Screens Microcomputers

Screens Microcomputers was a British computer retailer, distributor and electronics supplier active during the 1980s. Based in Moor Park, Northwood, Middlesex, the company sold a wide range of home and business computers, peripherals and software and also became involved in the distribution of hardware and software under the name Screens Microcomputer Distribution.

Contemporary advertising shows that the business was already established by 1983. An advertisement in the October 1983 issue of Acorn User describes the company as both “Middlesex Microcomputer Centre” and “Screens Microcomputers”, operating from 6 Main Avenue, Moor Park, Northwood, Middlesex. At the time it was advertising BBC Micro computers, the Acorn Electron, printers, monitors, disk drives and software, with both a physical shop and worldwide mail order service. The original advertisement can be viewed in this issue of Acorn User.

By the middle of the decade, Screens had expanded into a substantial general computer dealership. An advertisement in the May 1985 issue of Personal Computer World lists Commodore, Amstrad, Atari, Apricot, Sinclair, Einstein, Memotech, Psion, Oric, Sanyo and Acorn among the systems it supported. Screens claimed a range of more than 600 hardware and software products, offered worldwide exports and operated an air conditioned demonstration room at its Moor Park premises. The advertisement can be found in the May 1985 issue of Personal Computer World.

Screens appears to have had a particularly close commercial relationship with Tatung. A surviving September 1985 Screens Microcomputer Distribution trade price list offers Tatung Einstein computers, monitors, disk drives, printers and a very large selection of software at both suggested retail and trade prices. It identifies a dedicated Screens Microcomputer Distribution phone order desk in Northwood and states that Einstein computers were supplied with free “Screenpacks” of software. The original 1985 trade price list has been preserved online.

The scale of this list suggests that Screens was not simply selling machines over the counter. It was operating as a trade distributor, supplying hardware and software at wholesale prices as well as dealing directly with consumers. The surviving list includes games, educational programs, communications software and business applications alongside hardware from Tatung and other manufacturers.

Screens also appears to have distributed software in its own right. The surviving Tatung Einstein archive, for example, identifies Stock Tycoon as a Screen Distribution release. The program was a stock market simulation in which the player bought and sold shares, and it appears on Screens' own September 1985 trade list with a suggested retail price of £14.95. The surviving Einstein archive entry can be viewed here.

However, Screens should not be regarded purely as a software publisher. Contemporary evidence shows a much broader business encompassing retail, mail order, trade distribution, computer hardware, peripherals and electronics.

One of its more interesting products was the Screenvision TV and Video Tuner, a device designed to turn an RGB computer monitor into a television. Screens advertised Screenvision extensively during the second half of the 1980s. An October 1986 advertisement describes it as compatible with monitors from manufacturers including Amstrad, Philips, Microvitec, Tatung, Decca, Sanyo, Hitachi and Taxan. The same advertisement identifies the business as Screens Microcomputers & Electronics, based at Main Avenue, Moor Park, Northwood. The original advertisement can be seen in Practical Computing, October 1986.

Screens was still trading in 1987. An Acorn dealer list from June of that year records Screens Microcomputers Limited, again at 6 Main Avenue, Moor Park, Northwood HA6 2HJ, with the same Northwood telephone number used in earlier advertising. The original Acorn dealer document can be viewed here.

Later that year, Television magazine carried another advertisement under the name Screens Microcomputers & Electronics, offering quantities of cased UHF television tuners to the trade from the same Moor Park address. This demonstrates that Screens continued to operate in both the computer and wider electronics markets rather than concentrating exclusively on software. The November 1987 issue containing the advertisement is available here.

The company also appears in modern software preservation records. World of Spectrum records Screens Microcomputer Distribution as a UK publisher, although its publisher entry currently contains no conventional software releases. It separately attributes the Screenex Spectrum Doctor, a diagnostic hardware accessory for the ZX Spectrum, to Screens Microcomputer Distribution.

The various names found in surviving material can initially be confusing. Contemporary sources use Screens Microcomputers, Screens Microcomputers Limited, Screens Microcomputer Distribution and Screens Microcomputers & Electronics. Importantly, several of these names share the same Moor Park address and telephone details. This provides strong evidence that they relate to the same underlying Screens business or closely associated operations rather than unrelated companies with similar names.

Exactly who founded or managed Screens, when the business was established and what ultimately happened to it remain less clear from the surviving material currently available. What can be established is that Screens Microcomputers was operating from Moor Park by at least 1983, had developed a substantial retail and mail order computer business by the middle of the decade, operated a trade distribution arm, had a significant relationship with Tatung and remained active in computer and electronics distribution through at least 1987.

For the purposes of software history, therefore, describing Screens simply as a publisher understates what the company actually was. Screens Microcomputers was principally a computer retailer and distributor which also distributed or published software and marketed computer related hardware of its own. Its activities provide a good example of the independent computer dealers that played an important role in Britain's 1980s microcomputer industry, sitting between manufacturers, software houses, trade customers and the rapidly expanding population of home computer owners.

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