''Electron User'' was a magazine targeted at owners of the

Acorn Electron The Acorn Electron (nicknamed the Elk inside Acorn and beyond) was introduced as a lower-cost alternative to the BBC Micro educational/home computer, also developed by Acorn Computers, to provide many of the features of that more expensive mach ...

microcomputer. It was published by Database Publications of

Stockport Stockport is a town in Greater Manchester, England, south-east of Manchester, south-west of Ashton-under-Lyne and north of Macclesfield. The River Goyt, Rivers Goyt and River Tame, Greater Manchester, Tame merge to create the River Mersey he ...

, starting in October 1983 and ending after 82 issues in July 1990. Initially it was included as a 16-page pullout supplement to '' The Micro User'' but after four such editions it became a standalone title and within a year had grown to an average length of around 64 pages. The focus was news stories,

type-in program A type-in program or type-in listing was computer source code printed in a home computer magazine or book. It was meant to be entered via the keyboard by the reader and then saved to cassette tape or floppy disk. The result was a usable game, ut ...

s and software reviews. It also contained

cheat code Cheating in video games involves a video game player using various methods to create an advantage beyond normal gameplay, usually in order to make the game easier. Cheats may be activated from within the game itself (a cheat code implemented by ...

s and a long-running column on

adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story, driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based m ...

s initially by "Merlin" in a column entitled "Merlin's Cave" and subsequently by "Pendragon". Its advertisers included the top BBC/Electron games distributors of the day, such as Acornsoft and

Superior Software Superior Interactive (formerly known as Superior Software Ltd) is a video game publisher. It was one of the main publishers for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron computers in the 1980s and early 1990s, and occasionally published software to the C ...

. Often the April-dated edition of the magazine included an

April Fools' Day April Fools' Day or April Fool's Day (rarely called All Fools' Day) is an annual custom on the 1st of April consisting of practical jokes, hoaxes, and pranks. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting "April Fool " at the recipient. ...

joke, generally consisting of a short

machine code In computer programming, machine code is computer code consisting of machine language instructions, which are used to control a computer's central processing unit (CPU). For conventional binary computers, machine code is the binaryOn nonb ...

type-in listing which claimed to do something extremely useful and of wide interest but which in fact printed April Fool on the screen. Examples included: *a program to predict what text the user would type next *a program to compile

BASIC Basic or BASIC may refer to: Science and technology * BASIC, a computer programming language * Basic (chemistry), having the properties of a base * Basic access authentication, in HTTP Entertainment * Basic (film), ''Basic'' (film), a 2003 film ...

programs directly into machine code leveraging the machine's BASIC interpreter *a program to display colours on a

monochrome A monochrome or monochromatic image, object or palette is composed of one color (or values of one color). Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale (typically digital) or black-and-white (typically analog). In physics, mon ...

screen by rapidly modulating the pixels (citing a recent ''

Tomorrow's World ''Tomorrow's World'' is a British television series about contemporary developments in science and technology. First broadcast on 7 July 1965 on BBC1, it ran for 38 years until it was cancelled at the beginning of 2003. The ''Tomorrow's World' ...

'')

References

External links

Acornmags Electron User section
* Archived Electron User Magazines on the Internet Archive Home computer magazines Defunct computer magazines published in the United Kingdom Magazines established in 1983 Magazines disestablished in 1990 Monthly magazines published in the United Kingdom Magazines published in Manchester {{UK-sci-mag-stub

See also

References

External links