The Apricot Files:
The "Disinformation" Columns

The SEX Column -- 1st ed cover

The complete run of David Langford's technical and humorous columns about Apricot Computers microsystems, written for Apricot File magazine from 1985 to 1988. Langford wrestles with MS-DOS and the various Apricot operating systems, wittily explains the inner secrets that Apricot PLC documented wrongly or not at all, and tells many scabrous anecdotes about the contemporary British microcomputer scene.

A new, though mercifully brief, Introduction provides some background and identifies the names most often dropped.

David Langford says: Obviously this is aimed at dedicated Langford completists (I'm told there is at least one), former Apricot users, and perhaps a few others who remember the horrible difficulty of getting even reasonably good computers and word processors to co-operate in those awkward times. ("Foolish Earthlings! We know nothing of this primitive and effete 'pound sign' which you wish to print.") But anyone at all is welcome to buy the thing, skip the technical stuff and savour the carefully preserved old gags....

  • Publication Date: November 2007
  • Publisher: Ansible Information in association with Lulu.com
  • Format: Trade paperback
  • ISBN: 978-1-291-24349-9
  • Page Count: 132
  • Price: $10.00
  • Availability: Lulu.com

Back Cover Blurb

David Langford's "Disinformation" columns for Apricot File magazine discussed the 1980s Apricot microcomputers in morbid detail, and have been justly forgotten. But to a select few antiquaries, and the author's mother, they may yet retain some shreds of curious interest. Langford defiantly claims that several of the jokes -- not to mention the words of abuse heaped on practically everyone in the contemporary British computer business -- are timeless.

Reviews and Comments

Bletchley Park National Codes Centre: Archives, January 2008

I can assure you this book will become an important item in our library.