Electronic Dreams: How 1980s Britain Learned to Love the Computer By Tom Lean Bloomsbury/Sigma ￡16.99

In 1983 Britain proudly boasted the highest level of computer ownership in the world, technology historian Tom Lean tells us in his entertaining and affectionate, if for the most part nostalgic, book on the country’s relationship with computers. About one in 10 UK homes, he writes, had a computer, more than in the US or Japan.

At the same time, the UK had several computer manufacturers, one of which was making more of them than any other company in the world — Sir Clive Sinclair’s Sinclair Research. There was even a Welsh computer, the Dragon 32. And the UK had an early version of the internet, Prestel, set up by the Post Office. It trialled an early version of Ocado et al, with the wonderfully terrible name, The Armchair Grocer.