Ah, the humble BBC Micro. This was the weapon of choice of my primary school back when I was but a little piglet (and the weapon of choice of most primary schools in the UK at the time, prior to the rise of the CD-ROM). Although most of my computer memories from that time are associated with the ZX Spectrum which we had at home, I have one distinct memory the BBC Micro, and that is a red blob in the form of Podd.

What is Podd exactly? Well, Podd was an educational game (both terms are used in the loosest sense here) which presented the user with the words “Podd can” and a blank space for the user to type what they think Podd can do. If you typed something which Podd could indeed do, you were rewarded with watching him do it. Observe (unfortunately the sound goes a bit out of sync as the video progresses):

Podd can walk – yep.

Podd can jump – yep.

Podd can fart – I’m afraid Podd is not flatulent.

Podd can poo – No, he’s constipated it would seem.

Of course, playing this game in school (when unsupervised) usually resulted in typing in all sorts of obscenities, only to find disappointingly that Podd didn’t do any of the things that we really wanted him to do. Podd can pop was probably the best action that I can remember (shown at the end of the video above).

The reason I have such a distinct memory of Podd is not just because of the unparalleled thrill of the game, but also because I managed to break it – and I’m not talking about something that could be fixed with a simple off and on here. No, I managed to break Podd to the point of no return. Apparently, pressing the break key on the keyboard, does actually break the game and its disk. At least, after I pressed break to exit the game, it never worked again and I got the blame. I became the target of a mass hate campaign of Podd-loving classmates. Candle lit vigils were held in Podd’s demise and attempts to contact Podd with a Ouija board proved unsuccessful. Limits were imposed on me to ensure that I never harm another pixel puppet ever again.

R.I.P. Podd.

Looking back, Podd was rubbish… and yet we loved it. It was easily the most popular choice when we were allowed to decide what program we wanted to use (although the choices were limited). Something about being able to control this ‘thing’ on the screen really hit the spot. A far cry from blowing stuff up and driving over hookers with your car these days, eh kids? (Sarc.)

A similar toy for the PC a few years later called Dr Sbaitso, who talked to you and said whatever you wanted him to say, was also similarly amusing.