1.
ZX Spectrum
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The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd. It was manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, in the now closed Timex factory, the Spectrum was among the first mainstream-audience home computers in the UK, similar in significance to the Commodore 64 in the USA. Licensing deals and clones followed, and earned Clive Sinclair a knighthood for services to British industry, the Commodore 64, Dragon 32, Oric-1 and Atmos, BBC Microcomputer and later the Amstrad CPC range were rivals to the Spectrum in the UK market during the early 1980s. Over 24,000 software titles have been released since the Spectrums launch, in 2014, a Bluetooth keyboard modelled on the Spectrum was announced. The Spectrum is based on a Zilog Z80 A CPU running at 3.5 MHz, the original model has 16 KB of ROM and either 16 KB or 48 KB of RAM. Hardware design was by Richard Altwasser of Sinclair Research, and the appearance was designed by Sinclairs industrial designer Rick Dickinson. Video output is through an RF modulator and was designed for use with contemporary portable television sets, the image resolution is 256×192 with the same colour limitations. To conserve memory, colour is stored separate from the bitmap in a low resolution, 32×24 grid overlay. In practice, this means that all pixels of an 8x8 character block share one foreground colour, Altwasser received a patent for this design. An attribute consists of a foreground and a colour, a brightness level and a flashing flag which. This scheme leads to what was dubbed colour clash or attribute clash and this became a distinctive feature of the Spectrum, meaning programs, particularly games, had to be designed around this limitation. Other machines available around the time, for example the Amstrad CPC or the Commodore 64. The Commodore 64 used colour attributes in a way, but a special multicolour mode, hardware sprites. Sound output is through a beeper on the machine itself, capable of producing one channel with 10 octaves, software was later available that could play two channel sound. The machine includes an expansion bus edge connector and 3.5 mm audio in/out ports for the connection of a recorder for loading and saving programs. The ear port can drive headphones and the mic port provides line level audio out which could be amplified, the machines Sinclair BASIC interpreter is stored in ROM and was written by Steve Vickers on contract from Nine Tiles Ltd. The Spectrums chiclet keyboard is marked with BASIC keywords, for example, pressing G when in programming mode would insert the BASIC command GO TO. The ZX Spectrum character set was expanded from that of the ZX81, Spectrum BASIC included extra keywords for the more advanced display and sound, and supported multi-statement lines
2.
The Scout Association
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The Scout Association is the largest Scouting organisation in the United Kingdom and is the World Organization of the Scout Movements recognised member for the United Kingdom. Following the origin of Scouting in 1907, the Association was formed in 1910, the Association is the largest national scout organisation in Europe, representing 35% of the membership of the European Scout Region. The Association claims to provide activities to 452,000 young people in the UK with over 122,000 adult volunteers which is more than one adult for each 4 young people. Its programmes include Beaver Scouts, Cub Scouts, Scouts, Explorer Scouts up to adult Network members, the Associations president is The Duke of Kent and its Patron is Queen Elizabeth II. The Association is a member of the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services, from 1912 to 1967 the associations name was The Boy Scouts Association and until 1976 only boys were admitted to its programmes. In 1976, girls were allowed to join the Venture Scouts section for 16- to 20-year-olds and this expanded to all the Associations programme sections in 1991, although the admission of girls was optional and has only been compulsory since 2007. Girls now make up 25% of participants with a total of 94,366 female participants aged between 6 and 25 and a further 50,600 women involved in volunteer roles.2014 Annual Report. The Scout Associations activities and adult leadership positions are open to lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-sexual, the Association is open to all faiths with variations to the Scout Promise available to accommodate to those of different religious obligations or national beliefs. For the origins of Boy Scouts and the Scout Movement before the formation of The Scout Association see Scouting, originally, Scouting was for boys aged between 11 and 18. However, many girls and younger boys wanted to join in, one group of Girl Scouts participated in the 1909 Crystal Palace Rally. The solution for younger boys was the creation of the younger Wolf Cubs Section, later, many of those who had grown out of Scouts still wanted to be a part of Scouting resulting in another section, the Rover Scouts, for those over 18 being created in 1918. Scouting spread throughout the British Empire and wider world, during the First World War, more than 50,000 Scouts participated in some form of war work on the home front. Scout buglers sounded the all clear after air raids, others helped in hospitals and made up aid parcels, Sea Scouts assisted the Coastguard in watching the vulnerable East coast. In 1929, the Boy Scouts Association hosted the 3rd World Scout Jamboree at Arrowe Park in Cheshire, some 56,000 Scouts from 35 countries attended, the first Gang Show, produced by Ralph Reader, opened at the Scala Theatre in London in October 1932. Following the outbreak of World War II, over 50,000 Scouts trained under the National War Service scheme, tasks undertaken included police messengers and stretcher bearers. The Air Scout branch was launched in January 1941, allowing Scout Troops to specialise in related to aircraft. Lord Baden-Powell died in 1941 and was succeeded as the Associations Chief Scout by Lord Somers, Scouts were prominent in their support of the 1948 Summer Olympics, playing leading roles in the open and closing ceremonies at Wembley Stadium and the sailing events at Torbay. The first Bob a Job Week took place in April 1949, in which Scouts did small tasks for the public in return for a bob to raise funds for the Association and for C. Arthur Pearsons fund for the blind
3.
Your Sinclair
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Your Sinclair, or YS as it was commonly abbreviated, was a British computer magazine for the Sinclair range of computers, mainly the ZX Spectrum. The magazine was launched in January 1984 as Your Spectrum by Sportscene Specialist Press, initially, it was published bimonthly, changing to monthly in June 1984. With the January 1986 issue, the title was relaunched as Your Sinclair, with the intention of expanding coverage of the QL into the main magazine, however, the magazine remained focused almost entirely on the ZX Spectrum games scene. In 1990, the magazine was sold to Bath-based Future plc, and that issues news section contained a feature on the move, which jokingly suggested that Future had intended to buy a Sinclair C5 and had ended up buying the magazine by mistake. It folded in September 1993, after the life of the Spectrum ended. A 94th issue, a retrospective on the magazine, was published in 2004, the magazine introduced a unique writing style, inspired by launch editor Roger Munford and expanded upon by subsequent editors and writers. Influences can be found in titles ranging from Private Eye to Viz, the original 1986 Your Sinclair team included Kevin Cox, Teresa Tzer Maughan, Sara Biggs, Pete Shaw, and Phil Snouty South. Marcus Berkmann joined as staff writer in early 1987 when Maughan took over as editor, freelance writers of the time included John Minson, Mike Gerrard, Max Phillips, Tony Worrall and David McCandless. The final 1993 team consisted of just two permanent staff members, Jonathan Nash and Andy Ounsted, steve Anderson, Rich Pelley, Tim Kemp, Simon Cooke, Dave Golder and Simon Forrester were among those working on a freelance basis. YSs content varied widely, occasionally ignoring the subject of computers entirely, as the Spectrum scene diminished and there was less software to review, this happened more frequently. In 1992, under the editorship of Andy Hutchinson, several lifestyle type sections were introduced and these included Haylp. an agony aunt column, and The World, which contained reviews of films and books. This section included The Killer Kolumn From Outer Space, dedicated to science fiction news, rumours and it was written by Dave Golder, who went on to be the second editor of the successful SFX. Writing in the 100th issue of publication, Golder cited his earlier work on YS. Flip. was discontinued, but the Killer Kolumn was kept on until the issue in 1993. A similar page to Flip. /The World had existed in 1987-88 called Street Life, the news section was originally called Frontlines and dealt with Sinclair news and rumours. It also regularly contained mock celebrity interviews and trivial charts, as well as features about the writers themselves, subsections of Pssst and Frontlines included Tzers, a column which contained rumours about possible forthcoming releases for the Spectrum and, later on, the SAM Coupe. Rock Around The Clock, which first appeared in 1991, was a column dedicated to looking at a particular back issue, as well as news. Perhaps one of the sections of Pssst was the Peculiar Pets Corner
4.
Mad scientist
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Some may have benevolent or good-spirited intentions, even if their actions are dangerous or questionable, which can make them accidental villains. Frankenstein was trained as both an alchemist and a modern scientist, which makes him the bridge between two eras of an evolving archetype. The book is said to be a precursor of a new genre, science fiction, rotwangs laboratory influenced many subsequent movie sets with its electrical arcs, bubbling apparatus, and bizarrely complicated arrays of dials and controls. Rotwangs appearance was also influential—the characters shock of hair, wild-eyed demeanor. Mad scientists were most conspicuous in popular culture after World War II and that the scientific and technological build-up during the Cold War brought about increasing threats of unparalleled destruction of the human species did not lessen the impression. Mad scientists frequently figure in science fiction and motion pictures from the period, boffin Crank Creativity techniques Creativity and mental illness List of mad scientists Megalomania Steins, Gate Garboden, Nick. Mad Scientist or Angry Lab Tech, How to Spot Insanity, from Faust to Strangelove, Representations of the Scientist in Western Literature. Christopher Frayling – Mad, Bad and Dangerous, the Scientist and the Cinema ISBN 1-86189-255-1 Junge, Torsten, Doerthe Ohlhoff. Wahnsinnig genial, Der Mad Scientist Reader, the Insanity Hoax, Exposing the Myth of the Mad Genius. Shrinktunes Media ISBN 978-0-98369-824-1 Schneider, Reto U,100 Amazing Experiments from the History of Science. Monsters and Mad Scientists, A Cultural History of the Horror Movie, nuclear Fear, A History of Images
5.
Computer and Video Games
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Computer and Video Games was a UK-based video game magazine, published in its original form between 1981 and 2004. Its offshoot website computerandvideogames. com was launched in 1999 and was closed in February 2015, up until its closure in 2015, CVG was the longest running video game media brand in the world. Computer and Video Games was established in 1981, being the first British games magazine, at the time of launch it was the worlds first dedicated video games magazine. The first issue featured articles on Space Invaders, Chess, Othello, the magazine had a typical ABC of 106,000. Launched in August 1999, CVG was one of the UK, CVG was originally owned by EMAP, before being bought by Dennis Publishing. In 2004 CVG was acquired by Future Publishing who remain its current owners, in 2006, the site underwent a major re-design and relaunch to bring it up to scratch for the so-called next generation of Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii gaming. The CVG Network expanded further in May 2007 to include sites like Xbox 360 Magazine, Edge, CVG also has a very popular forum with many users and topics. CVG has also had a following with an award thread they used to run known as the yakkies. In May 2007, CVG submitted to electronic audit by the Audit Bureau of Circulation, in early 2014, CVG, amongst other Future-operated websites, was earmarked for closure by management, but instead received staff cuts in July. Future announced the closure of the website in December 2014, the website closed on 26 February 2015, with all pages redirecting to Gamesradar+, another Future publication. Their second longest running series, GTA V Oclock covered news and conspiracy theories regarding Rockstar Games Grand Theft Auto V and Grand Theft Auto Online. It was also one of the only invited to see and play Grand Theft Auto V before its release to the public on 17 September 2013. When the magazine did reappear it was in a new form, titled CVG Presents, the new format concentrates the whole magazine on a single subject. The first issue of the new format concentrated on the history of the Grand Theft Auto series of games, CVG Presents has not been published since 2009. Originally created in 1982 as the CVG magazines annual awards ceremony, in April 1983, the magazine published the results of its first Golden Joystick Awards, along with pictures from the ceremony in Berkeley Square. DJ Dave Lee Travis presented the award for best game of the year to Jetpac, the 2006 Golden Joystick awards attracted over 540,000 votes and were webcast for the very first time. Gareth Ramsay Johnny Minkley – Stuart Bishop – John Houlihan – Gavin Ogden – Tim Ingham – Andy Robinson John Houlihan
6.
Computer Gamer
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Computer Gamer was a video game magazine published in the United Kingdom by Argus Specialist Publications, covering home gaming from April 1985 to June 1987. It was a relaunch of the failing magazine Games Computing. Like many similar magazines, it contained sections of news, game reviews, previews, tips, help guides, columnists, readers letters, and occasionally cover-mounted game demos. When the magazine was relaunched, it was competing with Computer and Video Games. It battled on for two years but, adding only 6,000 sales, it was closed in 1987. Although lost in the crowd of titles on the market in the mid-80s, Gamer did achieve the distinction of having an issue banned by W H Smith and other UK newsagents. The cover promoted a game called Blood And Guts but was considered to be too gory and was replaced by a plainer rush cover. The offending image, constructed from pink hessian, bubblewrap, red paint and a Turkish knife, was demoted to background art on the review pages - without complaint
7.
Ascential
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Ascential plc, formerly EMAP, is a British business-to-business media business specialising in exhibitions & festivals and information services. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE250 Index, Richard Winfrey purchased the Spalding Guardian in 1887 and later purchased the Lynn News and the Peterborough Advertiser, he also started the North Cambs Echo. Sir Richard Winfrey was a Liberal politician and campaigner for agricultural rights, during World War II Winfreys newspaper interests began to be passed over to his son, Richard Pattinson Winfrey. The Peterborough Advertiser Co. the West Norfolk and Kings Lynn Newspaper Co. and commercial printing sections at Rushden, Kings Lynn, the magazine division was founded on a hunch when the companys printing presses lay dormant between printing issues of the local papers. The staff gambled that a weekly angling publication would be a hit - and this was soon joined by another weekly heavyweight when EMAP bought Motor Cycle News from its founder in 1956 for a hundred pounds. EMAP grew significantly in the late 1970s under the guidance of the successful partnership of Sir Robin Miller. In 1996 EMAP PLC agreed to sell its 65 newspaper titles, including the 300-year-old Stamford Mercury, scottish Radio Holdings was acquired by EMAP on 21 June 2005. In 2006, EMAP sold its French division to Italys Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, on 27 July 2007, EMAP announced that it was undertaking a review of the structure of the group in response to receiving a number of unsolicited proposals to purchase parts of the company. On 12 September 2007, EMAP announced that it had completed the disposal of its Australian consumer magazine division, on 29 January 2008, EMAP completed the sale of its radio, television and consumer media businesses to German company Bauer for £1. 14bn. In March 2012, the announced that it would be renamed Top Right Group. The EMAP name would continue to be used for the magazines operation, the database business was renamed 4C Group, and the events unit was renamed I2i Events Group. Then in October 2015 the company announced that the EMAP brand would be scrapped as all its titles move to digital-only format, in December Top Right Group rebranded as Ascential. The company was the subject of an initial public offering in February 2016
8.
Crash (magazine)
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Crash was a magazine dedicated to the ZX Spectrum home computer. It was published from 1984 to 1991 by Newsfield Publications Ltd until their liquidation, Crash was initially launched in 1983 by Roger Kean, Oliver Frey and Franco Frey as a mail order software catalogue that included several pages of reviews. It then launched as a magazine in February 1984, maintaining its focus squarely on Spectrum gaming, Kean and the Frey brothers would continue to be involved with the magazine throughout its lifetime. By October 1986, Crash boasted regular sales of over 100,000 copies and its ABC figure of 101,483 copies a month for the period of January to June were claimed by the magazine to be more than any other computer magazine in the country by all accounts. Much editorial content was credited to Lloyd Mangram, a fictional character, Mangram was depicted visually in the magazine by a sketch of a man wearing a paper bag over his head with holes cut for eyes. This was in stark contrast to the practice of accompanying each review with a small likeness of the writer. Lloyd Mangrams contributions made frequent references to his ancient Hermes Typewriter, Crash included the occasional column which seemed unusual for a computer magazine. Its first year saw the launch of both the Lunar Jetman strip and The Terminal Man, a piece of fiction written by Kelvin Gosnell. Later years would see a revival of The Terminal Man, as well as Mel Crouchers comic story Tamara Knight. After the closure of Newsfields short-lived lifestyle magazine LM, Crash also featured video reviews for a period, starting in 1984, the magazine published an annual readers awards article, based on votes from the readers. The genres were replaced in 1989 with categories such as Best Coin Op conversion, the August 1985 issue of Crash featured Unclear User, a spoof on rival magazine Sinclair User. This led to a successful injunction being taken out against the magazine, with copies withdrawn from newsagents, many issues had already been sent to subscribers, however. By 1989, Your Sinclair regularly came with a free covertape containing a complete Spectrum game plus demos and this came at the expense of page count and editorial content, both of which fell dramatically in 1989. The final issue published by Newsfield was October 1991, following their liquidation, the magazine was relaunched by Europress in December, continuing until the final issue in April 1992. After this, Crash was bought by EMAP, publisher of Sinclair User, in practice, this meant little more than the appearance of the Crash logo on the front cover of Sinclair User for several months. Crash was notable for its cover art, mostly by Oliver Frey. The magazine Retro Gamer has acknowledged this by reprinting Crashs first cover as a poster, much of his work was published in book form for the first time in 2006. The cover of issue 18, July 1985, which depicted a warrior with a man on his knees in collar
9.
Software bug
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A software bug is an error, flaw, failure or fault in a computer program or system that causes it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result, or to behave in unintended ways. Most bugs arise from mistakes and errors made in either a source code or its design, or in components. A few are caused by compilers producing incorrect code, a program that contains a large number of bugs, and/or bugs that seriously interfere with its functionality, is said to be buggy. Bugs trigger errors that may have ripple effects, Bugs may have subtle effects or cause the program to crash or freeze the computer. Others qualify as security bugs and might, for example, enable a user to bypass access controls in order to obtain unauthorized privileges. Bugs in code that controls the Therac-25 radiation therapy machine were directly responsible for patient deaths in the 1980s. In 1996, the European Space Agencys US$1 billion prototype Ariane 5 rocket had to be destroyed less than a minute after launch due to a bug in the guidance computer program. In June 1994, a Royal Air Force Chinook helicopter crashed into the Mull of Kintyre, for instance, Thomas Edison wrote the following words in a letter to an associate in 1878, It has been just so in all of my inventions. The Middle English word bugge is the basis for the terms bugbear and bugaboo, baffle Ball, the first mechanical pinball game, was advertised as being free of bugs in 1931. Problems with military gear during World War II were referred to as bugs, isaac Asimov uses the term bug to relate to issues with a robot in his short story Catch That Rabbit, published in 1944, and included in his well-known collection of short stories I, Robot. From page 1 of Catch That Rabbit, U. S, robots had to get the bugs out of the multiple robot, and there were plenty of bugs, and there are always at least half a dozen bugs left for the field-testing. The term bug was used in an account by computer pioneer Grace Hopper, operators traced an error in the Mark II to a moth trapped in a relay, coining the term bug. This bug was carefully removed and taped to the log book, stemming from the first bug, today we call errors or glitches in a program a bug. Hopper did not find the bug, as she readily acknowledged, the date in the log book was September 9,1947. Hopper loved to recount the story and this log book, complete with attached moth, is part of the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. The related term debug also appears to predate its usage in computing, an analysing process must equally have been performed in order to furnish the Analytical Engine with the necessary operative data, and that herein may also lie a possible source of error. Granted that the mechanism is unerring in its processes, the cards may give it wrong orders. The report highlights the need for reform in the field of software vulnerability discovery, government researchers, companies, and cyber security experts are the people who typically discover software flaws
10.
Booty (video game)
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Booty is a platform game released in 1984 for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Commodore Plus/4, and ZX Spectrum. The game was one of Firebirds launch titles, the main goal of the game was to impregnate the female protagonist. The player takes on the role of a boy who attempts to steal a horde of treasure from his pirate masters. A variety of hazards must be avoided including pirates, parrots, should the player managed to collect all the treasure, he is given 45 seconds to find a final key, which will restart the game. Some rooms contain non-player character pirates, contact with which will cause the loss of one of the three lives. The game was published for the Spectrum in 1984, by Firebird Software in the UK and it was subsequently re-released in the UK at £1.99, and in Spain at a price of 795 pesetas. The game was reviewed by Crash, which awarded it a smash rating of 93%. The main features the magazine cited were the novelty of the setting, also noted was that the complexity of the problem-solving aspect of the game was not initially apparent, and that it was more of a challenge than it first appeared
11.
Covermount
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Covermount is the name given to storage media or other products packaged as part of a magazine or newspaper. The name comes from the method of packaging, the media or product is placed in a transparent plastic sleeve and mounted on the cover of the magazine with adhesive tape or glue. Audio recordings were distributed in the UK by the use of covermounts in the 1960s by the satirical magazine Private Eye though the term covermount was not in usage at that time. The Private Eye recordings were pressed onto 7 floppy vinyl and mounted on to the front of the magazine, the weekly pop music paper NME issued audio recordings of rock music on similar 7 flexi-discs as covermounts in the 1970s. The covermount practice continued with computer magazines in the era of home computers. In the United Kingdom computer hobbyist magazines began distributing tapes and later floppy disks with their publications and these disks included demo and shareware versions of games, applications, computer drivers, operating systems, computer wallpapers and other content. One of the first covermount games to be added as a covermount was the 1984 The Thompson Twins Adventure, most magazines backed up by large publishers like Linux Format included a covermount CD or DVD with a Linux distribution and other Open Source applications. In November 2015, The MagPi magazine brought the full circle and attached a free Raspberry Pi Zero on the cover. In other places, such as Finland, covermounts on computer magazines never caught on, instead, popular Finnish magazines such as MikroBitti offered subscribers access to an exclusive BBS via modem, and later via the World Wide Web. Adding audiovisual media as a covermount has started with music magazines adding covermounts in the form of sampler for promotional uses, the cassette was in the end replaced by the compact disc. Apart from magazines also newspapers have discovered the covermount and started to add compact discs to their publications, magazines are also including non-storage media like toys, games, stationery sets, make up, cross stitch kits and whatever the publisher believes will help the sales of their titles. In the United Kingdom, many television-related partware magazines have been launched in recent years, american musician Prince is known for offering studio albums free with various newspaper publications. His 2007 album Planet Earth was the first to be given this treatment, in the United Kingdom and his new album 20Ten was released in 2010, in Belgium, under the same circumstances, with the same happening for the album with other publications across Europe. Pop rock band McFly too released a covermount album, which was Radio, other artists known to release covermount albums are UB40, Peter Gabriel, Calvin Harris and Soulwax. The initial purpose of covermount discs was to distribute demo versions of video games, cDs became the most common storage media, but in the past several years, demos have grown from mere 50MB files to 500MB or larger. This discourages magazines from distributing most of the demos, unless the magazine has an exclusive distribution agreement or the title is highly anticipated. While in 1997 a CD could carry over 15 demos, in 2005 the typical CD had 5 or fewer and this led some magazines to insert a second CD, or to use DVD media instead. Covermounts came late to the world of game console publications
12.
Telecomsoft
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Telecomsoft was the computer software division of British telecommunications company British Telecom. It was the owner of the Firebird and Rainbird labels, under which it sold video games, Telecomsoft was founded in 1984 when computer games were the fastest growing sector within the computer software market at the time. Three publishing labels were established within Telecomsoft, each with its own marketing strategy. The Firebird label would be Telecomsofts primary identity, although initially set up to publish a range of budget titles, Firebird later evolved into a full price label. As a consequence the Silverbird label was formed to continue publishing the budget range, in 1985 Telecomsoft opened the US operation which published product under licence on IBM PC. Apple II and IIe, C64 as well as Atari and Amiga titles, the US operation was opened who published the first UK product Elite to the No1 spot on the Billboard charts in May 1986. Telecomsoft was viable for only a period of time and was acquired by MicroProse in 1989. The US-based publisher sold the Silverbird label soon after acquisition, Firebird was the first computer game label to be set up at Telecomsoft. It had earlier been named Firefly Software, but was renamed by James Leavey, shortly after he arrived from mainstream BT to take over as the labels marketing. Leavey did this because he found that the name was not fully protected. Initially there were two prices, Firebird Silver would release budget titles priced at £2.50 whereas Firebird Gold would release more prestigious titles at £5.95. The Firebird label was aimed at a market, hoping to entice young spenders to spend their pocket money on good quality, low-priced games rather than records. Although there were doubts as to whether or not the market could afford to sustain a range of budget titles, the budget software market grew as other publishers, such as Codemasters, decided to capitalise on the successful established by Firebird and their early rival Mastertronic. Firebird Gold established itself just as well as its budget counterpart, although the price rose to £9.95, the label became synonymous with many classic 8-bit titles, such as Elite, Revs, Druid and The Sentinel. Firebird Silver briefly spawned a new Firebird Super Silver range in 1986, the following titles were sold for £3.95 each, Later, the entire budget range was given an overhaul and relaunched as the single Firebird Silver £1.99 Range. Likewise, a new Firebird Hot label was established to reintroduce mid-price games, a final overhaul of the Firebird brand was conducted in late 1987 as the budget titles became rebranded as Silverbird and the mid to full-price games as Firebird. These brands remained until MicroProses acquisition of Telecomsoft in 1989, two price points were established for 8-bit software while a few budget 16-bit titles were priced at £9.99. These various price points were differentiated between by their own style of packaging
