Editing Acorn Electron (section)

==Software==
A range of titles were made available on cassette at the launch of the Electron through the [[Acornsoft]] publishing arm of Acorn, including a number of games, the [[Forth (programming language)|Forth]] and [[Lisp]] languages, and a handful of other educational and productivity titles.<ref name="acornuser198308_acornsoft"/> Acorn's decision to provide the Electron with a degree of compatibility with the BBC Micro meant that a number of titles already available for the older machine could be expected to run on its new machine, with only minor cosmetic issues occurring when running some titles. Of the Acornsoft languages, the existing Forth and Lisp language releases worked on the Electron, these being re-released specially for the machine, together with [[BCPL]] and Microtext, an authoring system offering programming facilities,<ref name="acornuser198410_microtext">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser027-Oct84/page/n138/mode/1up | title=Framing the Right Questions | magazine=Acorn User | last1=Birnbaum | first1=Ian | date=October 1984 | access-date=19 January 2025 | pages=137, 139, 141 }}</ref> which remained BBC-only releases. Games such as Chess and [[Snooker]], plus a number of other titles were also established as being compatible prior to launch.<ref name="acorn_information_volume_1"/> Various applications in Acornsoft's View suite, together with the languages [[COMAL]], Logo and ISO [[Pascal (programming language)|Pascal]], were reported as being compatible with the Electron, as were some titles from BBC Soft and other developers.<ref name="electronuser198601_roms">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume3/Electron-User-03-04/page/n68/mode/1up | title=ROMs that work with Electron | magazine=Electron User | date=January 1986 | access-date=11 February 2023 | author=Slogger Advanced Systems | pages=69 }}</ref>

===Languages===
A significant selling point for the Electron was its built-in BBC BASIC interpreter, providing a degree of familiarity from the BBC Micro along with a level of compatibility with the earlier machine. However, as had been the case with the BBC Micro, support for other languages was quickly forthcoming, facilitated by the common heritage of the two systems.<ref name="acorn_information_volume_1"/>

In addition to the early releases, Forth and Lisp, Acornsoft released the Pascal subset, S-Pascal,<ref name="electronuser198503_pascal">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume2/Electron-User-02-06/page/n10/mode/1up | title=Try S-Pascal and get rid of those spaghetti junctions | magazine=Electron User | date=March 1985 | access-date=4 September 2022 | last1=Waddilove | first1=Roland | pages=11–12 }}</ref> on cassette and followed up with an ISO Pascal implementation on ROM cartridge,<ref name="electronuser198501_pascal">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume2/Electron-User-02-04/page/n4/mode/1up | title=BBC's Pascal for the Electron | magazine=Electron User | date=January 1985 | access-date=3 September 2022 | pages=5 }}</ref> the latter providing two 16&nbsp;KB ROMs containing a program editor and a Pascal compiler producing intermediate code that required Pascal run-time routines to be loaded.<ref name="acornuser198412_pascal">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser029-Dec84/page/n179/mode/1up | title=Pascal Power | magazine=Acorn User | date=December 1984 | access-date=6 September 2022 | last1=Williams | first1=Simon | pages=176 }}</ref> As a more minimal implementation, S-Pascal made use of the machine's built-in BASIC program editing facilities and provided a compiler generating [[assembly language]] that would then be assembled, generating [[machine code]] for direct execution.<ref name="electronuser198503_pascal"/> ISO Pascal had Oxford Pascal as a direct competitor offering a range of features differentiating it from Acornsoft's product,<ref name="electronuser198503_oxford_pascal">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume2/Electron-User-02-06/page/n3/mode/1up | title=Oxford Pascal | magazine=Electron User | date=March 1985 | access-date=6 September 2022 | volume=2 | issue=6 | pages=4 }}</ref> notably a compiler that could produce a stand-alone "relocatable 6502 machine-code file".<ref name="acornuser198507_pascal">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser036-Jul85/page/n66/mode/1up | title=Pleasures of Pascal | magazine=Acorn User | date=July 1985 | access-date=23 September 2022 | last1=Williams | first1=Simon | pages=65, 67, 69–70 }}</ref> Acornsoft later released the ISO Pascal Stand Alone Generator product for the BBC Micro and Master series, permitting the generation of executable programs embedding "sections of the interpreter" required by each program, with such executables being subject to various licensing restrictions.<ref name="acorn_app62a">{{cite book | title=A Choice of Programming Languages for the British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System | url=http://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org.uk/docs/Acorn/Brochures/Acornsoft_APP62a_AcornsoftLanguages.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org.uk/docs/Acorn/Brochures/Acornsoft_APP62a_AcornsoftLanguages.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live | publisher=Acorn Computers Limited | access-date=29 September 2015}}</ref>

Acornsoft Forth, aiming for compliance with the Forth-79 standard, was regarded as "an excellent implementation of the language".<ref name="electronuser198410_forth">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume2/Electron-User-02-01/page/n54/mode/1up | title=Open up a whole new world with Forth | magazine=Electron User | date=October 1984 | access-date=6 September 2022 | last1=Waddilove | first1=Roland | pages=55 }}</ref> It saw competition from Skywave Software's Multi-Forth 83 which was delivered on a ROM chip, supported the Forth-83 standard, and provided a multitasking environment.<ref name="electronuser198410_multiforth83">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume2/Electron-User-02-01/page/n5/mode/1up | title=Go Forth and multitask! | magazine=Electron User | date=October 1984 | access-date=6 September 2022 | pages=6 }}</ref> Future availability of Multi-Forth 83 on ROM cartridge was advertised.<ref name="electronuser198410_skywave">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume2/Electron-User-02-01/page/n19/mode/1up | title=What the Acorn Electron has been waiting for! | magazine=Electron User | date=October 1984 | access-date=6 September 2022 | pages=20 }}</ref>

With the launch of the Plus 1, Acornsoft Lisp was also made available on cartridge.<ref name="electronuser198407p1" /> This Lisp implementation provided only the "bare essentials" of a Lisp system that "a small micro such as the Electron" could hope to be able to support. However, with the interpreter and initialised workspace being loaded from cassette into RAM in the earlier release, one stated advantage of the ROM version was the availability of more memory for use by programs, with the immediacy of a Lisp system provided as a language ROM being an implicit benefit.<ref name="electronuser198502_lisp">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume2/Electron-User-02-05/page/n11/mode/1up | title=Lisp, the language that strikes like lightning | magazine=Electron User | date=February 1985 | access-date=4 September 2022 | last1=Waddilove | first1=Roland | pages=12 }}</ref>

Acornsoft provided two products offering different degrees of support for the [[Logo (programming language)|Logo programming language]]. Turtle Graphics was a cassette-based product, available alongside Forth, Lisp and S-Pascal amongst the first titles released for the Electron,<ref name="acorn_amp18"/> featuring a subset of Logo focused on the interactive aspects of the language.<ref name="electronuser198710_logo">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume5/Electron-User-05-01/page/n41/mode/2up | title=Turtle graphics | magazine=Electron User | last1=Waddilove | first1=Roland | date=October 1987 | access-date=24 September 2022 | pages=42–43 }}</ref> Acornsoft Logo was provided on ROM cartridge and offered a vocabulary of over 200 commands as part of a more comprehensive implementation of the language, exposing its list processing foundations.<ref name="electronuser198711_logo">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume5/Electron-User-05-02/page/n36/mode/1up | title=Recursion and palindromes | magazine=Electron User | last1=Waddilove | first1=Roland | date=November 1987 | access-date=24 September 2022 | pages=42–43 }}</ref> Turtle Graphics was substantially cheaper than Logo: by 1987, the former had been reportedly discounted to under £3 whereas the latter cost "less than £30". Unlike other Acornsoft language products, however, Logo was supplied with "two thick manuals".<ref name="electronuser198710_logo"/>

===Applications===
Acornsoft made a number of applications available for the Electron. In early 1985, the ''View'' word processor and ''ViewSheet'' spreadsheet applications, familiar from the BBC Micro, were released on ROM cartridge for use with the Electron expanded with a Plus 1, priced at £49.50 each.<ref name="elbug198504_view">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/elbug-magazine-1985-04/page/n5/mode/2up | title=View and Viewsheet | magazine=ELBUG | last1=Otley | first1=David | pages=6–8 }}</ref> By running directly from ROM, these applications were able to dedicate all of the machine's available RAM to their documents, and using general filing system mechanisms, documents could be loaded from and saved to cassette or disc,<ref name="electronuser198510_view">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume3/Electron-User-03-01/page/n40/mode/1up | title=With a View to meatier output | magazine=Electron User | last1=Waddilove | first1=Roland | date=October 1985 | access-date=28 May 2023 | pages=41 }}</ref> although disc users could also use commands that took advantage of that faster, random-access medium.<ref name="electronuser198703_view">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume4/Electron-User-04-06/page/n23/mode/2up | title=Take a rom with a View... | magazine=Electron User | last1=Waddilove | first1=Roland | date=March 1987 | access-date=29 May 2023 | pages=24–26 }}</ref> Cassette-based operation was still regarded as "perfectly feasible" since the software itself did not need to be loaded, with loading and saving operations in View achieving about 800 words per minute and in ViewSheet achieving around 200 cells per minute.<ref name="elbug198504_view"/>

When using View in Mode 6, providing a 40-column, 25-line display occupying 8&nbsp;KB of memory, around 20&nbsp;KB of RAM was available to cassette-based systems or to disc-based systems using products such as the Cumana Floppy Disc System that also maintained PAGE at &E00,<ref name="electronuser198510_view"/> this corresponding to about 10 or 11 A4 pages of text. In Mode 3, providing an 80-column, 25-line display occupying 16&nbsp;KB, around 6 or 7 A4 pages of text could be retained in memory.<ref name="elbug198504_view"/> Acorn's Plus 3 disc system reduced this workspace by a further 4&nbsp;KB. However, documents could be broken up into sections to be processed individually by View. Operation in the 80-column Mode 0 and Mode 3 was reported as being "sometimes slow" due to the Electron's hardware architecture,<ref name="electronuser198510_view"/> but View supported horizontal scrolling across documents, permitting the use of a 40-column mode to edit wider documents.<ref name="elbug198504_view"/>

ViewSheet could also operate in different display modes, with spreadsheets of approximately 1600 cells being editable in Mode 6 and around 800 cells in Mode 3. A windowing system was provided that permitted ten different views of a spreadsheet to be displayed on screen at once, and recalculation operations were reported to be "around ten seconds for quite a large model". Reviewers considered the View and ViewSheet applications to be "professional" and to "compare well with similar software sold for much more expensive machines" such as the IBM PC,<ref name="elbug198504_view"/> with [[WordStar]] being noted as a broadly similar package to View.<ref name="electronuser198703_view"/> Compatibility with the same programs on the BBC Micro made a complete Electron-based system an attractive, low-cost, entry-level word processing and spreadsheet system.<ref name="elbug198504_view"/> However, View's printing support was criticised as inadequate without the use of a companion printer driver program.<ref name="electronuser198510_view"/>

Acornsoft did not release its ''ViewStore'' database program specifically for the Electron, but the software was reported as being compatible, albeit with function key combinations different to those documented for the BBC Micro.<ref name="electronuser198806_viewsheet_viewstore">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume5/Electron-User-05-09/page/n6/mode/1up | title=A dab-hand's view | magazine=Electron User | last1=Nixon | first1=Chris | date=June 1988 | access-date=9 June 2023 | pages=7–8 }}</ref> However, Acornsoft did release a product, ''Database'', on 3.5-inch diskette for use with the Electron upgraded with the Plus 3 expansion. The product provided a suite of programs for the creation, maintenance and analysis of structured data files, visualising records using a card index user interface metaphor, and supporting sorting and searching operations on the stored data.<ref name="electronuser198601_database">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume3/Electron-User-03-04/page/n10/mode/1up | title=Database | magazine=Electron User | last1=Bibby | first1=Pete | date=January 1986 | access-date=9 June 2023 | pages=11–14 }}</ref>

Slogger, an established provider of expansions, also produced productivity applications such as ''Starword'', a word processor, and ''Starstore'', a database. Starword provided separate command and editing modes familiar from Acornsoft's View, also supporting 132-column documents and horizontal scrolling for the editing of such wider documents. Along with other operations familiar from View, such as search and replace functions, block-based editing, and control over text justification, it had built-in support for customising documents for output using a [[mail merge]] function. Available on ROM for fitting to a ROM expansion such as Slogger's Rombox or inside a separately purchased ROM cartridge, and reportedly developed specifically for the Electron, Starword was considered "comprehensive and powerful".<ref name="electronuser198604_starword">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume3/Electron-User-03-07/page/n25/mode/1up | title=The WP system with some tricks up its sleeve | magazine=Electron User | last1=Richards | first1=David | date=April 1986 | access-date=9 June 2023 | pages=26 }}</ref>

Starstore, also available on ROM, provided a database management suite primarily aimed at users of cassette storage, with databases being entirely resident in RAM. It supported database definition, data editing, searching, sorting and printing activities. Various features complemented Starword, such as mail merge integration.<ref name="electronuser198609_starstore">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume3/Electron-User-03-12/page/n56/mode/1up | title=Making the most of your memory | magazine=Electron User | last1=Richards | first1=David | date=September 1986 | access-date=9 June 2023 | pages=57 }}</ref> ''Starstore II'' followed on as an alternative to, as opposed to a direct successor of, the earlier Starstore product by requiring a disc-based system and permitting databases to be as large as the amount of free space on any given disc. Its user interface was improved over the earlier product, offering pop-up menus and cursor-based navigation.<ref name="electronuser198611_starstore2">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume4/Electron-User-04-02/page/n20/mode/1up | title=Friendly – and foolproof | magazine=Electron User | last1=Richards | first1=David | date=November 1986 | access-date=9 June 2023 | pages=21 }}</ref>

Computer Concepts' ''Wordwise Plus'', developed from the company's earlier [[Wordwise]] product for the BBC Micro and launched in early 1985,<ref name="acornuser198502_wordwiseplus">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser031-Feb85/page/n12/mode/1up | title=DIY command system boosts Wordwise chip | magazine=Acorn User | date=February 1985 | access-date=24 June 2023 | pages=11 }}</ref> was made available for use with the Electron expanded with the E2P-6502 second processor cartridge. The original Wordwise product was incompatible with the Electron due to its use of Mode 7 (the BBC Micro's 40-column Teletext display mode), and being supplied on a ROM chip, it could also not be readily added to the Electron without appropriate expansions. Available from Permanent Memory Systems, producers of the E2P-6502 cartridge, the Electron version of the software was the Hi-Wordwise Plus variant, supplied on disc instead of ROM, and designed to run on the second processor and to use the expanded memory provided in that environment. The program used the Electron's 40-column Mode 6 display.<ref name="electronuser198703_wordwiseplus"/>

Expansion manufacturers Advanced Computer Products and Slogger both made solutions available based on products from Advanced Memory Systems. ACP released a bundle of the ''AMX Mouse'' and ''AMX Art'' software for use with its Advanced Plus 5 expansion, also requiring a DFS-compatible disc system.<ref name="electronuser198704_amx">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume4/Electron-User-04-07/page/n21/mode/2up | title=Directing, doodling and designing | magazine=Electron User | last1=McLachlan | first1=Alan | date=April 1987 | access-date=25 June 2023 | pages=23 }}</ref> Slogger produced a version of the desktop publishing package ''Stop Press'' for the Electron, requiring a DFS-compatible disc system, two spare ROM sockets, a mouse, and a suitable user port expansion, with Slogger producing its own user port expansion cartridge.<ref name="electronuser198902_slogger"/> Competing with these products but requiring only a disc system, AVP's ''Pixel Perfect'' offered a rudimentary desktop publishing solution, utilising the computer's high-resolution Mode 0 display.<ref name="electronuser198902_pixelperfect">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume6/Electron-User-06-05/page/n23/mode/2up | title=Hold the front page! | magazine=Electron User | last1=Boswell | first1=Julie | date=February 1989 | access-date=25 June 2023 | pages=24–25 }}</ref>

===Games===
{{See also|List of Acorn Electron games}}

Of the twelve software titles announced by Acornsoft for the Electron at the machine's launch, six were games titles: ''[[Snapper (video game)|Snapper]]'', ''Monsters'' (a clone of [[Space Panic]]), ''Meteors'' (a clone of [[Asteroids (video game)|Asteroids]]), ''[[Starship Command]]'', ''Chess'', and the combined title ''Draughts and Reversi''.<ref name="acornuser198308_acornsoft">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser013-Aug83/page/n7/mode/1up | title=Acornsoft will release 12 tapes for Electron | magazine=Acorn User | date=August 1983 | access-date=18 October 2021 | pages=6 }}</ref> When the Plus 1 expansion was launched in 1984, three of these titles{{snd}}''Hopper'', ''Snapper'' and ''Starship Command''{{snd}}were among the six ROM cartridge titles available at launch, together with the adventure ''Countdown to Doom''.<ref name="acornuser198406a" /> Acornsoft would continue to release games including those based on existing arcade games such as ''[[Arcadians (video game)|Arcadians]]'' (based on [[Galaxian]]) and ''Hopper'' (based on [[Frogger]]), as well as original titles such as ''Free Fall''<ref name="acorn_amp18">{{ cite book | url=http://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org.uk/docs/Acorn/Brochures/Acornsoft_AMP18_MasterpiecesForTheElectron.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org.uk/docs/Acorn/Brochures/Acornsoft_AMP18_MasterpiecesForTheElectron.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live | title=Masterpieces of Software from Acornsoft for the Electron | publisher=Acornsoft Limited | access-date=18 October 2021 }}</ref> and ''[[Elite (video game)|Elite]]''.<ref name="electronuser198411_elite">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume2/Electron-User-02-02/page/n6/mode/1up | title=Acornsoft launches new cult adventure | magazine=Electron User | date=November 1984 | access-date=18 October 2021 | pages=7 }}</ref>

[[Micro Power]], already an established BBC Micro games publisher, also entered the Electron market at a relatively early stage, offering ten initial titles either converted from the BBC Micro, in the case of ''Escape from Moonbase Alpha'' and ''Killer Gorilla'', or "completely re-written", in the case of ''Moonraider'' (due to differences in the screen handling between the machines).<ref name="electronuser198402_topten">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume1/Electron_User_01-05/page/n7/mode/1up | title='Top ten' take the lead | magazine=Electron User | date=February 1984 | access-date=18 October 2021 | volume=1 | issue=5 | pages=8 }}</ref> [[Superior Software]], also a significant publisher for the BBC Micro, routinely released games for both machines, notably a licensed version of Atari's [[Tempest (video game)|Tempest]] in 1985,<ref name="electronuser198505_tempest">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume2/Electron-User-02-08/page/n5/mode/1up | title=Electron Tempest hits new high spot | magazine=Electron User | date=May 1985 | access-date=18 October 2021 | volume=2 | issue=8 | pages=6 }}</ref> but also successful original titles such as the ''[[Repton (video game)|Repton]]'' series of games, ''Citadel'', ''[[Thrust (video game)|Thrust]]'' and ''[[Galaforce]]''. Superior's role in games publishing for the Acorn machines expanded in 1986 when the company acquired the right to use the Acornsoft brand, leading to the co-branding of games and compilations released by the company and the re-release of existing Acornsoft titles with this branding, Elite among them.<ref name="electronuser198609_superior_acornsoft">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume3/Electron-User-03-12/page/n5/mode/1up | title=Acorn-Superior software deal | magazine=Electron User | volume=3 | issue=12 | date=September 1986 | access-date=17 January 2021 | pages=6 }}</ref> The company would subsequently release another "masterpiece" with bundled novella{{snd}}the 1988 game ''[[Exile (1988 video game)|Exile]]''<ref name="electronuser198904_exile">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume6/Electron-User-06-07/page/n16/mode/1up | title=The new masterpiece | magazine=Electron User | last1=Revis | first1=Jon | date=April 1989 | access-date=18 October 2021 | volume=6 | issue=7 | pages=17–18 }}</ref>{{snd}}as well as numerous conversions and compilations.<ref name="electronuser199006_scott" />

By 1988, the "big three" full-price games publishers for the Acorn 8-bit market were identified as Superior Software, Audiogenic (ASL) and Tynesoft, with Top Ten and Alternative Software being the significant budget publishers, and other "strong contenders" being Godax, Mandarin and Bug Byte, this assessment made from the perspective of an established games author evaluating trustworthy publishers for aspiring authors. Commercial considerations motivated authors to make their games available for the Electron due to its importance in sales terms, representing "around half of the Acorn market", with it being regarded as "almost compulsory for any mainstream game" to have an Electron version "unless your game is a state-of-the-art masterpiece", with ''Revs'', ''Cholo'' and ''Sentinel'' cited as such BBC Micro exclusives.<ref name="diskuser198810_gameplan">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/DiskUser/Disk-User-12/page/n8/mode/1up | title=Game Plan | magazine=Disk User | last1=Scott | first1=Peter | date=October 1988 | access-date=21 October 2021 | pages=9–11 }}</ref> Although the Electron imposed additional technical constraints on authors accustomed to the BBC Micro, some authors were able to use this to their creative advantage. For instance, of ''Frak!'' it was noted that the "Electron version is more popular, and considered better than the BBC version because it has a screen designer included".<ref name="acornuser198812_allthebest">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser077-Dec88/page/n144/mode/1up | title=All The Best | magazine=Acorn User | date=December 1988 | access-date=4 December 2021 | pages=143–145, 147–148 }}</ref>

[[File:CrystalCastles Electron.gif|thumb|''[[Crystal Castles (video game)|Crystal Castles]]'' is an example of an arcade game officially ported to the Electron by US Gold.]]

Although not as well supported by the biggest software publishers as rivals like the [[Commodore 64]] and Sinclair [[ZX Spectrum]], a good range of games were available for the Electron including popular multi-format games such as ''[[Chuckie Egg]]''. There were also many popular games officially converted to the Electron from arcade machines (including ''[[Crystal Castles (video game)|Crystal Castles]]'', ''[[Tempest (arcade game)|Tempest]]'', ''[[Commando (arcade game)|Commando]]'', ''[[Paperboy (video game)|Paperboy]]'', and ''[[Yie Ar Kung-Fu]]'') and other home computer systems (including ''[[Impossible Mission]]'', ''[[Jet Set Willy]]'', ''[[The Way of the Exploding Fist]]'', ''[[Tetris]]'', ''[[The Last Ninja]]'', ''[[Barbarian (computer game)|Barbarian]]'', ''[[Ballistix]]'', ''[[Predator (video game)|Predator]]'', ''[[Hostages (video game)|Hostages]]'' and ''[[SimCity (1989 video game)|SimCity]]'').<ref name="electronuser199006_scott" /><ref name="abcomputing198708_johnson">{{ cite news | url=https://archive.org/details/AB_Computing_1987-08_OCR/page/n34/mode/1up | title=Programmer Profile: Peter Johnson | work=A&B Computing | date=August 1987 | access-date=22 September 2021 | pages=35–36 }}</ref>

Despite Acorn themselves effectively shelving the Electron in 1985, games continued to be developed and released by professional software houses until the early 1990s.<ref name="electronuser199007a" /> There were around 1,400 games released for the Acorn Electron, several thousand extra public domain titles were released on disc through Public Domain libraries. Notable enterprises which produced discs of such software are BBC PD, EUG (Electron User Group) and [[HeadFirst PD]].{{citation needed|date=October 2021|reason=These figures and enterprises probably feature on a Web site somewhere, so it would be nice to see the source of such information.}}

===Development considerations and techniques===
[[File:ExileElectron.png|thumb|left|''[[Exile (1988 video game)|Exile]]'' is an example of a game where the developers left non-graphical data visible in the display buffer to gain additional memory space.]]
Like the [[BBC Micro]], the Electron is constrained by limited memory resources. Of the 32&nbsp;KB RAM, 3½ KB is allocated to the OS at startup and at least 10&nbsp;KB is taken up by the display buffer in contiguous display modes.

Although programs running on the BBC Micro can use the machine's [[MOS Technology 6522|6522]] chip to trigger interrupts at certain points in the update of each display frame, using these events to change the palette and potentially switching all colours to black, thus blanking regions of the screen and hiding non-graphical data that had been stored in screen memory, the Electron lacks such hardware capabilities as standard.<ref name="electronuser198801_blake" /> However, it was found to be possible to take advantage of the characteristics of interrupts that were provided, permitting palette changes after the top 100 lines of each display frame, thus facilitating the blanking of either the top 100 or bottom 156 lines of the display. Many games took advantage of this, gaining storage by leaving non-graphical data in the disabled area.<ref name="diskuser198810_gameplan" />{{rp|quote=You can use a colour interrupt to reduce the screen size by blanking out the top 13 or bottom 19 lines (other depths cause huge speed reductions).|pages=11}}<ref group=note>In this source, the "lines" appear to refer to character lines or multiples of 8 pixels, yielding 104 and 152 pixel lines respectively.</ref>

Other games would simply load non-graphical data into the display and leave it visible as regions of apparently randomly coloured pixels. One notable example is Superior Software's [[Citadel (video game)|Citadel]].<ref name="electronuser198602_danes">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume3/Electron-User-03-05/page/n7/mode/1up | title=Danes help produce new Electron titles | magazine=Electron User | date=February 1986 | access-date=16 October 2021 | volume=3 | issue=5 | pages=8 | quote="The program overspill appears as a fluctuating patterned strip at the bottom of the screen", said Payne, "It is the only way it could be released on the Electron". }}</ref>

Although [[page flipping]] is a hardware possibility, the limited memory forced most applications to do all their drawing directly to the visible screen, often resulting in graphical [[Flicker (screen)|flicker]] or visible redraw. A notable exception is [[Players (publisher)|Players]]' ''[[Joe Blade]]'' series.

A number of unusual techniques were employed by some developers to work around apparent limitations of the hardware.

====Firetrack: smooth vertical scrolling====
Although programs can alter the position of the screen in memory, the non-linear format of the display means that vertical scrolling can only be done in blocks of 8 pixels without further work.

''[[Firetrack]]'', released on a compilation by Superior Software,<ref name="electronuser198903_firetrack">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/ElectronUserVolume6/Electron-User-06-06/page/n4/mode/1up | title=Firetrack speeds in for the Electron | magazine=Electron User | date=March 1989 | access-date=28 February 2021 | volume=6 | issue=6 | page=5 }}</ref> exploits a division in the way the Electron handles its display{{snd}} of the seven available graphics modes, two are configured so that the final two of every ten [[scanlines]] are blank and are not based on the contents of RAM. If 16 scanlines of continuous graphical data are written to a character-block-aligned portion of the screen then they will appear as a continuous block in most modes but in the two non-continuous modes they will be displayed as two blocks of eight scanlines, separated in the middle by two blank scanlines.

In order to keep track of its position within the display, the Electron maintains an internal display address counter. The same counter is used in both the continuous and non-continuous graphics modes and switching modes mid-frame does not cause any adjustment to the counter.

''Firetrack'' switches from a non-continuous to a continuous graphics mode part way down the display. By using the palette to mask the top area of the display and taking care about when it changes mode it can shift the continuous graphics at the bottom of the display down in two pixel increments because the internal display counter is not incremented on blank scanlines during non-continuous graphics modes.<ref name="firetrack">{{ cite web | url=http://electrem.emuunlim.com/techinfo.htm#firetrack | title=Vertical bipixel hardware scrolling | website=Acorn Electron Technical Documentation | date=15 August 2003 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060206155259/http://electrem.emuunlim.com/techinfo.htm#firetrack | access-date=5 March 2021 | archive-date=6 February 2006 }}</ref>

====Exile: sampled speech====
''[[Exile (1988 video game)|Exile]]'' turns the Electron's one channel output into a digital speaker for [[pulse-code modulation|PCM]] output.

The speaker can be programmatically switched on or off at any time but is permanently attached to a hardware counter so is normally only able to output a [[Square wave (waveform)|square wave]]. But if set to a frequency outside the human audible range then the ear can't perceive the square wave, only the difference between the speaker being switched on and off. This gives the effect of a simple toggle speaker similar to that seen in the 48&nbsp;KB Sinclair [[ZX Spectrum]]. ''Exile'' uses this to output 1-bit audio samples.

====Frak! and Zalaga: polyphonic music====
As part of their [[copy protection]], illegal copies of Aardvark Software's ''[[Frak!]]'' and ''[[Galaga|Zalaga]]'' would cause a pseudo-polyphonic rendition of Trumpet Hornpipe, the [[Captain Pugwash]] theme tune, to play endlessly rather than loading the game properly (Pugwash being a pirate). On the Electron version of Frak!, the tune was the main theme from "[[The Benny Hill Show|Benny Hill]]" ([[Boots Randolph]]'s "[[Yakety Sax]]"). The [[polyphony]] was achieved via [[Arpeggio|fast note-switching]] to achieve the necessary chords.