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Posted By

MIK
on 2014-11-10
05:48:40
 Re: Original Plus/4 scene?

I find for the most part mailing lists and BBS'es were more an American thing when it came to the UK during the C16/Plus4 era.

Here in the UK things were quiet when the C16 first released but by the following year the Plus/4 showed up from no where bundled with 11 games, datassette & joystick at the bargain price of £99.99. The Plus/4 was £30 pounds cheaper than a C16 to buy. Some believe the C16 keyboard kept the price up.
A handful of games had surfaced into the shops by this point such as BMX Racers & Mission Mars and by the new year games started to come thick and fast.

In short the C16/Plus4 had now become games machines over night and the UK as well as Germany both supported the systems on an epic scale creating software faster than you could buy it. 95% of all software in the UK was available in shops from Tobacco shops/Mini Markets, Video Rental stores to large Department stores. There were also a number of indie shops opening up that started to support all forms of computer software and if you looked hard enough you would find plenty with C16/Plus4 software. The remaining 5% could be bought via mail order.

The scene were friends at school who had a C16 or Plus/4 and anything you could read in a book or magazine such as Commodoer User. There was also pockets of user clubs printing stuff on a monthly bases in the UK but to be honest this was not widely known about until the internet came along.

While outsiders might think the C16/Plus4 was a failed machine, collectively there must be over 600-700 commercial releases and counting from 1984-1989. The Covers provide a good portion of them, some missing but in most cases the actual software is available. As always the journey continues to find everything there ever was... wink



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