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Electronic Dreams
- Author
- Tom Lean
- Narrator
- Mark Meadows
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Publish Date
- 14 May 2026
- Run Time
- 10 hours 25 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
Remember the ZX Spectrum? How about the BBC Micro, Acorn Electron, or Commodore 64? Did you marvel at the immense galaxies of Elite or master digital kung-fu in Way of the Exploding Fist?
For anyone growing up in the 1980s, these iconic computer brands are the stuff of legend. In Electronic Dreams, Tom Lean tells the story of how computers invaded British homes for the first time, charting the history of the rise and fall of the home computer, the machines that took computing from the realm of science and science fiction to being a user-friendly domestic technology. It is a tale of unexpected consequences, when the machines intended to help with homework ended up giving birth to the video games industry; and ultimately, it’s the story of the people who made the boom happen, the inventors and entrepreneurs like Clive Sinclair and Alan Sugar, bedroom programmers and computer hackers, and the millions of everyday folk who bought in to the electronic dream and let the computer into their lives.
Critics Review
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Lean has spoken to all the major players, as well as lesser-known ones, and packed his pages with nuggety info to write the first good book on the subject.
Esquire
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Tom Lean's detailed history of the 1980s revolution will be a joy to anyone who grew up in the period ... full of revealing interviews with the basement electronics-tinkerers who invented whole new computers in a week.
Spectator
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Lean's account ... takes us from the launch of the pioneering Sinclair ZX80 through Acorn's iconic BBC Micro to the later ZX81, ZX Spectrum and Acorn Electron ... and includes an amusing retrospective of various early computer games.
Times Literary Supplement
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Lean manages to convey the wonder of the technology that changed the world.
How it Works
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A welcome addition to the field.
Popular Science
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A great read, with many wonderful details about the growth of the computer industry, and those involved in it. It gets across the amateur nature of its early stages very well especially.
David Braben, co-creator of Elite, founder and CEO of Frontier Developments, co-founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
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Tom has done a very thorough job of researching and understanding the 1980s UK home computer scene. This book brought back many memories while reminding me of the great excitement and innovative spirit of that decade, which changed the world irreversibly by putting the power of computers into everyone’s hands.
Steve Furber, principal designer of the BBC Micro and Professor of Computer Engineering at the University of Manchester
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Tom Lean
- Narrator
- Mark Meadows
- Duration
- 10 hours 25 minutes
- Release Date
- 14 May 2026
- ISBN
- 9781399431415
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Genre
- Popular science, Personal computers, Computer programming / software engineering, History of Computing, digital and information technologies
Synopsis
Bloomsbury presents Electronic Dreams by Tom Lean, read by Mark MeadowsRemember the ZX Spectrum? How about the BBC Micro, Acorn Electron, or Commodore 64? Did you marvel at the immense galaxies of Elite or master digital kung-fu in Way of the Exploding Fist?For anyone growing up in the 1980s, these iconic computer brands are the stuff of legend. In Electronic Dreams, Tom Lean tells the story of how computers invaded British homes for the first time, charting the history of the rise and fall of the home computer, the machines that took computing from the realm of science and science fiction to being a user-friendly domestic technology. It is a tale of unexpected consequences, when the machines intended to help with homework ended up giving birth to the video games industry; and ultimately, it’s the story of the people who made the boom happen, the inventors and entrepreneurs like Clive Sinclair and Alan Sugar, bedroom programmers and computer hackers, and the millions of everyday folk who bought in to the electronic dream and let the computer into their lives.
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