Micro Men, working title Syntax Era, is a 2009 one-off BBC drama television programme set in the late 1970s and the early-mid 1980s, about the rise of the British home computer market. It focuses on the rivalry between Sir Clive Sinclair (played by Alexander Armstrong), who developed the ZX Spectrum, and Chris Curry (played by Martin Freeman), the man behind the BBC Micro.
The Centre for Computing History videoed Chris Curry, Steve Furber and Hermann Hauser watching Micro Men and chatting for the tenth anniversary of its broadcast:
My father knew Clive Sinclair thanks to the Cambridge tech/hifi scene at the time, and we also used to live near him in Madingley. Somewhere in my dad's shed there's a ZX81 with a single digit serial number (amongst a lot of other similar machines: Jupiter Ace, ZX80, various Spectrums with weird and wacky keyboards, Dragon 32, Commodore 16 Plus/4, etc).
A bit later we also lived next door to Franni and Geoff Vincent who were part of the Acorn team that designed and built the BBC Micro. They used to let me come round (aged 8 or so) and use their Model B whenever I wanted.
Sir Clive Sinclair had a HUGE influence on my life. RIP.
"Games! Games! Everywhere I go games! This is what my lifetime of achievement has been reduced to! Clive Sinclair the man who brought you Jet Set f**ing Willy!" -- Clive Sinclair (fictional), Micro Men
Micro Men is so good. I met the director once at an event and asked him if it would ever be released on DVD or equivalent and it sounded like that was unlikely, so it's great to see it available on YouTube.
It is interesting to watch the video of the actual interview that they recreate in the movie. The movie Sinclair seems a bit upset while the real life one was smiling a lot and being very friendly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXBxV6-zamM (1h24m)
Micro Men, working title Syntax Era, is a 2009 one-off BBC drama television programme set in the late 1970s and the early-mid 1980s, about the rise of the British home computer market. It focuses on the rivalry between Sir Clive Sinclair (played by Alexander Armstrong), who developed the ZX Spectrum, and Chris Curry (played by Martin Freeman), the man behind the BBC Micro.
(Sinclair didn't exactly like it though.)