Acornsoft

Acornsoft was the software arm of Acorn Computers, and a major publisher of software for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron. As well as games, it also produced a large number of educational titles, extra computer languages and business and utility packages – these included word processor "VIEW" and the spreadsheet "ViewSheet" supplied on ROM and cartridge for the BBC Micro/Acorn Electron and included as standard in the BBC Master and Acorn Business Computer.
History.
Acornsoft was formed in late 1980 by Acorn Computers directors Hermann Hauser and Chris Curry, and David Johnson-Davies, author of the first game for a UK personal computer and of the official Acorn Atom manual "Atomic Theory and Practice". David Johnson-Davies was managing director and in early 1981 was joined by Tim Dobson, Programmer and Chris Jordan, Publications Editor.
While some of their games were clones or remakes of popular arcade games (e.g. "Hopper" is a clone of Sega's "Frogger", "Snapper" is Namco's "Pac-Man", "Arcadians" is Namco's "Galaxian"), they also published a number of original titles such as "Aviator", "Elite" and "Revs" which went on to spawn entire genres. Acornsoft also published text adventures by authors such as Peter Killworth, including "Philosopher's Quest" (previously titled "Brand X") and "Countdown to Doom", that remain highly regarded within the interactive fiction community.
As a result of the publication of a method to circumvent copy protection measures employed by Acornsoft titles, a High Court injunction against Computing Publications - publisher of Personal Computer World - was granted to Acorn Computers "requiring all copies of the January 1984 issue of PCW to be withdrawn from sale", with the article concerned being regarded as inciting readers to "duplicate computer programs". This injunction was subsequently lifted as a consequence of an out-of-court settlement between the parties involving a damages payment of £65,000 plus costs to Acorn "to meet Acorn's expenses in developing a new locking device".
Acornsoft became a subsidiary within Acorn Computer Group, distinct from Acorn Computers who were responsible for the development of Acorn's microcomputer systems, but Acornsoft ceased to operate as a separate company upon the departure of David Johnson-Davies in January 1986. Past this date, Acorn Computers used the Acornsoft name on office software it released in the "VIEW" family for the BBC Master series. In 1986 Superior Software was granted a licence to publish some Acornsoft games and re-released many, individually and as compilations such as the "Play It Again Sam" and "Acornsoft Hits" series. By agreement, the Acornsoft name was also used on the packaging of some of the subsequent Superior games. Superior chose not to take on Acornsoft's text adventure games, most of which were released in updated versions by Topologika along with some sequels from the same authors.
In 1997, Acorn sought to revive the Acornsoft brand for new software releases, such as upgrades to RISC OS, programming tools, a new Web browser, multitasking movie playback (using Acorn Replay), and Java for RISC OS. A stated objective was to demonstrate that a "wide range of innovative software at competitive prices" was available for RISC OS, with support also being potentially offered to third-party software producers. Acornsoft products themselves would be supported by marketing, including advertising, and the provision of press review samples.
Branding.
Acornsoft titles extended their consistent branding to the software's loading screens.
Acornsoft Games range.
Including all arcade, text adventure and board games. All games were compatible with the BBC Micro Model B. Games followed by "Model A & B" were compatible with both machines. Games followed by "Electron" were also released separately for the Acorn Electron. Games are listed by their catalogue numbers which are roughly the order of release of the BBC versions.
There are also a number of completed but unreleased games that have found their way into the public domain such as "Crazy Balloon", "Hellforce" and "Bandit" that date from around 1983.
Acornsoft Education range.
Acornsoft produced a wide range of educational titles aimed at many different age groups.
Acornsoft also published and distributed a range of educational software developed by ASK (Applied Systems Knowledge) that were widely used in schools running BBC Micros. These included "Podd" (find out which actions a red blobby character can perform (e.g. jump, smile, dance), "Squeeze" (a two player strategy game of squeezing shapes onto a board) and "Cranky" (solve maths problems to repair a living calculator). These titles were part of the Acornsoft catalogue but used a different code (XBE?? – all other Acornsoft titles began with S so the Education range on BBC Micro cassettes would be SBE??). They ran on both the BBC Micro Model B and Acorn Electron.
The "Ivan Berg Software" range was also mainly educational but had its own distinct code (XBX??). This included the 6 "Grandmaster Quiz"zes (Theatre, Crime & Detection, Music, History, Science Fiction and Royal), relationship aids ""..I Do" Your Guide to a Happy Marriage" and "The Dating Game" and GCE/CSE revision guides (Mathematics, Biology and English).
Acornsoft also distributed other ranges of educational programs developed by companies such as ICL, Good Housekeeping and Bourne but they are not considered part of the official catalogue.
Acornsoft Business range.
Acornsoft produced a range of office software for home and business use.
The series continues but mainly with add-on products for the "VIEW" word processor such as "ViewIndex" (an automatic index generator) and "ViewSpell" (spell-checker) as well as newer versions.
View Professional (1987) was a combined wordprocessor, spreadsheet and database similar to PipeDream on the Z88.
Acornsoft Languages range.
Acorn systems came with a version of the BBC BASIC programming language as standard but Acornsoft also produced a wide range of other languages that could be loaded in by cassette or disc or in some cases, supplied in ROM form.
The relative performance of some of Acornsoft's languages was evaluated using a benchmark based on the Takeuchi function, "Tak" by former Acornsoft managing director, David Johnson-Davies, noting that "it is difficult to imagine a language that performs badly on "Tak" being much use for anything", illustrating a diversity amongst these language implementations in terms of readability, speed and generated code size. A follow-up article expanded the comparison to other language implementations such as Oxford Pascal, Z80 versions of BBC BASIC, Turbo Pascal and Small-C.
Acornsoft Graphics range and more.
The graphics range was used to demonstrate the graphical power of the Acorn computers but only three titles were made available. The X?? code was then used for other types of software.
The range took on various themes including "Creative Sound" (X26).