88-618: Acorn User magazine was founded by Acorn Computers in 1982, contract-published by Addison-Wesley , to coincide with the launch of the BBC Micro . It covered the range of Acorn home computers, the BBC Micro and Atom at first and later the Electron , Archimedes and Risc PC . The first issue was dated July/August 1982. From the April 1984 issue, the magazine came under the control of Redwood Publishing,
176-466: A $ 45 million contract to produce the BBC Micro for the US market. During the search for potential financing partners, an Olivetti director had approached Close Brothers, ostensibly as part of Olivetti's strategy of acquiring technologically advanced small companies. After a short period of negotiations, Curry and Hauser signed an agreement with Olivetti on 20 February. With the founders relinquishing control of
264-505: A Motorola 6809 processor card for its System 3 and System 4 models. Several years later in 1985, the Acorn Communicator employed the 16-bit 65816 processor as a step up from the 6502. The IBM PC was launched on 12 August 1981. Although a version of that machine was aimed at the enthusiast market much like the BBC Micro, its real area of success was business. The successor to the PC,
352-505: A home computer to be a rather frivolous product for a company operating in the laboratory equipment market. To keep costs down and not give the doubters reason to object to the Atom, Curry asked industrial designer Allen Boothroyd to design a case that could also function as an external keyboard for the microcomputer systems. The internals of the System 3 were placed inside the keyboard, creating
440-476: A close relationship with Torch Computers in the early 1980s, Acorn sought to acquire Torch in 1984 with the intention of making Torch "effectively the business arm" of Acorn, despite a lack of clarity about competing product lines and uncertainty about the future of Acorn's still-unreleased business machine within any rationalised product range, although this acquisition was never completed, with Torch having pulled out as Acorn's situation deteriorated. At around
528-541: A company recently founded by Michael Potter (a former publisher at Haymarket Publishing ), Christopher Ward (a former editor of the Daily Express and a non-executive director of Acorn) and Chris Curry (one of the founders of Acorn). In 1989, the name changed to BBC Acorn User , reflecting the fact that the commercial arm of the BBC, BBC Enterprises , took control of Redwood to expand its publishing activities. The magazine lost
616-742: A disappointing summer season in 1984, Acorn had evidently focused on making up for lost sales over the Christmas season, with the Electron being a particular focus. However, a refusal to discount the BBC Micro also appeared to inhibit sales of that machine, with some dealers expressing dissatisfaction to the point of considering abandoning the range altogether. With rumours of another, potentially cheaper, machine coming from Acorn, dealers eventually started to discount heavily after Christmas. For instance, high street retailer Rumbelows sought to clear unsold Christmas stocks of around 1500 machines priced at £299, offering
704-488: A discount of around £100, also bundling them with a cassette recorder and software. The rumoured machine turned out to be the BBC Model B+ which was a relatively conservative upgrade and more, not less, expensive than the machine it replaced. It was speculated that the perception of a more competitive machine soon to be launched might well have kept potential purchasers away from the products that Acorn needed to sell. Acorn
792-424: A drawn-out and expensive process that proved futile: all of the expansion devices that were intended to be sold with the BBC Micro had to be tested and radiation emissions had to be reduced. It was claimed that Acorn spent £10 million on its US operation without this localised variant of the BBC Micro establishing a significant market share. The machine, however, did make an appearance in the school of Supergirl in
880-477: A failure to consider local market conditions and preferences, with "complex technical efforts" having been made to make the machine compatible with US television standards when local market information would have indicated that "US home computer users expect to use a dedicated personal computer monitor". Consequently, obtaining Federal approval for the BBC Micro in order to expand into the United States proved to be
968-696: A joint venture with Apple and VLSI in 1990, now known as Arm Holdings , which is dominant in the mobile phone and personal digital assistant (PDA) microprocessor market today. Acorn in the 1990s released the Risc PC line and the Acorn Network Computer , and also had a stint in the set-top box and educational markets. However, financial troubles led to the company closing down its workstation division in September 1998, effectively halting its home computer business and cancelling development of RISC OS and
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#17330853645441056-523: A little while later. The Acorn Microcomputer, later renamed the Acorn System 1 , was designed by Sophie Wilson (then Roger Wilson). It was a semi-professional system aimed at engineering and laboratory users, but its price was low enough, at around £80 (equivalent to £420 in 2023), to appeal to the more serious enthusiast as well. It was a very small machine built on two cards, one with an LED display, keypad, and cassette interface (the circuitry to
1144-492: A new multi-tasking OS, four internal ROM sockets, and shipped with a software suite based on View and ViewSheet. It also had an attached telephone, communications software and auto-answer/auto-dial modem. However, with Acorn's finances having sustained the development cost of the Archimedes, and with the custom systems division having contributed substantially to the company's losses in 1987, a change in strategy took effect towards
1232-610: A number of perceived weaknesses of the RiscPC design, a slow memory architecture, limited I/O capability, limited expansion, and not adhering to industry standards. To overcome these weakness a number of design objectives were created: harness the full potential of the StrongARM CPU, support multiple processors, add support for PCI expansion, offer the best possible graphics, run existing RISC OS applications, and provide enhanced RISC OS functionality. An additional design objective of reusing
1320-591: A quite typical set-up for an inexpensive home computer of the early 1980s: the relatively successful Acorn Atom . To facilitate software development, a proprietary local area network had been installed at Market Hill. It was decided to include this, the Econet , in the Atom, and at its launch at a computer show in March 1980, eight networked Atoms were demonstrated with functions that allowed files to be shared, screens to be remotely viewed and keyboards to be remotely slaved. After
1408-420: A relatively low-cost Ethernet interface card utilising Intel's 82586 network controller chip. Torus later released a network management solution called Tapestry, based on Icon and marketed by IBM for its own networking technologies. Torus also released support for the use of Novell's Advanced Netware product on its own networking hardware. The company eventually entered receivership in 1990 with Acorn reporting
1496-603: A result of these questions, the Department of Industry (DoI) became interested in the programme, as did BBC Enterprises , which saw an opportunity to sell a machine to go with the series. BBC Engineering was instructed to draw up an objective specification for a computer to accompany the series. Eventually, under some pressure from the DoI to choose a British system, the BBC chose the NewBrain from Newbury Laboratories. This selection revealed
1584-600: A revised version of the Proton which met the BBC's specifications. BBC visited Acorn and were given a demonstration of the Proton. Shortly afterwards, the literacy programme computer contract was awarded to Acorn, and the Proton was launched in December 1981 as the BBC Micro . In April 1984, Acorn won the Queen's Award for Technology for the BBC Micro. The award paid special tribute to the BBC Micro's advanced design, and it commended Acorn "for
1672-647: A standard for an educational microcomputer system analogous to the MSX computing architecture and to the established IBM PC compatible architecture. Deliberations continued into 1986, with Acorn proposing its own ARM processor architecture as the basis for the initiative, whereas Thomson had proposed the Motorola 68000. Expectations that Olivetti would actively market Acorn's machines in Europe were, however, frustrated by Olivetti's own assessment of Acorn's products as "too expensive" and
1760-663: A text display interface, and a cassette operating system with built-in BASIC interpreter . The System 3 moved on by adding floppy disk support, and the System 4 by including a larger case with a second drive. The System 5 was largely similar to the System 4, but included a newer 2 MHz version of the 6502 . Development of the Sinclair ZX80 started at Science of Cambridge in May 1979. Learning of this probably prompted Curry to conceive
1848-714: A £242,000 loss associated with the investment. Such were the ambitions of Acorn's management that a joint venture company was established in Hong Kong under the name Optical Information Systems , apparently engaging in the development of "digital, optical technology for computer data storage". Involving a Hong Kong turntable manufacturer, Better Sound Reproduction Ltd., Acorn were to set up a research and development facility in Palo Alto, California, US to bring "compact laser disk drives designed as floppy disk drive replacements" to market within 18 months. In February 1985, speculation about
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#17330853645441936-637: The ARM . Acorn's development of their RISC OS operating system required around 200 OS development staff at its peak. Acorn C/C++ was released commercially by Acorn, for developers to use to compile their own applications. Having become a publicly traded company in 1983 during the home computer boom, Acorn's commercial performance in 1984 proved to be consequential. Many home computer manufacturers struggled to maintain customer enthusiasm, some offering unconvincing follow-up products that failed to appeal to buyers. The more successful manufacturers, like Amstrad, emphasised
2024-563: The Atom project to target the consumer market. Curry and another designer, Nick Toop, worked from Curry's home in the Fens on the development of this machine. It was at this time that Acorn Computers Ltd. was incorporated and Curry moved to Acorn full-time. It was Curry who wanted to target the consumer market. Other factions within Acorn, including the engineers, were happy to be out of that market, considering
2112-597: The BBC Micro being one of the most popular. Schools were offered 50% of the cost of computers, providing they chose one of three models: BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum or Research Machines 380Z . In parallel, the DES continued to fund more materials for the computers, such as software and applied computing projects, plus teacher training. Although the NewBrain was under heavy development by Newbury, it soon became clear that they were not going to be able to produce it—certainly not in time for
2200-500: The MK14 , that Curry wanted to develop further, but Sinclair could not be persuaded so Curry resigned. During the development of the MK14, Hermann Hauser , a friend of Curry's, had been visiting SoC's offices and had grown interested in the product. Curry and Hauser decided to pursue their joint interest in microcomputers and, on 5 December 1978, they set up Cambridge Processor Unit Ltd. (CPU) as
2288-530: The Phoebe computer. The company was acquired and largely dismantled in early 1999. In retrospect, Acorn is sometimes referred to as the "British Apple " and has been compared to Fairchild Semiconductor for being a catalyst for start-ups. On 25 July 1961, Clive Sinclair founded Sinclair Radionics to develop and sell electronic devices such as calculators . The failure of the Black Watch wristwatch and
2376-547: The University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory . CPU purchased Orbis, and Hopper's Orbis shares were exchanged for shares in CPU Ltd. CPU's role gradually changed as its Acorn brand grew, and soon CPU was simply the holding company and Acorn was responsible for development work. At some point, Curry had a disagreement with Sinclair and formally left Science of Cambridge, but did not join the other Acorn employees at Market Hill until
2464-453: The 1984 film Supergirl: The Movie . Acorn also made or attempted various acquisitions. The Computer Education in Schools division of ICL was acquired by Acorn in late 1983 "reportedly for less than £100,000", transferring a staff of six to Acorn's Maidenhead office to form Acorn's Educational Services division and to provide "the core of education support development within Acorn". Having had
2552-480: The 1990s, identifying the market as the largest in Europe whose technically sophisticated computer retailers were looking for opportunities to sell higher-margin products than IBM PC compatibles, with a large enthusiast community amongst existing and potential customers. Efforts were made to establish a local marketing presence and to offer localised versions of Acorn's products. Despite optimistic projections of success, and with Acorn having initially invested £700,000 in
2640-697: The 6502. Because of many-cycle uninterruptible instructions, for example, the interrupt response times of the Motorola 68000 were too slow to handle the communication protocol that the host 6502-based BBC Micro coped with easily. The National Semiconductor 32016-based model of the ABC range, was developed and later sold in 1985 as the Cambridge Workstation (using the Panos operating system). Advertising for this machine in 1986 included an illustration of an office worker using
2728-584: The Acorn Southeast Show June 1998. By May 1998, Acorn started to offer their 'Registered Developer' scheme members the chance to pre-order a pre-launch prototype for testing and development, these were offered at a £950 (excl. VAT ) a significant discount on the public price of £1500 (ex VAT) revealed in June. On 15 September 1998, the first Phoebe 2100 motherboards with silicon (rather than FPGA) based IOMD2 chips were powered up. They successfully ran at
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2816-533: The Acorn founders with less than 15% ownership of the company. Meanwhile, the financial difficulties had reduced the number of employees at Acorn from a peak of 480 to around 270. With Brian Long appointed as managing director, Acorn were set to move forward with a new OEM-focused computer named the Communicator and the Cambridge Workstation , whose launch had been delayed until the end of July 1985 due to
2904-428: The Atom had been released into the market, Acorn contemplated building modern 16-bit processors to replace the Atom. After a great deal of discussion, Hauser suggested a compromise—an improved 6502-based machine with far greater expansion capabilities: the Proton. Acorn's technical staff had not wanted to do the Atom and they now saw the Proton as their opportunity to "do it right". One of the developments proposed for
2992-474: The BBC Micro mainboard, the Tube and second processors to give CP/M , MS-DOS and Unix ( Xenix ) workstations. This Acorn Business Computer (ABC) plan required a number of second processors to be made to work with the BBC Micro platform. In developing these, Acorn had to implement the Tube protocols on each processor chosen, in the process finding out, during 1983, that there were no obvious candidates to replace
3080-542: The BBC Micro's principal creators were present, and Sophie Wilson recounted to the BBC how Hermann Hauser tricked her and Steve Furber to agree to create the physical prototype in less than five days. Also in 2008 a number of former staff organised a reunion event to mark the 30th anniversary of the company's formation. The BBC Micro sold well—so much so that Acorn's profits rose from £3000 in 1979 to £8.6 million in July 1983. In September 1983, CPU shares were liquidated and Acorn
3168-419: The BBC branding when it was sold to Europress , publisher of rival title Acorn Computing , coinciding with its January 1994 issue. The magazine later incorporated Acorn Computing and Archimedes World magazines. Even when compatible hardware was released by RiscStation, Castle, MicroDigital, and Advantage 6 the magazine continued with the Acorn name whilst covering the extended range of hardware. In 2004
3256-543: The NewBrain to Newbury after Sinclair left Radionics and went to SoC. In 1980–1982, the British Department of Education and Science (DES) had begun the Microelectronics Education Programme to introduce microprocessing concepts and educational materials. In 1981, through to 1986, the DoI allocated funding to assist UK local education authorities to supply their schools with a range of computers,
3344-510: The Phoebe 2100 hardware or RISC OS 4 development. Of these, the only successful group was the Steering Group who, after initially being interested in releasing the Phoebe 2100, realised it would be financially prohibitive and set about creating a new company RISCOS Ltd . In March 1999, RISCOS Ltd negotiated a licence with Element 14, the recently renamed Acorn Computers, and set about finishing
3432-597: The Phoebe 2100 hardware specification. RISC OS 4 had to support the new hardware of Phoebe 2100 which wasn't present in Acorn's earlier machines; In addition several new features were to be added to the core of RISC OS; To prepare developers for the changes to the OS, Acorn released to its 'Registered Developer' program RISC OS 3.80, designed to load on Acorn's previous generation RiscPC and A7000 computers. This would enable developers to test that their software would be compatible with Phoebe 2100, provided it didn't require any of
3520-453: The Proton was the Tube , a proprietary interface allowing a second processor to be added. This compromise would make for an affordable 6502 machine for the mass market which could be expanded with more sophisticated and expensive processors. The Tube enabled processing to be farmed out to the second processor leaving the 6502 to perform data input/output (I/O). The Tube would later be instrumental in
3608-409: The US and to other international markets respectively. Acorn Computers (Far East) Limited focused on component procurement and manufacturing with some distribution responsibilities in local markets. Acornsoft Limited was responsible for development, production and marketing of software for Acorn's computer range. Vector Marketing Limited was established to handle distribution-related logistics and
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3696-486: The XT (eXtended Technology) was introduced in early 1983. The success of these machines and the variety of Z80 -based CP/M machines in the business sector demonstrated that it was a viable market, especially given that sector's ability to cope with premium prices. The development of a business machine looked like a good idea to Acorn. A development programme was started to create a business computer using Acorn's existing technology:
3784-554: The article's talk page . Acorn Computers Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge , England in 1978 by Hermann Hauser , Chris Curry and Andy Hopper . The company produced a number of computers during the 1980s with associated software that were highly popular in the domestic market, and they have been historically influential in the development of computer technology like processors . The company's Acorn Electron , released in 1983, and
3872-655: The available processors and finding them lacking, Acorn decided that it needed a new architecture. Inspired by white papers on the Berkeley RISC project, Acorn seriously considered designing its own processor. A visit to the Western Design Center in the US, where the 6502 was being updated by what was effectively a single-person company, showed Acorn engineers Steve Furber and Sophie Wilson they did not need massive resources and state-of-the-art research and development facilities. Sophie Wilson set about developing
3960-404: The bundling of computers with essential peripherals such as monitors and cassette recorders along with value for money. The collapse of the market from the manufacturers' perspective, it was argued, was due to the "neglect of the market by the manufacturers". Market adversity had led to Atari being sold, and Apple nearly went bankrupt. The Electron had been launched in 1983, but problems with
4048-517: The calculator market's move from LEDs to LCDs led to financial problems, and Sinclair approached government body the National Enterprise Board (NEB) for help. After losing control of the company to the NEB, Sinclair encouraged Chris Curry to leave Radionics and get Science of Cambridge (SoC—an early name for Sinclair Research ) up and running. In June 1978, SoC launched a microcomputer kit,
4136-558: The company and concentrate on becoming a digital TV and thin client company". Computerworld Online News reported an Acorn spokesman saying "The problem was that it would have had a retail cost about twice as high as for a comparable PC". After cancellation it came to light that as few as 150 to 300 pre-orders had been placed. In the aftermath of the cancellation of Phoebe 2100 and Acorn Computers' change in direction from general computing to set-top box development and DSP silicon design there were several attempts to resurrect some or all of
4224-483: The company and seeing their combined stake fall from 85.7% to 36.5%, the Italian computer company took a 49.3% stake in Acorn for £10.39 million, which went some way to covering Acorn's £10.9 million losses in the previous six months, effectively valuing Acorn at around a tenth of its valuation of £216 million the year before. Acorn's share price collapse and the suspension of its listing was attributed by some news outlets to
4312-443: The company's failure to establish itself in the US market, with one source citing costs of $ 5.5 million related to that endeavour. In July 1985, Olivetti acquired an additional £4 million of Acorn shares, raising its ownership stake in the company to 79.8%. Major creditors agreed to write off £7.9 million in debts, and the BBC agreed to waive 50% of outstanding royalty payments worth a reported £2 million. This second refinancing left
4400-401: The components. On 17 September 1998, Acorn finished a review of its business and decided to close the 'Workstation Division', the department developing Phoebe 2100, and all work stopped. Acorn Computers' CEO Stan Boland said, "There is not a big enough market for the PC (Risc PC 2), which is largely for home use and games. It's an enthusiast's product. We are going to resize the rest of
4488-631: The development of Acorn's ARM processor . In early 1980, the BBC Further Education department conceived the idea of a computer literacy programme, mostly as a follow-up to an ITV documentary , The Mighty Micro , in which Dr Christopher Evans from the UK National Physical Laboratory predicted the coming microcomputer revolution . It was a very influential documentary—so much so that questions were asked in Parliament . As
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#17330853645444576-584: The development of a microcomputer system with many innovative features". In April 1982, Sinclair launched the ZX Spectrum . Curry conceived of the Electron as Acorn's sub-£200 competitor. In many ways a cut-down BBC Micro, it used one Acorn-designed uncommitted logic array (ULA) to reproduce most of the functionality. But problems in producing the ULAs led to short supply, and the Electron, although launched in August 1983,
4664-461: The end of 1987, moving away from "individual customers" and towards "volume products", resulting in 47 of Acorn's 300 staff being made redundant, the closure of the custom systems division, and the abandonment of the Communicator. In February 1986, Acorn announced that it was ceasing US sales operations, and sold its remaining US BBC Microcomputers for $ 1.25 million to a Texas company, Basic, which
4752-472: The endeavour, the loss-making operation was closed in 1995 as part of broader cost-cutting and restructuring in response to a decline in revenue and difficulties experienced by various Acorn divisions. Ostensibly facilitated or catalysed by Olivetti's acquisition of Acorn, reports in late 1985 indicated plans for possible collaboration between Acorn, Olivetti and Thomson in the European education sector to define
4840-486: The extent of the pressure brought to bear on the supposedly independent BBC's computer literacy project—Newbury was owned by the National Enterprise Board , a government agency operating in close collaboration with the DoI. The choice was also somewhat ironic given that the NewBrain started life as a Sinclair Radionics project, and it was Sinclair's preference for developing it over Science of Cambridge's MK14 that led to Curry leaving SoC to found CPU with Hauser. The NEB moved
4928-467: The first ARM silicon on 26 April 1985; it worked first time and came to be known as ARM1. Its first practical application was as a second processor to the BBC Micro, where it was used to develop the simulation software to finish work on the support chips (VIDC, IOC, MEMC) and to speed up the operation of the CAD software used in developing ARM2. The ARM evaluation system was promoted as a means for developers to try
5016-442: The full front-side bus speed of 64 MHz, and the improved performance of the video chip was also seen; however, various bugs in the sound DMA were reported and general system instability was noted. As such, no shippable prototypes were yet available to send to the 'Registered Developers'. Two days later, on 17 September 1998, the development of Phoebe 2100 was cancelled. Development was expected to cost £2.1 million. During
5104-409: The increasing customer support burden. As part of Acorn's office automation aspirations, conducting "advanced software research and development", Acorn Research Center Incorporated was established in Palo Alto, California. Acorn Leasing Limited rounded out the portfolio. Even from the time of Acorn's earliest systems, the company was considering how to move on from the 6502 processor, introducing
5192-518: The instruction set allowed the code to be very dense, making ARM BBC BASIC an extremely good test for any ARM emulator. Such was the secrecy surrounding the ARM CPU project that when Olivetti were negotiating to take a controlling share of Acorn in 1985, they were not told about the development team until after the negotiations had been finalised. In 1992, Acorn once more won the Queen's Award for Technology for
5280-785: The instruction set, writing a simulation of the processor in BBC BASIC that ran on a BBC Micro with a 6502 second processor. It convinced the Acorn engineers that they were on the right track. Before they could go any further, however, they would need more resources. It was time for Wilson to approach Hauser and explain what was afoot. Once the go-ahead had been given, a small team was put together to implement Wilson's model in hardware. Acorn initiated its RISC research project in October 1983, and by 1987 had spent £5 million . VLSI Technology, Inc were chosen as silicon partner, since they already supplied Acorn with ROMs and some custom chips. VLSI produced
5368-481: The later Acorn Archimedes , were highly popular in Britain, while Acorn's BBC Micro computer dominated the educational computer market during the 1980s. Acorn also developed the reduced instruction set computing (RISC) architecture set in 1985 and an operating system , RISC OS , for the hardware. The company also designed the ARM architecture; this part of the business was spun-off as Advanced RISC Machines under
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#17330853645445456-436: The latter out of a total of 450 employees. Meanwhile, Acorn's chosen method of expansion into West Germany and the United States through the establishment of subsidiaries involved a "major commitment of resources", in contrast with a less costly strategy that might have emphasised collaboration with local distributors. Localisation of the BBC Micro for the US market also involved more expenditure than it otherwise might have due to
5544-507: The left of the keypad), and the other with the rest of the computer (including the CPU ). Almost all CPU signals were accessible via a Eurocard connector. The System 2 made it easier to expand the system by putting the CPU card from the System 1 in a 19-inch (480 mm) Eurocard rack that allowed a number of optional additions. The System 2 typically shipped with keyboard controller, external keyboard,
5632-534: The literacy programme nor to the BBC's specification. The BBC's programmes, initially scheduled for autumn 1981, were moved back to spring 1982. After Curry and Sinclair found out about the BBC's plans, the BBC allowed other manufacturers to submit their proposals. Hauser quickly drafted in Steve Furber (who had been working for Acorn on a voluntary basis since the ACE fruit machine project) and Sophie Wilson to help complete
5720-569: The magazine was acquired by Finnybank Ltd, which had previously purchased the RISC OS Acorn Publisher magazine: the two magazines were replaced by Qercus , edited by John Cartmell. This microcomputer - or microprocessor -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This UK computer magazine or journal-related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . See tips for writing articles about magazines . Further suggestions might be found on
5808-574: The market, with the money raised from the flotation "mainly" directed towards establishing US and German subsidiaries (the flotation raising around £13.4 million ), although some was directed towards research and product development. By the end of 1984, Acorn Computer Group was organised into several subsidiary companies. Acorn Computers Limited was responsible for the management of the microcomputer business, research and development, and UK sales and marketing, whereas Acorn Computer Corporation and Acorn Computers International Limited dealt with sales to
5896-473: The microcomputer system was to be expandable and growth-oriented. It also had the attraction of appearing before " Apple Computer " in a telephone directory. Around this time, CPU and Andy Hopper set up Orbis Ltd. to commercialise the Cambridge Ring networking system Hopper had worked on for his PhD , but it was soon decided to bring him into CPU as a director because he could promote CPU's interests at
5984-457: The new hardware features. RISC OS 3.80 was limited, it only ran on ARM6 and ARM7 RiscPCs and not StrongARM ( ARMv4 ) based ones. Testing of hardware compatibility would have to wait until an initial run of 100 or so pre-production machines was made available to Registered Developers. The Phoebe 2100 project used a series of names inspired by characters from the TV series ' Friends ' as code names for
6072-630: The position of seeking a financing partner for Acorn, but in a significantly more urgent timeframe, making "financial institutions or a large computer company" the most likely candidates, these having the necessary resources and decision-making agility for a timely intervention. The dire financial situation was brought to a head in February 1985, when one of Acorn's creditors issued a winding-up petition. It would eventually emerge that Acorn owed £31.1 million to various creditors including manufacturers AB Electronics and Wong's Electronics. Wong's had been awarded
6160-537: The production problem and in 1984, production reached its anticipated volumes, but the contracts Acorn had negotiated with its suppliers were not flexible enough to allow volumes to be reduced quickly in this unanticipated situation, and supplies of the Electron built up. At the time of the eventual financial rescue of Acorn in early 1985, it still had 100,000 unsold Electrons plus an inventory of components which had all been paid for and needed to be stored at additional expense. 40,000 BBC Micros also remained unsold. After
6248-541: The proprietary operating system offering "limited flexibility". Instead, Olivetti sought to promote its M19 personal computer for the European schools market, offering it to Acorn for sale in the UK (ultimately, as the rebadged Acorn M19 ). Olivetti would eventually offer both Acorn's Master Compact and the Thomson MO6 to the Italian market with its Prodest branding. Phoebe (computer) The Phoebe 2100 (or RiscPC 2 )
6336-429: The result of disagreement between Acorn and Lazards over the measures needed to rescue the company, with Lazards favouring a sale or refinancing whereby the founders would lose control, Acorn and their replacement advisors, Close Brothers, were reported to be pursuing a "radical reorganisation of the company". Lazards had sought to attract financing from GEC but had failed to do so. Close Brothers also found themselves in
6424-399: The same case as the RiscPC was dropped due to power supply requirements and electrical interference problems. To provide for these new capabilities Acorn had to design two new support chips for the system; During 1997 and 1998, Acorn regularly took prototype and mock-up hardware to various Acorn computer shows, including Acorn World October 1997, Wakefield Acorn Spring Show May 1998 and
6512-512: The same time, Acorn also bought into Torus Systems - a company developing a "graphics-controlled local network called Icon" for the IBM PC platform - to broaden Acorn's networking expertise. Icon was a solution based on Ethernet, as opposed to the Acorn-related Econet and Cambridge Ring technologies, equipping appropriately specified IBM-compatible computers to participate on a network using
6600-420: The state of Acorn's finances intensified with the appointment of a temporary chief executive, Alexander Reid, to run the company, together with the announcement that Acorn had replaced its financial advisors, Lazards, and that the company's stockbrokers, Cazenove, had resigned, ultimately leading to the suspension of Acorn shares, these having fallen to a low of 23 pence per share. With these events reportedly being
6688-501: The supply of its ULA meant that Acorn was not able to capitalise on the 1983 Christmas selling period. A successful advertising campaign, including TV advertisements, had led to 300,000 orders, but the Malaysian suppliers were only able to supply 30,000 machines. The apparently strong demand for Electrons proved to be ephemeral: rather than wait, parents bought Commodore 64 or ZX Spectrum for their children's presents. Ferranti solved
6776-413: The suspension of Acorn's shares. Of subsequent significance, Hermann Hauser was also expected to announce a "VLSI chip design using a reduced instruction set". Unveiled towards the end of 1985, the Communicator was Acorn's answer to ICL's One Per Desk initiative. This Acorn machine was based around a 16-bit 65SC816 CPU, 128 KB RAM, expandable to 512 KB, plus additional battery-backed RAM. It had
6864-462: The system for themselves. This system was used with a BBC Micro and a PC compatible version was also planned. Advertising was aimed at those with technical expertise, rather than consumers and the education market, with a number of technical specifications listed in the main text of the adverts. Wilson subsequently coded BBC BASIC in ARM assembly language, and the in-depth knowledge obtained from designing
6952-511: The vehicle with which to do this. CPU soon obtained a consultancy contract to develop a microprocessor-based controller for a fruit machine for Ace Coin Equipment (ACE) of Wales . The ACE project was started at office space obtained at 4a Market Hill in Cambridge. Initially, the ACE controller was based on a National Semiconductor SC/MP microprocessor, but soon the switch to a MOS Technology 6502
7040-399: The workstation. The advert claimed mainframe power at a price of £3,480 (excluding VAT). The main text of the advertisement referred to available mainframe languages, communication capabilities and the alternative option of upgrading a BBC Micro using a coprocessor . The machine had shown Sophie Wilson and Steve Furber the value of memory bandwidth. It also showed that an 8 MHz 32016
7128-439: The years following the release of the RiscPC , Acorn had discussed using an alternative to RISC OS as their next operating system, using TAOS or writing their own microkernel -based operating system Galileo . However, for the launch of Phoebe 2100 an enhanced version of RISC OS would be developed, called RISC OS 4 (codenamed 'Ursula' ). RISC OS wouldn't support the multiple processor daughter cards that had been included in
7216-1053: Was a subsidiary of Datum, the Mexican manufacturer of the Spanish version of the BBC Microcomputer (with modified Spanish keyboards for the South American market). The sales office in Woburn, Massachusetts was closed at this time. Acorn was reported as having achieved "negligible U.S. sales". In 1990, in contrast, Acorn set up a sales and marketing operation in Australia and New Zealand by seeking to acquire long-time distributor Barson Computers Australasia, with Acorn managing director Sam Wauchope noting Acorn's presence in Australia since 1983 and being "the only computer manufacturer whose products are recommended by all Australian state education authorities". Acorn also sought once again to expand into Germany in
7304-587: Was also spending a large portion of its reserves on development: the BBC Master was being developed; the ARM project was underway; the Acorn Business Computer entailed a lot of development work but delivered few products, with only the 32016-based model ever being sold (as the Cambridge Workstation). The company's research and development staff had grown from around 100 in 1983 to around 150 in 1984,
7392-487: Was completely trounced in performance terms by a 4 MHz 6502. Furthermore, the Apple Lisa had shown the Acorn engineers that they needed to develop a windowing system; this was not going to be easy with a 2–4 MHz 6502-based system doing the graphics. Acorn would need a new architecture. Acorn had investigated all of the readily available processors and found them wanting or unavailable to them. After testing all of
7480-477: Was floated on the Unlisted Securities Market as Acorn Computer Group plc , with Acorn Computers Ltd. as the microcomputer division. With a minimum tender price of 120p, the group came into existence with a market capitalisation of about £135 million. CPU founders Hermann Hauser and Chris Curry's stakes in the new company were worth £64m and £51m, respectively. Ten per cent of the equity was placed on
7568-453: Was made. CPU had financed the development of a SC/MP based microcomputer system using the income from its design-and-build consultancy. This system was launched in January 1979 as the first product of Acorn Computer Ltd. , a trading name used by CPU to keep the risks of the two different lines of business separate. The microcomputer kit was named as Acorn System 75. Acorn was chosen because
7656-478: Was not on the market in sufficient numbers to capitalise on the 1983 Christmas sales period. Acorn resolved to avoid this problem in 1984 and negotiated new production contracts. Acorn became more known for its BBC Micro model B than for its other products. In 2008, the Computer Conservation Society organised an event at London's Science Museum to mark the legacy of the BBC Micro. A number of
7744-422: Was to be Acorn Computers ' successor to the RiscPC , slated for release in late 1998. However, in September 1998, Acorn cancelled the project as part of a restructuring of the company. Processors running at 300 MHz were being sampled by Acorn in September 1998, with 360 MHz versions also expected. In November 1996, the design of what was to become Phoebe 2100 was started. The design took into account
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