March 17 1983 to May 1 1985. 109 weeks. J. Alfred Prufrock measured out his life in coffee spoons. Automata measured theirs with weekly adverts on the back page of POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY. The first Automata advert, 17-23 March 1983, sits alongside news about the 16K Oric and Commodore's proposed factory in Corby, and reviews for Football Manager, The Hobbit, and Automata's Pimania. The last advert sits next to details about a new computer called the Amiga and the liquidation of Bug-Byte, and reviews of... well it wasn't a great week for classic games, Booty, Shadowfire, and Spy Hunter are probably the most notable titles. Those two years cover a lot of ground and the advantage of the weekly grind is that Christian Penfold, Mel Croucher, and artist Robin Evans frequently turn their gaze out onto the wider industry when casting around for material. The adverts provide a window onto how the UK software scene looked and how Automata regarded itself.
You can find links to all the Automata adverts archived nicely in order at spectrumcomputing.co.uk; please be prepared for some caricatures which are not considered acceptable today.
Artist Robin Evans draws his first advert for the back of the 5-11 May 1983 issue. To my inexpert eye, he has a style which echoes Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton. The first thing he draws is an advert for Pimania. Automata were really pushing the game as the 22nd July approached; they were, probably aware, of the need to sell as many copies as possible in case someone met them at Litlington White Horse and claimed the Golden Sundial. Two issues later and Automata are talking about their new game Automonopoli (look out for the picture of the, then, brand new pound coin in the central O of monopoli).
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| PCW 26 May-1 June 1983 page 56 |
The next advert gets topical. Margaret Thatcher announced the 1983 General Election on May 9th. I could be wrong but I think the caricatures in this advert were drawn by Mel Croucher rather than Robin Evans. I think Evans might be away for the next few issues. It's difficult to tell because the adverts for 9-15 June 1983 and 16-22 June recycle Evans' Automonopoli art. (A brief shoutout to the handwritten notes on the 9-15 June advert "Breakfast Television is crummy!" and "Channel Four is groovy!").
We would have to wait until next week to learn the truth by reading "The Piman Diaries" (a reference to the April 1983 excitement about the Hitler Diaries); which was that Waddington's objected to Automata trampling on their Monopoly trademark.
Automata's version of the story (21-27 July 1983) is more entertaining. I think this cartoon is drawn by Mel Croucher, the style is a little rougher than Evan's artwork at the bottom of the page. The short four panel comic reminds me of Dave Gibbons artwork for The Trial of Nasty Tales, especially the face-on picture of the judge. This all came at on the eve of 22nd July. The point when Automata expected someone to have solved the mystery of the location of the Golden Sundial of Pi. Would anyone be waiting to collect it at noon on 22nd July at Litlington White Horse on Hindover Hill in Sussex?
Imagine pumped out record levels of hype for their games Psyclapse and Bandersnatch which Automata gleefully spoofed at the end of April 1984 (not long before Imagine were declared insolvent). The comment about Telephones tapped, listed under Consumables to Date, is a reference to one of the oddest details in the saga of Imagine; they bugged the office phone of Colin Stokes their own Sales Manager. CRASH reported that Imagine published:
There is more topicality in the advert for 30 June-6 July 1983. Clive Sinclair was given a Knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours (announced 10 June) and so obviously the Piman gets a gong as well. That same advert builds hype for the forthcoming Pimania day, now less than a month off. We get the first photograph of the Golden Sundial of Pi, along with a note that no one has won it, yet. We also have the first sighting of the Bethlehem rumour: "And by the way, to the loonies going to Bethlehem on Christmas Day, and the person trying to book a flight on the space shuttle........ don't bother! Please." Stories about where people thought they had to go to win the sundial would become a central part of the Pimania story.
Evans returns for the 7-13 July advert which introduces the comic strip. It's only a couple of lines at the bottom of the page at this point but it would grow to take over the whole page. The same advert also features the enigmatic handwritten message: "Tony Bridge has fallen down beware the curse of PI." A reference to a throwaway comment made by Tony, PCW's Adventure Games correspondent, two weeks earlier, 23-29 June 1983. "Pimania, from Automata — not one of my personal favourites," he said. THE PIMAN SEES ALL!
The following week, the schtick hits the fan. "Automonopoli mystery! Why has the name changed to GO TO JAIL". Why indeed? And note the order box where someone has crossed through Automonopoli and written in Go To Jail.
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| PCW 14-20 July 1983 page 48 |
Automata's version of the story (21-27 July 1983) is more entertaining. I think this cartoon is drawn by Mel Croucher, the style is a little rougher than Evan's artwork at the bottom of the page. The short four panel comic reminds me of Dave Gibbons artwork for The Trial of Nasty Tales, especially the face-on picture of the judge. This all came at on the eve of 22nd July. The point when Automata expected someone to have solved the mystery of the location of the Golden Sundial of Pi. Would anyone be waiting to collect it at noon on 22nd July at Litlington White Horse on Hindover Hill in Sussex?
No.
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| PCW 28 July-3 August 1984 page 48 |
The timing of this advert fascinates me. At noon on Friday 22nd July, Mel Croucher and Christian Penfold would have been lurking behind a bush at Litlington White Horse. Six days later they've got that advert in print. That's tight timing in the days when the lead time of magazines was substantial. I have very circumstance evidence the deadline for PCW was the Monday of the on sale week[1], so Monday 25th July in this case. At most, that's a three day turnaround. Evans was either very quick on the draw or he produced two pictures in advance. In which case, I'd love to see the advert planned for someone winning.
Page two of PCW for 11-17 August 1983 sees Salamander Software advertising their games with a combination of spoof newspaper and black and white artwork. Coincidence? Tribute? Automata thought it was the latter and ran an interview with the Piman who said: "Salamander have started to imitate my spoof newspaper adverts." That quote runs in the 25-31 August issue in an advert headed "PI MAN ON STRIKE." This is the start of a three week story which is not, as I at first thought, based on the miner's strike because that doesn't start until 1984. It might however have been inspired by some of Arthur Scargill's sabre-rattling which followed the 1983 Conservative victory in the election.
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| PCW 1-7 September 1983 page 48 |
In a happy coincidence the Piman's strike coincided with both the 1983 August Bank holiday and Automata's short move across Portsmouth to new offices. Then the Piman returned to work and normal service resumed. Most weeks, the adverts would be two thirds nonsense rattled off on Automata's typewriter (with biro-ed comments scrawled round the edges) and Evans' cartoon at the bottom of the page. Occasionally Evans would be given the full page for a cartoon, usually when Automata had a new game to promote; like this 20-26 October 1983 advert for Morris Meets The Bikers.
At the start of December, national television allowed the Piman and Groucho to broadcast to the youth of the nation via Central's programme Magic Micro Mission. Evans was on hand to show what really happened behind the scenes, 1-7 December 1983. This was also the point the advert changed, and from now the normal format was two-thirds cartoon and one-third order form. The season of goodwill gave Evans a chance to make jokey references to the events of the year, and his depiction of scenes from a December Microfair include a Mel Croucher and Christian Penfold being chased around by a solicitor from the firm Hack & Slay demanding the pair "must play Waddington's new game Slappawrit..." And the cartoon on the back of the Christmas week issue saw Croucher and Penfold being given a copy of Go To Jail as a gift, with doleful Christian Penfold saying: "Oh, ho ho ho! Go To Jail! Yeah, ho ho! V. funny!"
This is all very ironic because page five of the same issue reported Waddington's new proceedings against Automata to stop the sale of Go To Jail/Automonopli. "Tuesday last week," was the timing according to PCW. The 13th December. The same week the "scenes from a Microfair" comic was printed. Is there enough time for Evans to have drawn Croucher and Penfold being given a copy of Go To Jail for the following week? Yes, based on the turnaround for the earlier no-ones-won-Pimania comic but I suspect its more likely to be a coincidence. A Christmas jape which became unfortunate reality.
Automata's first acknowledgement of the new legal action was a handwritten note at the bottom of the 5-11 January 1984 cartoon. A brief: "thanks to everyone for Christmas cards & solidarity over 'GO TO JAIL'. " Automata's full response came at the end of the month when the all important order form was replaced by a defiant public statement. "We will announce the outcome of this legal battle as soon as it has been resolved." As far as I can tell, nothing was ever announced.
The next few issues contain a little grumbling at Automata's place in the software industry. The Piman causes a scene at the Golden Balls Computer Software Awards after he doesn't win anything; 16-22 February 1984. The following week, there's a joke about Piman training for the Olympics by delivering games to wholesalers which is annotated with a grumpy footnote, "What wholesalers!?!" The difficulty Automata had getting wholesalers to take Deus Ex Machina later in 1984 was one of the reasons for the failure of the game.
Both of these comments are then back referenced in the 8-14 March comic. Microdeal's mascot Cuthbert makes an appearance as they are now one of three wholesalers to stock Automata games (along with Logic 3, and Checkmate). The same advert sees a guest appearance from Diamond Dan, the private eye from the 1983 Salamander Software adverts. And Evans (who is hosting the comic because no one else has showed up) reflects: "I suppose the others are in hiding after the big satirical axe on the awards thing a few weeks back. Then Automata got an award, and so did PCW. Now all I get is the blame because they all said I wrote it. I didn't, though, well some...." It looks like My Name Is Uncle Groucho, You Win a Fat Cigar won something for Automata at the 1983 Computer Trade Association awards.
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| PCW 26 April-2nd May |
Imagine pumped out record levels of hype for their games Psyclapse and Bandersnatch which Automata gleefully spoofed at the end of April 1984 (not long before Imagine were declared insolvent). The comment about Telephones tapped, listed under Consumables to Date, is a reference to one of the oddest details in the saga of Imagine; they bugged the office phone of Colin Stokes their own Sales Manager. CRASH reported that Imagine published:
...in their Newsletter a whole chunk transcribed, it is claimed, from telephone conversations between Colin and Imagine’s competitors in the business. Colin had come under the heading of ‘unreliable’ in the Butler/Lawson cannon and so his office phones had been bugged.
The grim mood didn't last long. The 22nd July rolled around again and the failure of anyone to be at Litlington White Horse was marked with a single panel in the 2-8 August comic. The same strip also features a throwaway moment when Christian Penfold enters and demands the elephant change its name (I'm not going to bother explaining any of this) on the grounds that: "we're getting flack, not to mention lawsuits from people whose egos lead them to believe we're caricaturing them on this page -so I think, Cyril, we'd better call you Jumbo or something..." Real? Lie? Joke? I don't know. It's not the first time events in the comic have been referenced as getting Automata in trouble in the real world but it's just as likely to be a bit of fun. Mel Croucher or Gremlin Evans bigging the comic up and making it sound more important. Or, maybe Elephant Software employed someone called Cyril? [2]
The last Automata advert riffed on a famous 1915 British Army recruitment poster. "Daddy, What Did You Do in the Great War?" It's an interesting choice because the recruitment poster is a very cynical piece of emotional manipulation. The innocent question of the daughter is contrasted with the haunted, guilty stare of the father. He cannot bring himself to meet his daughter's gaze and instead looks out of the poster at the viewer. The implication is that Daddy shamefully neglected his patriotic duty to "Dulce et decorum est, Pro patria mori." The 1915 viewer is invited to reflect on how they too will answer the question, when it is all over.
I've never been able to track down a copy of this newsletter. If you have a copy please get it uploaded to the internet. The spoof Imagine advert is also the first time Evans starts signing his cartoons as Gremlin Evans.
The end of June sees a throwaway mention to what will become Deus Ex Machina in the 28 June-4 July advert. A sketch of Mel Croucher labelled: "Mel out-of-his-tree Croucher, involved in big secret project..."
The summer of 1984 saw Dragon Computers called in the receivers, as did Carnell Software, Rabbit Software, and Imagine. There were incorrect rumours that Salamander Software had done the same. This cruel summer inspired what might be Automata's best advert.
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| 19-25 July 1983 |
There's so much to admire here. Evans detailed artwork; the use of spot colour on the single red rose; Piman mourning beside a grave even as the Grim Reaper beckons him towards his own final resting place which is labelled "STARVED TO DEATH BY WHOLESALER'S CREDIT". It's a beautiful piece of atmospheric art and 40 years later it still has the power to evoke the haunted feeling which must have briefly gripped the UK software industry.
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| 2-8 August 1984 |
If you notice a certain gap here. It's because the Internet Archive has gone offline. Taken out of service by a massive DDoS attack. Assuming it comes back online, I'll fill in the missing period which covers the launch of Deus Ex Machina.
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| POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY 25 April - 1 May 1985 page 52 |
The Automata equivalent was drawn at a time when the mood inside the company was bitter at the treatment of the company and a perceived lack of support from, well everyone. The industry and public who rejected Deus Ex Machina. PCW readers who no longer brought games through mail order and therefore didn't allow Automata to earn money to place the advert. And PCW itself who weren't interested in keeping the Automata content going, unless it was paid for.
As in the recruiting poster, we have a charming domestic scene, a brother and sister playing with a Spectrum, and we have the child's innocent question, and again we have the guilty gaze of the Daddy and the pensive posture as he struggles to answer. "Who was the Piman, daddy?" Not "what happened to the Piman" or "did you buy Deus Ex Machina" or "where did Automata go" but "who was the Piman". Note the advert's bolding on the word was; that's the significant word. The 1915 poster is all about evoking shame in the viewer. The 1985 parody is clearly supposed to make readers feel a bit guilty about not doing more to support Automata but the main intent of the final advert is to suggest loss. That's why the word was is bolded and not who. The Piman has been forgotten.
Who was he? What did he represent? Why can't the father explain? When did he become forgotten? How come you can't answer? 40 years later, I'm not sure how to answer the question.
Who was the Piman?
[1] See the handwritten comment at the bottom of this advert (3-9 November 1983): "O.K. So the type-setter blew up on Sunday... You try working to these deadlines!" This only really makes sense if the deadline is the following day. I said it was very circumstantial evidence.
[2] The next issue gave the elephant's name as Cyril Estic. I've sat here for several minutes muttering to myself, "Cyril Esic, Cyril-Estic, CyrilEstic," and come to the conclusion it's a pun on the word surrealistic.
This article acts as a companion to the other one about Automata. I've added another two articles to the massive pile about this "obscure" eighties software house. If you have a better title for this article than "Automata Adverts" please let me know. The best I could think of was "Automata for the People" which doesn't really work. Leave a comment or follow me on Bluesky, @shammountebank.bsky.social, or Instagram, shammountebank
If you are conducting a massive denial of service attack on the Internet Archive then I'd be grateful if you could stop it now, please. Thank you.
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