View Full Version : Acorn computers
Linux_junkie
February 21st, 2010, 03:01 PM
Hello, whilst reading a thread about the old Amiga computers I suddenly started thinking about the old Acorn computers and wondered how many people here remember them.
The last Acorn computer I used was the Archimedes which used a RISC processor and had a very good / powerful OS but I cannot remember what it was called. This was back in the early 90's and was a lot more advanced than the latest version of Windows at the time.
I wonder what happened to the company?
I've just Yahoo'd Acorn seems the company is still going and still developing its RISC OS.
JDShu
February 21st, 2010, 03:21 PM
My secondary school used to teach us how to use Acorns. I always complained with my friends about why they didn't upgrade the things to Windows PCs. They eventually did.
Sporkman
February 21st, 2010, 05:37 PM
Acorn Computers was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the UK. These included the Acorn Electron, the BBC Micro and the Acorn Archimedes. Acorn's BBC Micro computer dominated the UK educational computer market during the 1980s and early 1990s, drawing many comparisons with Apple in the U.S. Though the company was broken up into several independent operations in 1998, its legacy includes the development of RISC personal computers. A number of Acorn's former subsidiaries live on today - notably ARM Holdings, which is globally dominant in the mobile phone and PDA microprocessor market.
Due to its innovative designs and the future success of many of its former employees, Acorn is sometimes known as "the British Apple"...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Computers
koshatnik
February 21st, 2010, 06:28 PM
Hello, whilst reading a thread about the old Amiga computers I suddenly started thinking about the old Acorn computers and wondered how many people here remember them.
The last Acorn computer I used was the Archimedes which used a RISC processor and had a very good / powerful OS but I cannot remember what it was called. This was back in the early 90's and was a lot more advanced than the latest version of Windows at the time.
I wonder what happened to the company?
I've just Yahoo'd Acorn seems the company is still going and still developing its RISC OS.
We used to point and laugh at Acorn users at school. Spectrum FTW!
BuffaloX
February 21st, 2010, 06:49 PM
The Archimedes used the ARM processor!
The OS was called RISC OS if I remember correctly.
yester64
February 21st, 2010, 07:43 PM
I have seen once an Archimedes in real and it was nice. Looked like an Amiga with keyboard and computer as one unit.
But i heard the biggest problem was software. It just did not have the software to gain more popularity. And Amiga was more popular at that time anyway, plus Atari.
Risc was very promising, since the machine was so much faster than what we had at the time.
A real shame....
squilookle
February 21st, 2010, 09:33 PM
We used to have both the BBC Micro and the Archimedes at school. Some of the Archmedes had a combined computer and keyboard with a floppy disc drive built into the side (I believe they were the newer and more powerful ones), the others had a separate computer and keyboard, the computer having the disc drive on the front. We even had one with a CD Rom drive, but the CD's could not just go straight into the drive, you had to put them in a special holder and then plug that into the drive.
Fond memories. :)
I remember working with spreadsheets, playing this rubbish but addictive maze game, and drawing a picture of Eric Cartmen in some Vector graphics program for a project when South Park had first come out.... (out school ran Windows 95, NT4 and the Acorns side by side for long time, the Acorns being in the "old" computer rooms.
I remember the Acorns taking absolutely AGES to boot.
Last part of my rant, talking about surviving bits of the legacy, I do believe the Rox desktop is modelled after the Risc OS desktop.
adeypoop
February 21st, 2010, 11:15 PM
Ah those were the days, my first computer was an Acorn Electron, it was a bit limited but still had some really good games, chuckie egg, killer gorilla, galaga etc Was also a very good computer for learning to program on, got that to thank for my career now I reckon. good times.
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