In a break with tradition, ROUGOL are having a Christmas meeting! However because the pub is always very busy at this time of year, this will be an ONLINE ONLY meeting.

We will be joined by Rob Napier, who will be Zooming in from the little hamlet of Nicholson, 300km east of Melbourne. Forty years ago Rob resigned his Air Force commission to join Barson Computers, who were importing Acorn Atoms at the time. Rob then introduced the BBC Micro to Australia, and wrote the definitive guide to Econet (recently republished, twice!).

More recently, when he's not driving appliances for the local volunteer fire brigade, and doing whatever chores his wife directs him to do, he spends every waking hour researching and writing Voices from a Future Passed, the official biography of Acorn Computers. This will chart the story from the early days of Cambridge Processor Unit through to Acorn's rise and transition to ARM and Element 14, telling the stories through the voices of those who were there.

He has been busy chatting to all his old colleagues including Hermann Hauser, Chris Curry, Andy Hopper, Steve Furber, Sophie Wilson, Chris Turner, Brian Cockburn, Hugo Tyson, and many others. He has got all the behind the scenes gossip and collected hundreds of pages of previously confidential information, some of which he will be sharing with us.

Rob is planning to keep the formal talk quite short and then let the direction of the meeting be guided by what people want to hear more about. Take a look at the list of chapter titles that are in this post on the StarDot forum and have your questions ready.

The manuscript is currently going through final acceptance tests and Rob is hoping to have it published next year. Watch this space...

The usual arrangements

Meetings are free and everyone is welcome. Zoom attendees contact us for the link. (If you have attended any of our previous Zoom meetings, it is the same link)

This is an ONLINE ONLY meeting. The Duke of Sussex is easily accessible by public transport from in and around London and the south east, and serves a wide range of food and drinks. All meetings benefit from a large screen display, so everyone should have a great view.

To be informed about future meetings, please join the mailing list. Everyone on the mailing list will be kept informed of these and other ROUGOL initiatives.