Genuinely boggles my mind that boots used to sell video games and systems! I remember seeing adverts from the early 90s of them selling Mega Drives and such.
Holy moley, adjusted for inflation, that BBC Micro B - without disk drive or monitor - cost Ā£1,280. No wonder only the posh kids ever owned them (and school only ever had one, in a corner).
Yeah, they were very much a well-off kids computer despite their ubiquity elsewhere. I knew one kid at school who had one and their father was a uni professor, and that seems to be how it goes with anyone who had one as a child. Their parents were usually in education.
I knew they were expensive, but that really brings home just how expensive. The only kid I knew with one was called Rodney and lived in a huge detached house on the other side of town.
The Apple II was basically the BBC Micro of the US, there was a similar push to make them the default in schools. Iām surprised your school only had one, given the government funding of BBC and the schools.
Apple practically gave them away to schools, it encouraged parents to buy one for the home.
Boots was the best, my local had the computer area upstairs, a decent collection of demo machines, and staff who didn't care how long you played on them.
No joke, somewhere around '84 I was playing on my #ZXSpectrum and my dad left cough syrup on the kitchen table after giving me some for my cough. I was a smart boy and loved the cherry taste so I went and drank the whole bottle! Dad took me to doctors asap to vomit. Not fun. Hahahahah :)
Comments
It was cheap.
Now think about what you pay for a low or high end desktop, laptop, or phone these days.
If anything a basic computer has gotten far cheaper, and high end is about the same.
(Of course, Apple cost more than anyone else back then too!)
Apple practically gave them away to schools, it encouraged parents to buy one for the home.
Definitely causal.