How the BBC, Acorn Computers and ARM Changed the World

In February 1981, a small team in Cambridge built a proof-of-concept computer in just four days. The designers felt the idea was "barking mad," but that prototype won the contract for the BBC Computer Literacy Project and changed history.

While the BBC expected to sell 20,000 units, Acorn sold over one million machines. Within five years, the company’s value increased by one million times. From this extraordinary period came the ARM processor—an innovation now found in billions of devices, from smartphones to supercomputers.

Voices from a future passed weaves together the first-hand stories of the engineers, scientists, and "IT royalty" who turned a bold plan for a "wired society" into our digital reality.