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Acorn User

Acorn's official magazine, from the Atom to RISC OS

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Acorn User began in the summer of 1982 as the official magazine for Acorn's Atom and the BBC Micro, published by Addison-Wesley for Acorn Computers. Redwood Publishing took it over in 1984, and Tony Quinn edited it through the BBC Micro's best years. It followed Acorn's machines to the Archimedes and the Risc PC, passed through Europress, IDG Media and Tau Press, and outlived Acorn itself, ending with issue 267 at Christmas 2003, when its title was merged into Qercus.

The first issue of Acorn User, dated July/August 1982 and priced £1, opened with a welcome from Acorn’s founders, Hermann Hauser and Chris Curry. Its editorial promised that “this magazine will provide an authoritative official source of accurate information”, and its subscription page spelled out whose magazine it was: “The official magazine for users of the Acorn Atom, the BBC microcomputer system, and the Econet system, published by Addison-Wesley for Acorn Computers Limited.” Independent magazines such as The Micro User soon joined it, but Acorn User started as the manufacturer’s own. It then outlasted the arrangement that created it, running for more than 21 years and 267 issues, from the BBC Micro’s first summer to RISC OS computers built by other companies.

Fast facts

  • First issue: Number 1, July/August 1982, £1; a year’s subscription in Britain cost £15.
  • Publishers: Addison-Wesley for Acorn Computers (1982 to 1984); Redwood Publishing (from April 1984); then Europress, IDG Media (by 1995) and Tau Press (from late 1998).
  • Editors: Jane Fransella (issue 1), Tony Quinn (from issue 2, September 1982, to at least 1987), then Graham Bell, Barry Monk, Karen Donaghay, Mark Moxon, David Matthewman, Steve Turnbull and Rob Donaldson.
  • Title: BBC Acorn User on its pages from 1989 into the early 1990s.
  • Last issue: 267, Christmas 2003; succeeded by Qercus.

The official magazine

Acorn User was put together in London at the offices of the book publisher Addison-Wesley, 53 Bedford Square, which offered readers discounts on its own BBC Micro books. Jane Fransella edited the first issue, with Tony Quinn as one of two sub-editors. From the second issue Fransella was managing editor and Quinn the editor, a post he still held five years later.

The first issues show what being official meant in 1982. Acorn could not make BBC Micros fast enough, and issue 1 printed Acorn’s own delivery timetable for Model B orders. It carried news “straight from Acorn”, a piece by David Allen, producer of the BBC’s Computer Literacy Project, on the next television series, and an account of an Econet network at a Cambridge sixth-form college. The editorial promised readers “the earliest information on new equipment” and, in the next issue, “the first official details of the new and much vaunted Acorn Electron”. The magazine promised that “all the products of Acornsoft will, of course, be announced first in Acorn User”. It also promised independence where it could: hardware from Acorn and other makers would be “independently reviewed and tested”, and issue 2 ran what it called “an unbiased review” comparing the BBC Micro with the ZX Spectrum, concluding that “the BBC micro is a much more powerful machine and is a wiser buy”.

Rival titles soon followed. The Micro User, launched in March 1983 by Database Publications of Stockport, called itself “the independent magazine”. Acorn User answered with shows of its own: the Acorn User Exhibition at the Cunard Hotel in Hammersmith ran from 25 to 28 August 1983.

Redwood and the Tony Quinn years

In March 1984 a “Publisher’s announcement” told readers that the publishing rights were being “handed over from Addison-Wesley Publishers Ltd to the Redwood Publishing Company”. Addison-Wesley thanked readers “for their support over the past 20 months”. The April 1984 issue already carried Redwood’s name, at 68 Long Acre, London. The words “for Acorn Computers” were gone from the masthead, which now said only that the opinions in the magazine were not necessarily those of the publisher, Acorn Computers or Acornsoft.

Under Quinn the magazine filled out with the BBC Micro boom: news, program listings printed on yellow pages, “Hints & Tips”, a “Beeb Forum”, Bruce Smith as technical editor, and pages for the schools that had bought the machine. It was also where Acornsoft’s games were launched and judged. The October 1984 issue carried both Acornsoft’s advertisement for Elite and Quinn’s account of playing it in a locked room in Cambridge, where the game was “still so secret that even I don’t have a copy!” The advertisement and the review printed different prices. By February 1985 Elite was top of the magazine’s chart.

Staff moved on. In April 1987 the magazine announced that Bruce Smith had left, that Steve Mansfield had joined as deputy editor and that Graham Bell was the new technical editor. By April 1989 Bell was editor and Quinn group editor, and the magazine called itself BBC Acorn User. By 1991 Redwood described itself as “a BBC Enterprises Company”, and the magazine was distributed by BBC Frontline. It now covered Acorn’s 32-bit Archimedes as well as the BBC Micro; in 1987 it had announced “the long-awaited RISC technology micros”.

Europress, IDG and Tau Press

In the 1990s Acorn User moved to the north-west of England. Its December 1999 issue recorded that Europress had owned it before IDG Media; Europress sold eleven of its magazines to IDG at the end of 1994. By September 1995 Acorn User was “Published by IDG Media Ltd, Media House, Adlington Park, Macclesfield”, edited by Mark Moxon, and it came with a cover disc; that month’s held ClicBack, a hard disc backup program. David Matthewman edited it from early 1996, and Steve Turnbull by the end of that year.

Tau Press, a company whose managing director was Steve Turnbull, took the magazine over from IDG with issue 201, at the end of 1998, “after the ill-fated Phoebe launch and cancelled Acorn show”, as the magazine later put it. The move saved it. “Acorn User was torn from the jaws of death with IDG,” the last issue’s editorial said: if it had still been in IDG’s stable when that branch of the company closed and most of its magazines were sold to Dennis Publishing, “it would have been closed”. Tau Press moved the magazine from Macclesfield to Stockport at the end of 1999. By Christmas 1999 the cover called it “the bestselling RISC OS magazine in the world”.

The cover disc changed with its readers. In December 1999 the magazine explained that an 800K floppy disc was too small, yet many readers still used A300, A400 and A3000 machines. Its survey found that 97 per cent of readers had CD-ROM drives and more than 80 per cent were on the internet, so the monthly disc’s contents moved to the Acorn User website, with a CD on the cover every third issue.

The last issue

Issue 267, Christmas 2003, edited by Rob Donaldson, was the last. Tau Press had published 66 editions, and, its editorial said, it was now “far more of a design, marketing and PR company than a magazine publisher”. The magazine passed to Finnybank of Sale, which merged it with its own Acorn Publisher into a new title, Qercus, under the overall editorship of John Cartmell.

Sources

  • Acorn User issue 1, July/August 1982: cover (£1.00), contents and masthead (Jane Fransella, editor; Ann Nimmo and Tony Quinn, sub-editors; Stanley Malcolm, publisher; Addison-Wesley, 53 Bedford Square), subscription page (“the official magazine”, £15), editorial (“official source of accurate information”, the Electron, independent reviews), Hauser and Curry’s welcome, the delivery timetable, David Allen, Econet at Long Road Sixth Form College.
  • Acorn User issue 2, September 1982: masthead (Fransella, managing editor; Quinn, editor), editorial, the BBC Micro and Spectrum compared.
  • Acorn User issue 11, June 1983: a £1 discount for readers on Addison-Wesley’s BBC Micro books.
  • Acorn User issues 9 and 13, April and August 1983: the Acorn User Exhibition, Cunard Hotel, 25–28 August 1983.
  • Acorn User issue 20, March 1984: “Publisher’s announcement” of the handover to Redwood. Issue 21, April 1984: Redwood masthead.
  • Acorn User issue 27, October 1984: Acornsoft’s Elite advertisement; Tony Quinn, “Star status”, pp. 164–165. Issue 31, February 1985: Elite at number one.
  • Acorn User issue 57, April 1987: Bruce Smith’s departure, Steve Mansfield and Graham Bell.
  • Acorn User issue 61, August 1987: the Archimedes announced; Quinn still editor.
  • BBC Acorn User issue 81, April 1989: masthead (Graham Bell, editor; Tony Quinn, group editor). Issue 108, July 1991, and issue 117, April 1992: Redwood as “a BBC Enterprises Company”; Barry Monk, editor. Issue 123, October 1992: Karen Donaghay, editor.
  • Acorn User issue 159, September 1995: IDG Media masthead, Mark Moxon, cover disc. Issue 164, January 1996: David Matthewman, editor. Issue 174, November 1996: Steve Turnbull, editor.
  • Acorn User issue 214, December 1999: Tau Press masthead; news of the move to Stockport (IDG Media and Europress as previous owners); “No cover disc?” and the reader survey.
  • Acorn User issue 215, Christmas 1999: cover (“the bestselling RISC OS magazine in the world”).
  • Acorn User issue 267, Christmas 2003: masthead (Rob Donaldson, editor; Tau Press); editor’s comments (issue 201, IDG and Dennis Publishing, 66 editions, “this final issue”); Qercus and John Cartmell. Scanned at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/AcornUser2003Magazine
  • The Micro User issue 1, March 1983: “the independent magazine” (see The Micro User).
  • See the Europress entry for the sale of Europress’s magazines to IDG at the end of 1994.
  • Wikipedia, “Acorn User” (accessed September 2026) (web, secondary): final issue 267, December 2003; Finnybank and Qercus in 2004. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_User

See also

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