Granada TV's 'Chip-In' computing show

[PeteProdge]

Just been alerted to the existence of a TV show about home computing which only aired in the north west of England in 1983. (I live in the midlands, so this wouldn't have been on my radar.)

Chip-In aired on Granada Television at 6:35pm on Wednesdays and was made in their Liverpool studio. I've not watched all of these, just a few chunks of episodes 1, 3 and 4 so far. Not spotted a Speccy yet. I have seen the BBC Micro, Apple II and the Atari 800 (yeah, not exactly backing a winner, eh?). A regular feature is their Atari 800s set up to play a modified game of Xenon Raid where the spaceship is now a Granada logo and the background is Liverpool docks. Very parochial!

Best of all, on a section about games piracy, the television presenter says: "It's not a crime because unlike video movies there's no copyright on programs and games". Errrrrm... that's not aged well!

There's a lot of 'serious computing' features, like BBC's Micro Live. It's from that age when Sinclair User would be putting the practical applications of the Speccy on their front cover, like "Spectrums In The Nursery". You get some whimsical humour and plenty of references to 'whizz-kids', that term used to describe literally anyone who has ever typed a "hello world" BASIC listing.

It's all a bit Look Around You. Enjoy...

Episode 1


Episode 2


Episode 3


Episode 4


Episode 5

[8BitAG]

Best of all, on a section about games piracy, the television presenter says: "It's not a crime because unlike video movies there's no copyright on programs and games". Errrrrm... that's not aged well!

That would've been true in one sense that the Copyright Design & Patents Act of 1988 was the piece of legislation that expanded the definition of a "literary work" to include "a computer program" and "a database". The legality of things was very fuzzy prior to that.

Mark Gorton, the presenter, "today"
https://www.dynamocontent.com/about

Jane Bird
http://www.janebird.net/biography.htm

[flange]

Episode 1 at around 6:22 there's a Speccy attached to the gubbins in the box and at 12:08 it gets a mention in the bit about computers in education.
Not an exclusive on the speccy but a mention all the same.

[8BitSC]

In episode 3, after playing a simple key-mashing olympic game on an Apple II, the presenter asked "I wonder if Daley Thompson could improve his performance if he had a go at it"?

I wonder if someone from Ocean (within walking distance of Granada's Manchester offices) was watching?

#FORESHADOWING

Edit: In the following episode - in a look at computers in the recording studio - the background music is Chris Sievey's Camouflage, which was released as a single, with the B side containing ZX81 programs.

Chris Sievey regularly associated with the town Timperley, was more recognisable when dressed as his papier-mâché headed alter-ego Frank Sidebottom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camouflag ... evey_song)

[PeterJ]

Thanks for sharing these @PeteProdge

[PeteProdge]

Thanks for sharing these @PeteProdge

Not a problem! It arose out of a Discord conversation about a children's game show I remembered called Treasures Of The Mindlord which was a proto-Knightmare effort on a tiny budget, which aside from Tube Mice was probably the only children's TV programme from TSW that hit the ITV network. Someone responded with a photo of Ken Barlow playing golf on an 8-bit computer, and I had to ask where that came from, and I got told all about Chip-In - something I've never heard of before.

It's no Magic Micro Mission (Central's quite Spectrum-centric and gaming-friendly effort), but it's still fascinating. Seems a lot closer to HTV's Video & Chips, of which barely anything seems to exist online.

And thanks for the Speccy references! Still some hope for this...

[Lee Bee]

The entire TV studio has ZX Spectrum branding.

[TMD2003]

Not a problem! It arose out of a Discord conversation about a children's game show I remembered called Treasures Of The Mindlord which was a proto-Knightmare effort on a tiny budget...

...someone you may know filled in most of the (still meagre) information on UKgameshows.com - which had previously been little more than one sentence.

Somewhere, there is a stash of master tapes from TSW, waiting to be discovered the way Hardwicke House was.

[8BitSC]

Watching a few more of the episodes, the male crew-members (both on, and off-screen) were constantly making non kid-friendly remarks about “interfacing” with Jo, the female presenter and telling her how good she looked in her silver cat-suit.

She was born in 1963 and would’ve been barely 20 at time of airing. I’m wondering if later episodes were only available on pay-per-view?

Oh, and Chris Sievey got his nose in this programme, too…

[1024MAK]

I live in the HTV area, but don't remember Video & Chips. Does anyone remember when it was broadcast?

Mark

[PeteProdge]

Watching a few more of the episodes, the male crew-members (both on, and off-screen) were constantly making non kid-friendly remarks about “interfacing” with Jo, the female presenter and telling her how good she looked in her silver cat-suit.

Ick! Ah, different times, eh? *shudders*

The documentary I co-produced on the subject of ATV/Central features input from Jo Wheeler. We had her interviewed about the show (and some other stuff she did for Central). She told us the boots she wore in the show were purchased by the wardrobe department from a sex shop!

Oh, and Chris Sievey got his nose in this programme, too…

Oh, he was everywhere, but this is a rare time when he wasn't being Frank Sidebottom. I think the only other time I saw him in non-Frank mode was when he was being a leather-bound 'gimp' character (yeah, this post wasn't meant to have a theme, but accidentally this seems to have happened) in the second series of Endurance UK, shown on Challenge TV. Alas, there's nothing on YouTube of this. And what there is of Endurance UK is very very non-PC indeed.

[PeteProdge]

I live in the HTV area, but don't remember Video & Chips. Does anyone remember when it was broadcast?

It was broadcast nationally, not just to the HTV area. Was around about 1984 to 1986 - that's my guess.

[Morkin]

It's great to see these old programmes surfacing here as I don't recall seeing them before.

Have watched the first one and am planning to watch the others over Xmas (along with playing Woot!, obviously).

Funny to see a Speccy used as part of a ghost hunting apparatus setup...

[TMD2003]

It was broadcast nationally, not just to the HTV area. Was around about 1984 to 1986 - that's my guess.

(shows TV Times, 1-7 August 1987)



It's odd, because I was an ITV kid and I don't remember Video & Chips at all - only the theme tune (it'd have been on one of the "Now" albums of the time, I reckon) and the continuity announcers afterwards.

[1024MAK]

It was broadcast nationally, not just to the HTV area. Was around about 1984 to 1986 - that's my guess.

Thank you. No idea why I don't remember it then

Mark

[C.Born]

It's great to see these old programmes surfacing here as I don't recall seeing them before.

Have watched the first one and am planning to watch the others over Xmas (along with playing Woot!, obviously).

Funny to see a Speccy used as part of a ghost hunting apparatus setup...

ha, Ghostbusters revealed. AT LAST, or at least ??