The BBC was making a TV series called Making the Most of the Micro based around the Acorn computer. Whilst filming Episode 9, which featured graphics, the producer couldn’t track down any video input software or hardware that ran on the Model B. The penultimate episode of the series was in danger of becoming ‘Making the Most of the Apple’. The software was no problem as, like the Commodore PET, the Model B was 6502 based and the I/O was driven by a 6522. Unfortunately, we were only partway through solving the MicroEye’s heating problem. Luckily, rationing the time the unit stayed switched on under the studio lights got us through the recording. A well-timed press release and advertisements in Practical Computing and PCW to coincide with the programme’s first showing saw sales leap to thirty units a month and then keep rising. The problem now was building them …
(Extract from The Ghost in the Labyrinth by Peter Kruger)