8 ms·

The Ultimate Acorn Archimedes talk [video]

143 points by forinti 7y ago

markb139 7y ago
What a fantastic machine the Archimedes was. If your BASIC programs needed more performance, you just used the BASIC's built in assembler. In about '94 my Archie could out perform a modern(ish) 486DX PC despite it being an origonal '87 model
- eb0la 7y ago
  I remember getting an issue of "The Micro User" magazine at the beach with Lemmings in the cover and found out it was a kind of machine that I never heard of with a _really_ strange OS that looked like Amiga graphics. Fast forward 20 years and the processor that powered this machine evolved to something that's on every mobile phone / smart appliance I can see.
  - markb139 7y ago
    More like fast forward 10 years. By ‘97 most mobile devices ( the ones I came across at least) had started to use ARM. Even Palm devices eventually used ARM CPUs
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      Windows CE devices were also big users of MIPS and SuperH.
- alexisread 7y ago
  I think one of the big features was the amount of stuff built into the ROM- full IDE, word processor, paint, OS and GUI etc. That gives such a freedom akin to the 8bit machines to encourage coding as the baseline is always there, it's unbrickable, fast and more reliable than a hard drive. Speed wise it could run rings around a low-end 486 for computation, but it had hardware scrolling, timers for interrupts, 800x600 with 256 chunky colours, 8channel DMA sound and so could do perfect Amiga ports. Checkout starfighter 3000, XC or Darkwood for what it could do https://youtu.be/-j-1vxPmksM https://youtu.be/-j-1vxPmksM https://youtu.be/fevJ6jzgvGs https://youtu.be/fevJ6jzgvGs https://youtu.be/_Bx_m8xXr60 https://youtu.be/_Bx_m8xXr60
  - tudorw 7y ago
    Got to add Zarch to the list, we had one in the 'computer lab' surrounded by BBC micro's, I only touched on a little of it's potential, but this game was mind blowing! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNXypBxNGMo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNXypBxNGMo
  - danellis 7y ago
    > full IDE, word processor Neither of these. Just a very basic text editor.
    - pmyteh 7y ago
      There was also ARMBE, an embedded Basic code editor. It sucked, though.
  - markb139 7y ago
    Something else that was introduced, that we all take for granted these days, was anti-aliased fonts. At the time it was a huge leap (for me at least)
    - flir 7y ago
      Real-time spellcheck, as you type, was a feature it had /years/ earlier than MS.
  - mavhc 7y ago
    Don't forget vector graphics editor, meaning vector graphics were a native format for RISC OS
- theclaw 7y ago
  Not just on the Arc either - the inline assembler was also available in BBC BASIC on its predecessor, the BBC Micro. I remember you had to put the asm code in a FOR loop so the interpreter could do two passes - one to locate all the labels and one to assemble the result, I believe. That BASIC also had proper functions and procedures as well as special fast integer variables in zero page, it offered easy access to the whole machine from graphics to sound to ADCs and tape or disk IO. It was also very fast for the time, and the manuals that came with the machine were excellent. The BBC micro user manual section on the inline assembler is available here for anyone interested in how it worked: http://central.kaserver5.org/Kasoft/Typeset/BBC/Ch43.html http://central.kaserver5.org/Kasoft/Typeset/BBC/Ch43.html
  - momentoftop 7y ago
    One of the most famous games on the Micro was Repton, which the 16-year old Tim Tyler wrote mostly in BASIC, and then gradually optimised into inline assembly.
  - Wildgoose 7y ago
    The inline assembler was also available on the predecessor to the BBC micro, the Acorn Atom. (I'm proud to say I still have mine even if I haven't fired it up in years).
Lio 7y ago
I always wondered if an original 1987 Archi could have been coaxed into running something like Doom. If that had been available back then would it have changed the popularity of the system. Mind you, I always wonder what would have happened if they had open sourced their OS back then and provided the source with a monthly subscription update service.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  > I always wondered if an original 1987 Archi could have been coaxed into running something like Doom. Doom was released for this platform, wasn't it? Indeed, being able to run 3D-ish games cleanly would have been a significant advantage for the Acorn over its home-computer competitors. (I think the 3DO platform was also built on an ARM architecture, and was ultimately far more successful in the gaming domain) > Mind you, I always wonder what would have happened if they had open sourced their OS back then The OS still isn't open source even today, long after becoming commercially irrelevant. Quite sad.
  - m0xte 7y ago
    Err yeah it is open source https://gitlab.riscosopen.org/RiscOS https://gitlab.riscosopen.org/RiscOS
    - zozbot234 7y ago
      AIUI, this is a clone of some sort of the original RISC OS (the version that shipped with Acorn machines). It does feature some real improvements, such as being 32-bit clean which is needed for modern ARM hardware (the Acorn Archimedes had a 26-bit address space).
      - m0xte 7y ago
        It’s a derivative of the original code. Much like the BSD derivatives of the original 4.4BSD source. I think there were some licensing issues originally.
      - 7y ago
weinzierl 7y ago
Like other systems of its time it didn't have a cache. CPU and RAM ran at about the same speed, so waiting for data from memory was only a small problem. Everything worked quite deterministic back then. Now with Moore's law coming to an end I sometimes dream that RAM speeds might catch up so much that we can get rid of the caches again and that we will get back the nice deterministic performance behaviour we had in the old times.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  You will always have caches of some sort because of the speed of light limit, and because moving data accounts for a lot of the power consumption in modern-day chips. What you'd need for determinism is caches that behave more like pure scratchpad storage. Ultimately the OS gets in the way of this, as does multicore (which comes with the need for costly cache-coherency setups in order to keep the desired semantics for shared memory access.)
gallerdude 7y ago
I’m glad the “Ultimate” series talks are back - hoping for a SNES or NES next.
jacquesm 7y ago
One of the best things about the Archimedes (and the BBC micro) to me was that you just switched it on and went to work. No minutes of waiting for it to load stuff, just power up and go.
- mavhc 7y ago
  Well, until about 1994, by the time RISC PCs and Hard drives were standard the !Boot system had bloated quite a bit
shyrka 7y ago
It's a shame he didn't go into StrongARM Acorn machines. A7000 and RISC-PC machines. They were true powerhouses. I went to the Wakefield (UK) Acorn show and was privileged to see the Phoebe! All I remember of the unreleased machine was that the case front was designed by the person who designed the ZIP drive. It was yellow and had a 64Mhz bus which was apparently compatible with PCI standards. Always loved Acorn computers; being a product of the BBC Microcomputer initiative in the UK.
sys_64738 7y ago
Not forgetting Arthur 1.2 OS the predecessor to RISC-OS!

143 points by forinti 7y ago

What a fantastic machine the Archimedes was. If your BASIC programs needed more performance, you just used the BASIC's built in assembler. In about '94 my Archie could out perform a modern(ish) 486DX PC despite it being an origonal '87 model

eb0la 7y ago
I remember getting an issue of "The Micro User" magazine at the beach with Lemmings in the cover and found out it was a kind of machine that I never heard of with a _really_ strange OS that looked like Amiga graphics. Fast forward 20 years and the processor that powered this machine evolved to something that's on every mobile phone / smart appliance I can see.
- markb139 7y ago
  More like fast forward 10 years. By ‘97 most mobile devices ( the ones I came across at least) had started to use ARM. Even Palm devices eventually used ARM CPUs
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Windows CE devices were also big users of MIPS and SuperH.
alexisread 7y ago
I think one of the big features was the amount of stuff built into the ROM- full IDE, word processor, paint, OS and GUI etc. That gives such a freedom akin to the 8bit machines to encourage coding as the baseline is always there, it's unbrickable, fast and more reliable than a hard drive. Speed wise it could run rings around a low-end 486 for computation, but it had hardware scrolling, timers for interrupts, 800x600 with 256 chunky colours, 8channel DMA sound and so could do perfect Amiga ports. Checkout starfighter 3000, XC or Darkwood for what it could do https://youtu.be/-j-1vxPmksM https://youtu.be/-j-1vxPmksM https://youtu.be/fevJ6jzgvGs https://youtu.be/fevJ6jzgvGs https://youtu.be/_Bx_m8xXr60 https://youtu.be/_Bx_m8xXr60
- tudorw 7y ago
  Got to add Zarch to the list, we had one in the 'computer lab' surrounded by BBC micro's, I only touched on a little of it's potential, but this game was mind blowing! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNXypBxNGMo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNXypBxNGMo
- danellis 7y ago
  > full IDE, word processor Neither of these. Just a very basic text editor.
  - pmyteh 7y ago
    There was also ARMBE, an embedded Basic code editor. It sucked, though.
- markb139 7y ago
  Something else that was introduced, that we all take for granted these days, was anti-aliased fonts. At the time it was a huge leap (for me at least)
  - flir 7y ago
    Real-time spellcheck, as you type, was a feature it had /years/ earlier than MS.
- mavhc 7y ago
  Don't forget vector graphics editor, meaning vector graphics were a native format for RISC OS
theclaw 7y ago
Not just on the Arc either - the inline assembler was also available in BBC BASIC on its predecessor, the BBC Micro. I remember you had to put the asm code in a FOR loop so the interpreter could do two passes - one to locate all the labels and one to assemble the result, I believe. That BASIC also had proper functions and procedures as well as special fast integer variables in zero page, it offered easy access to the whole machine from graphics to sound to ADCs and tape or disk IO. It was also very fast for the time, and the manuals that came with the machine were excellent. The BBC micro user manual section on the inline assembler is available here for anyone interested in how it worked: http://central.kaserver5.org/Kasoft/Typeset/BBC/Ch43.html http://central.kaserver5.org/Kasoft/Typeset/BBC/Ch43.html
- momentoftop 7y ago
  One of the most famous games on the Micro was Repton, which the 16-year old Tim Tyler wrote mostly in BASIC, and then gradually optimised into inline assembly.
- Wildgoose 7y ago
  The inline assembler was also available on the predecessor to the BBC micro, the Acorn Atom. (I'm proud to say I still have mine even if I haven't fired it up in years).

Lio 7y ago

I always wondered if an original 1987 Archi could have been coaxed into running something like Doom. If that had been available back then would it have changed the popularity of the system. Mind you, I always wonder what would have happened if they had open sourced their OS back then and provided the source with a monthly subscription update service.

zozbot234 7y ago
> I always wondered if an original 1987 Archi could have been coaxed into running something like Doom. Doom was released for this platform, wasn't it? Indeed, being able to run 3D-ish games cleanly would have been a significant advantage for the Acorn over its home-computer competitors. (I think the 3DO platform was also built on an ARM architecture, and was ultimately far more successful in the gaming domain) > Mind you, I always wonder what would have happened if they had open sourced their OS back then The OS still isn't open source even today, long after becoming commercially irrelevant. Quite sad.
- m0xte 7y ago
  Err yeah it is open source https://gitlab.riscosopen.org/RiscOS https://gitlab.riscosopen.org/RiscOS
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    AIUI, this is a clone of some sort of the original RISC OS (the version that shipped with Acorn machines). It does feature some real improvements, such as being 32-bit clean which is needed for modern ARM hardware (the Acorn Archimedes had a 26-bit address space).
    - m0xte 7y ago
      It’s a derivative of the original code. Much like the BSD derivatives of the original 4.4BSD source. I think there were some licensing issues originally.
    - 7y ago

weinzierl 7y ago

Like other systems of its time it didn't have a cache. CPU and RAM ran at about the same speed, so waiting for data from memory was only a small problem. Everything worked quite deterministic back then. Now with Moore's law coming to an end I sometimes dream that RAM speeds might catch up so much that we can get rid of the caches again and that we will get back the nice deterministic performance behaviour we had in the old times.

zozbot234 7y ago
You will always have caches of some sort because of the speed of light limit, and because moving data accounts for a lot of the power consumption in modern-day chips. What you'd need for determinism is caches that behave more like pure scratchpad storage. Ultimately the OS gets in the way of this, as does multicore (which comes with the need for costly cache-coherency setups in order to keep the desired semantics for shared memory access.)

gallerdude 7y ago

I’m glad the “Ultimate” series talks are back - hoping for a SNES or NES next.

jacquesm 7y ago

One of the best things about the Archimedes (and the BBC micro) to me was that you just switched it on and went to work. No minutes of waiting for it to load stuff, just power up and go.

mavhc 7y ago
Well, until about 1994, by the time RISC PCs and Hard drives were standard the !Boot system had bloated quite a bit

shyrka 7y ago

It's a shame he didn't go into StrongARM Acorn machines. A7000 and RISC-PC machines. They were true powerhouses. I went to the Wakefield (UK) Acorn show and was privileged to see the Phoebe! All I remember of the unreleased machine was that the case front was designed by the person who designed the ZIP drive. It was yellow and had a 64Mhz bus which was apparently compatible with PCI standards. Always loved Acorn computers; being a product of the BBC Microcomputer initiative in the UK.

sys_64738 7y ago

Not forgetting Arthur 1.2 OS the predecessor to RISC-OS!