If you hung around British home computers in the mid eighties, you probably saw the name Merlin Software on cassette inlays, disk labels and small adverts for the Tatung Einstein. They were never a giant of the industry, yet for Einstein owners they were absolutely central, a small label that quietly kept an obscure machine alive long after the manufacturer stepped away.
This is the story we can reconstruct from fan archives, surviving boxes and the memories of the people who were there. It is necessarily incomplete, but it paints a surprisingly rich picture.
Who Merlin actually were
Merlin Software was not a stand alone publisher in the usual sense. It was the software publishing label of Blagbrough and Hebblethwaite Limited, better known to users as B plus H Computers, an independent dealer based in Halifax in West Yorkshire.
B plus H started out as an electrical and computer business, then became closely associated with the Tatung Einstein. When Tatung withdrew from the home computer market in the late nineteen eighties, B plus H stepped in as a de facto support hub for the remaining user base.
Merlin Software was the brand they used for their own releases, mostly for the Einstein, with B plus H acting as distributor, mail order house and community point all rolled into one. Retro communities and comparison blogs still stress that this Merlin Software should not be confused with a different publisher called Merlin Software UK on the Commodore sixty four, nor with modern business software companies that happen to share the name.
How Merlin emerged in the Einstein world
Tatung launched the original Einstein TC01 in nineteen eighty four, followed by the Einstein 256 later in the decade. The machines were capable, but they never achieved the mass market success of the Spectrum or Commodore sixty four. As Tatung scaled back, someone needed to hold together the remaining community.
According to long time collectors, in the eighties all rights to Einstein software were handed to B plus H Computers, who also traded under the name Merlin Software for publishing purposes.
That transfer of rights made practical sense. B plus H were already selling hardware, repairs and accessories. They were close to the user base and they understood what owners actually wanted. Under the Merlin name they could
- reissue titles whose original rights holders had moved on
- commission or port games and utilities from other eight bit systems
- distribute new work from independent Einstein coders
The result was a small but focused label that treated the Einstein not as a dead machine, but as an ongoing ecosystem.
People behind the label
The centre of gravity was the Blagbrough family and their company in Halifax. tatungbytes.co.uk includes a dedication to John and Betty Blagbrough, crediting their vision and energy with keeping the platform alive after Tatung discontinued the machines.
Company records show names such as John David Blagbrough and Ian Blagbrough associated with Blagbrough and Hebblethwaite and with B and H branded companies across several decades, indicating a family led business that straddled both electrical contracting and computer retail.
On the creative side, individual developers are harder to trace. Much of Merlin’s output consisted of licensed or commissioned conversions, where the original game came from another platform and a contractor handled the Einstein port. Even artists sometimes surface only in passing. One surviving credit is for John Higginbotham, a British illustrator who produced box art for titles such as Miner Dick and Interstella Explorer, explicitly described as work for Merlin Software, the publishing label of B plus H Computers.
This mix of in house organisation, freelance coders and contract artists was typical of smaller British publishers in the era. Merlin were no exception, simply more niche in their choice of platform.
Keeping the Tatung Einstein alive
The best way to understand Merlin is to look at what they did for Einstein users after the initial launch buzz faded.
B plus H did not simply sell leftover stock. They positioned themselves as the place you went for Einstein hardware, spares and software, long after the big retailers had moved on. Their own site still describes them as the United Kingdom’s only supplier of hardware, spares and software for the Tatung Einstein.
Merlin Software became the label for the titles that made owning an Einstein feel viable. Tatung Bytes summarises it neatly, Merlin was the publishing arm of B and H Computers, supporting the machine in the mid to late nineteen eighties with a catalogue of games and ports that arrived after official backing had faded.
They did not just release games either. Utility packages such as Programmer’s Kit extended the built in Xtal BASIC with tools like a disassembler, sprite editors and additional machine code routines, effectively turning the Einstein into a more developer friendly machine without any change to the hardware.
For a system with a small installed base, that kind of commitment made a real difference. It meant that a teenager in the late eighties could still buy new software for a machine that many considered a dead end.
Merlin’s most notable Tatung Einstein titles
Different collectors have slightly different lists, but several Einstein releases stand out in modern archives and museum catalogues.
Elite
The most famous Merlin branded Einstein game is almost certainly the port of Elite. The Centre for Computing History notes that Merlin produced this version, keeping it very close to the Spectrum code, right down to the Torus logo on the title screen. The retail box was essentially a Spectrum box with a replacement label, a very eighties kind of pragmatism.
Despite that thriftiness, the Einstein version runs slightly faster and smoother than the original, giving owners of this niche machine a version of Elite that feels surprisingly classy.
Starquake
Starquake is another strong example, a sprawling arcade adventure in which you roam an unstable planet and rebuild its core before the universe goes bang. The Tatung Einstein Reborn site documents a Merlin release of Starquake for the Einstein, which helped align the machine with contemporary titles that Spectrum and Commodore players already knew.
Breakout style series, Hyperball
Merlin did not only provide ports. They also published energetic original style games such as Hyperball and Hyperball Two, frantic block smashing titles with power ups and support for paddle controllers. Tatung Bytes dates Hyperball Two to nineteen eighty seven and explicitly frames it as part of the Merlin contribution that kept the platform alive.
Other fan favourites
Looking across curated lists from enthusiast sites, Merlin’s name appears against a string of Einstein titles, including
- Escape from Merlin Eight, a three dimensional action game with a distinct early eighties science fiction flavour
- Deadzone, another action title remembered by many owners
- Interstella, sometimes seen alongside the Miner Dick artwork that Higginbotham illustrated for Merlin
- Druid, Dragon’s Lair, Einjong and Eliminator Reversi, where Merlin worked either alone or in partnership with other publishers such as Firebird or Software Projects to bring well known names to the machine
For a platform with a tiny market share, this body of work is significant. It turns the Einstein from a curiosity into a machine with a real library.
When Merlin existed and how they faded
Precise incorporation dates for the Merlin brand as a trading name are not easy to pin down, because Merlin Software was not a separate company but a label used by Blagbrough and Hebblethwaite, itself part of the wider B and H Computers activity. Surviving catalogues and disk labels show Merlin active through the mid to late nineteen eighties, with dated releases such as Hyperball Two in nineteen eighty seven and Einstein User magazines published by B and H in the same period.
B and H’s role as Einstein dealers clearly continues into the early nineties, and remarkably, their online presence today suggests that they still handle remaining Einstein stock and spares on a specialist basis.
Merlin Software as a visible publishing brand, however, seems to fade as new commercial software for the Einstein dries up. By the early nineties the eight bit home computer scene has largely given way to sixteen bit machines and early personal computers. New Einstein titles cease, and with them the need for an active Merlin imprint.
Modern company records do show firms called Merlin Software Limited and Merlin Business Software Limited, but their founding dates and business activities make clear that they are unrelated twenty first century enterprises which simply reuse a convenient name.
So if we ask when Merlin Software dissolved, the honest answer is that the label quietly slipped out of use as the Einstein ecosystem reached the end of its commercial life. The parent business, B and H, persisted and diversified, but the Merlin name remains frozen in the eighties in the minds of retro enthusiasts.
Why Merlin still matters today
On paper Merlin Software was small. They did not create a new genre or sell millions of units. What they did do was arguably more important for a certain kind of computing culture.
They demonstrate how a committed independent retailer could become custodian of a platform, taking over rights, publishing magazines, commissioning ports and original games, and acting as a lifeline for users who refused to abandon their machines.
For people exploring the Tatung Einstein today through emulation or original hardware, Merlin titles form a large part of what there is to play. For historians of British home computing, they are a reminder that outside the big brand stories there were local firms and family businesses keeping the spirit of experimentation alive.
If you want to dig further, community archives like Tatung Bytes, Tatung Einstein Reborn, museum catalogues and old enthusiast lists are still unearthing fresh details. Merlin may never get a glossy official history, but their fingerprints are all over the surviving software that lets an odd little British Taiwanese computer remain fun in the twenty first century.
