Logotron BETT’s on 21!

Logotron Ltd has been involved with the BETT Show right from it's very inception and is now celebrating 21 years of their relationship with the world's biggest educational technology exhibition (having missed only one in 2001). On the one hand, it's an opportunity to look at the whole educational computing and software market in all its glory; meet face-to-face with customers old and new; find out what your competitors are doing; and launch exciting new products and services. On the other hand, you test your own physical endurance with a punishing regime of walking and talking over the most challenging and rewarding 5 days of the year!

The show itself is larger to a staggering degree, compared with the modest beginnings in 1984. The young Logotron Ltd, launching its seminal product Logotron Logo, shared a stand with Commotion in those days and was accompanied by an array of companies carrying diverse and interesting technologies such as plotters, milling machines, looms and many other craft-oriented gadgets. Actual computers were somewhat scarcer then, before the IT - and ICT - revolution, and Research Machines was dwarfed by Acorn!

Logotron’s Marketing Director Gerry Daish is the BETT veteran having attended the event since 1984.

“My own earliest memories of the show revolve more around logistical matters such as hiring trucks, finding loading spaces and dodgy hotels, avoiding serious injury building the stand, rather than the glitzy handshaking and social frenzy of the present day. There was a definite pioneering spirit among the brave, some would say crazy, individuals who rolled up their sleeves and started educational software companies against all odds... Brian and Wendy Richardson of CSH, Mike Matson and Neil Souch of 4Mation, Bill Bonham of Sherston, Mike Becher of EMR, Dave Clare, and of course Mike and Tina Detheridge of Widgit fame, with whom we are now merged.”

Thinking back on his times at BETT, Gerry recalls one of the larger-than-life characters involved, Logotron's own Christopher Roper, the subject of his favourite BETT story.

“It must have been around 1990. The Show had outgrown the Barbican and moved on to Olympia, we had a shiny new custom-built stand with banners, and lights and we were really 'cutting edge'. The Acorn Archimedes had become the computer of choice, particularly in the primary classroom and Logotron had set about producing a range of world-class tools to develop IT capability across the curriculum.

One such program was Magpie, a multimedia presentation and project package in which you could mix text, graphics, sound and even video on the page; and a feature of the sound capability was that once you opened a sound file, it played to it's full length. The stand was soon swamped by teachers seeking the latest and best. Christopher was in his element, but with half a dozen primary school teachers hanging on his every word and every mouse click, he failed to find the folder of sample sound files saved on the hard disk for the sole purpose of demonstrating at the show. He then stumbled across a file he thought he could use, unaware that it contained a 30 second clip of one of the more outrageous and controversial snatches of conversation from Pete and Dud's 'Derek & Clive' LP. People's faces were pictures, especially those of Christopher's colleagues who were mostly giggling hysterically behind pillars. He never mentioned the faux pas and never apologised for it. And best of all? Three of the audience went straight to the counter and bought the product!”

Happy memories and Happy Birthday to BETT, it is good to see that childhood friends are still with you!