X-Nico

4 unusual facts about John Coll


John Coll

He later wrote the BBC Microcomputer User Guide which was supplied by Acorn Computers with the BBC Micro and appeared regularly on the television programmes Making the Most of the Micro and Micro Live which featured the computer.

At Oundle he learnt to program the school's Data General Nova 3 computer alongside a number of pupils, built a Motorola 6800 based microcomputer from scratch, designing and etching the printed circuit boards personally and then purchased and built a kit SWTPC 6800-based computer which was made available to the pupils.

Making the Most of the Micro

John Coll was the main technical 'bod' (he had also written the User Guide for the BBC Micro along with other manuals) and Ian Trackman also featured - he wrote most of the software that was used for demonstrating certain features of the microcomputer, not only for this series but also The Computer Programme and Computers in Control.

Micro Live

Ian McNaught-Davis and John Coll logged into the programme's BT Gold email account to demonstrate the features of the then relatively new idea of email, only to find that the account had been hacked.



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