Z-T-T

The multi-million UK games industry was established in the early/mid 80s not by a "demo scene" or by the BBC, but almost entirely on the back of popular Sinclair home computers (ZX80, ZX81 and ZX Spectrum), by people programming games at home and software houses that in some cases became giants.

DMA/Rockstar is in fact a prime example of the later echoes - see also Ocean, Ultimate, Gremlin et al - of that Sinclair-inspired industry; its origins are in a Scottish computer club in the early 80s, using and writing games for the Spectrum.

(As an aside, GTA itself was probably influenced by a popular and pioneering Spectrum game from 1986, Turbo Esprit).

> I was born ‘89 and in the midlands of the UK, so I missed these programmes

In the real world, outside of BBC fantasies about its own importance, no kid in the 80s (ie, an inconsequential number) became computer literate a) at school or b) on a BBC Micro or c) due to a boring TV series about a computer they didn't own, couldn't afford and couldn't use, because virtually no teacher had any idea what to do with one.

Sir Clive Sinclair (character assassinated by the BBC in a drama about itself, Micro Men) is virtually single-handedly responsible for the computer literacy of British kids in the (certainly early/mid) 1980s, producing the affordable multi-million selling computers they actually used, typed programs into and established a gigantic British gaming industry with.

Thousands of people own .su domains (I'm not one of them, FWIW). That's the reason for its actual existence at this point.

AFAIK IDNs are still possible under .su, but may depend on the registrar (non-Russian resellers may not do it).

If you mean what Russian words are available under .su, probably most, for example Ленин (Lenin) and Кремль (Kremlin), though КГБ (KGB), СССР (USSR), Россия (Russia) are registered, as are single letters like А or Х that people may like for a 'short' url.

Although the USSR collapsed not long after the creation of .su, it was briefly in 'proper' use on the internet - unlike, say, .dd, intended for East Germany - most notably via the ISP Demos, which famously used the name kremvax.demos.su as the name of its Usenet site, in reference to an early internet hoax/April Fool's from 1984 (https://godfatherof.nl/kremvax.html).

And the hammer and sickle logo.

For Soviet-nostalgia buffs looking for a domain, although most obvious choices like CCCP, KGB, Lenin, Stalin and even Gorbachev and perestroika are registered under .su, GLASNOST.SU is available.

> I don't think any other settlement on earth is so blessed.

AFAIK you can buy them anywhere, but Moscow-related (and other major Russian cities) extensions include:

.RU .SU .MOSCOW .МОСКВА .РУС (Rus) .РФ (Russian Federation)

And with second levels:

MSK.RU MSK.SU

As in take it home? That's amazing. They had at least one BBC at my middle school in the early/mid 80s, and we once or maybe twice got to play Frak on it. That was it. :/

Your personal experience is very interesting but it's misleading to claim the BBC Micro was "given to kids" or "gifted to schoolchildren", as if the BBC or its Micro inspired a generation of British computer enthusiasts or programmers.

In reality kids were largely not allowed to go anywhere near the beige Rolls Royces gathering dust in classroom cupboards, because they were so expensive and/or because nobody was trained to use them.

The massive gaming and programming ("computer literacy") explosion in the UK in the 80s was almost entirely thanks to the ZX Spectrum, ZX81 and ZX80.

I can't see anywhere in that article any mention of what Facebook users think about online privacy, let alone that they don't care.

> this whole narrative about online/digital privacy was seize on by traditional media to bash tech companies while driving traffic to their properties. It also gives some academics and "experts" an outlet to promote their books.

[...]

> regular people don't care about it

Who's buying the books and visiting traditional media properties then?