe (sorry, Colin!). More pointedly for Acorn, they were now cheaper than the 8-bit BBC Master that arrived in 1986 to secure the future for Acorn after a tumultuous couple of years in '84 and '85.

When Acorn launched the A3000 in the summer of '89 (that's what you should have sung about, Bryan!), despite possibly offering the best value on the market and having the benefit of RISC OS, it couldn't, realistically, break into the general home market for four reasons, and as such, this article is, like the first, more of a why not rather than a what if.

The 16-bit competition in November 1989

Price: At £649 excluding VAT, the A3000 was an ARM-powered bargain. A bargain until you realised you needed a monitor on top, and 15% of that total was added for Nigel's cut, meaning you were looking at just over a grand. That was and still is folding money (according to the BoE, about £2,500-ish today). Acorn couldn't really sell it any cheaper and it was only when The Learning Curve pack was released in 1990 that the A3000 could connect to a SCART-equipped TV. Those weren't exactly cheap back then either! 

Typical Acorn dealer prices at the tail end of 1989.

Software support: Here at least, Acorn tried to do something. Shortly after the A3000's launch, Acorn held a games conference with 30 "top development houses" such as Ocean, US Gold and Domark. Several firms promised trial titles to test the market and, indeed, some games did actually see a release. Yet within a year, most of those who had pushed a game or two onto the 32-bit wonder had given up to focus on the much larger 16-bit market. The comparatively low sales figures didn't lie.

The Competition: Atari had been selling the ST since 1985 and it had gained a good reputation in both the consumer and professional markets (the latter for it's musical abilities via the included MIDI ports, and budget DTP prowess). By 1989, it was the cheapest 16-bit computer and looked to be sitting pretty. A series of Packs bundling "hundreds of pound of games" (at original RRP's) had created a handily sized market for those who wanted (and could afford, for the newer machines weren't ubiquitous just yet) to move on from the 8-bit era. All was not well though. The Tramiel-led Atari wasn't cash rich, with the company's third quarter 1989 results showing a $5.4m loss from a turnover of $81.4m. Acorn, never the most profitable of companies to put it mildly, was at this point doing (slightly) better than that, generating a profit at least. Atari's big problems were that a) the base ST spec had remained pretty static since 1985, and the new STE would not be the panacea that was hoped for, b) an expansion into the DOS PC market stole precious resources the ST desperately needed, and c) the purchase of the Federated Group in 1987 hammered the US dealer network and extracted even more money from Atari's pockets.  

The ever-present Silica Shop advertising the ST in November 1989.

Commodore had, seemingly, learned the mistakes of the original Amiga A1000 with the A500. As with the ST, it could plug into your TV and it was demonstrably greater technical abilities than Atari's kit. In a marketing coup that year, they bundled the A500 with Ocean's rather decent Batman game, renowned flight sim F-18 Interceptor, platformer New Zealand Story, and industry leading art package Deluxe Paint II. Commodore hoped to sell 100,000 £399 Batman Packs. By the time it was discontinued the following year (remaining on sale long enough to take advantage of the film's VHS release), sales totalled some 186,000 units. They also released a Class of the '90's bundle, complete with a database package, DTP and spreadsheet software, Deluxe Paint II, and a MIDI interface and recording software. Oh, and a BBC emulator and some programs just to really stick it to Acorn. All for £499 inclusive. As a result, Amiga Format's February 1990 issue reported that Commodore had sold its 200,000th UK Amiga. To be fair though, just as the A500 was the cheaper, mass-market evolution of the Amiga A1000, so too was the Archimedes A3000 to the A305/A310, but there was a two year gap between Commodore and Acorn's generational leap. Given that Commodore would be the company to beat in the UK home computer market, that was a gap Acorn could never realistically close. 

November 1989 Amiga dealer ad.

Attitude: Acorn's approach was that educational sales justified the machine's existence (just like the Beeb), and consumer "serious home user" sales were a handy extra. That ended up being the right approach for the time - after all, Acorn outlived both of its 16-bit competitors, but this ignored the changing consumer landscape, something that every format outside of DOS (later Windows) did. And anyway, who was the "serious home user'? Anyone that could begin to fit that marketing buzz term was already well catered for in 1989. An A500 with monitor and hard drive could be had for less than a grand inclusive. Amstrad had the phenomenally successful PC1512/1640 DOS range, albeit with their replacement, the 2000-series, heralding the beginning of the decline of Amstrad as a PC manufacturer. A faulty hard drive issue meant that by the time the problems were sorted, not only had the reputational damage been done, but the market had also changed, meaning Amstrad was now just one of many box-shifters in the UK, and by no means the cheapest. PC's were not their only arrow though, and for those who wanted a cheap printer-equipped solution, the Amstrad PCW range was still reasonable value. Again though, times were a changing and their value for money against as printer equipped 16-bit micro was starting to become questionable. By the time you added a printer and monitor to an ST or Amiga, you were spending more than a PCW, but the ST/Amiga could do much, much more. Finally, if you had the readies, the sky was literally your limit for Macs. Even that would change in 1990 as the Classic made the Mac a sub-£1k option. 

The Amstrad competition (and remember to add 15% VAT on top!).

The Mac and, well, yes but no...

Not that the outside world mattered to the likes of BBC Acorn User. Their June '89 review of the A3000 was glowing, but the comment that "Once again, Acorn have produced the Rolls-Royce of home computing" demonstrated a lack of understanding as to how the home computer market worked and that the Rolls Royce concept was oxymoronic to a mass user base. Without said base, software developers wouldn't see the machine as viable. Without software, potential purchasers would look elsewhere. A follow up piece two months later admitted that Acorn's latest would inevitably be compared to the 16-bitters but it was actually more akin to PC's and Macs costs thousands, and anyway, taking inflation into account, the A3000 was about the same relative value as the original Beeb. To a cost conscious potential buyer, those comparisons didn't matter. Money talked, and all else was simple delusion.

In the short term, however, the A3000 proved to be a tonic for those wanting to jump to RISC OS and the machine proved a success, albeit not one for the home sector, but what if an A3000 package had been released with a few games and a TV modulator?

Hey, at least someone tried!

Well, there was such a bundle. ZCL, a distributor for Commodore and Amstrad products, put together the Jet Set Pack at the tail end of 1990. For a couple of quid under £750 VAT inclusive, you could have a TV modulator equipped A3000, the Euclid 3D package, and a trio of games: Interdictor, Trivial Pursuit and Superior Golf. All it lacked was a joystick but third party options were becoming available at that time. Stock was stated as "running into the thousands", and independent retailers were the first targets of the bundle. The only issue? Price. Again! For literally half that amount, you could pick up an Amiga A500 pack, with the spare change going towards a monitor, printer, hard drive or as many fashion conscious fire-hazard shell suits you could ever need (this was 1990, folks!). Acorn just couldn't compete on value in that particular market against the juggernaut that was the Amiga.

Dealer price for the Jet Set Pack - don't forget the VAT.

Not that the pack was advertised far or wide outside of dealers within the likes of Acorn User, and as 1991 got underway, the pack was discounted to under £700. At the same time, Acorn was happy to announce it had sold its 100,000th RISC OS machine, and that the A3000 was outselling the BBC Master 128 by two-to-one. A near five year old 8-bit machine and only 2-1??? In slightly better news, market data in April that year pointed to 55,000 RISC OS machines were shipped throughout Britain in 1990, 75% of which were the A3000 model. What were those Amiga numbers again?

But let's say they did. What if the original A3000 shipped with TV connectivity and a joystick port? What would have happened? Not much, really. The more impressive Amiga titles would have made it over, with maybe a few companies joining Krisalis Software as a worthy porting house. It might have helped ship a few more boxes into homes rather than schools, a few thousand perhaps as newcomers saw the educational benefit, or maybe with former ST owners who wanted something more powerful that the rapidly aging ST but wouldn't/couldn't stretch to the hefty entrance fee for a DOS machine, and didn't fancy dipping into the Amiga pool. There would, however, have been a slightly bigger RISC OS market for the next generation of machines, including a model aimed squarely at the Amiga and ST. By that time though, it wasn't a question of what if they could succeed, but what was the actual point?