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Title is factually correct, but is somewhat misleading - it implies ARM arch existed and then the Archimedes was designed around it (and was the first desktop t
by beagle3 6y ago
Title is factually correct, but is somewhat misleading - it implies ARM arch existed and then the Archimedes was designed around it (and was the first desktop to have that property);
In fact, the ARM was designed for the Acorn Archimedes, and that’s why no desktop, or server, or anything, used it before the Archimedes - ARM stands for “Acorn RISC Machine”.
- easygenes 6y agoYeah, perhaps something like, “The Acorn Archimedes was the first desktop using (and original target of) the ARM architecture,” would be more suiting. Or even, “The ARM architecture was originally designed for a PC, the Acorn Archimedes”
- bencollier49 6y agoCalling the Archimedes a PC would be kind of misleading. It was a personal computer in the sense used before the term implied an IBM compatible.
- easygenes 6y agoAren’t people calling RasPi a PC? I think it’s come back around.
- lproven 6y agoOP here. For reasons I do not understand, HN seems to have re-titled my submission. The original title is: « Why Wait For Apple? Try Out The Original ARM Desktop Experience Today With A Raspberry Pi Future MacBooks and iMacs are going to be powered using a ARM-based chip, but the Acorn Archimedes was the first desktop to use this architecture » I very slightly edited the 1st line to fit, abbreviating "Raspberry Pi".
- jecel 6y agoVLSI made the ARM2 and chipset available in early 1987. I seriously considered using that in a machine I was designing instead of the 68020. But I had been burned by Motorola announcing chips and then cancelling them when almost nobody used them (an update of the TRS-80 Color Computer chipset that could be used with the 6809 or 68000) so I decided to continue with the 68020 until somebody else came out with an ARM product. Acorn launched the Archimedes at the end of 1987 and I bought the chips and the manuals and wrote an ARM assembler and simulator. But the project was frozen and I only actually built the machine in 1992 though the chips were obsolete by then. http://www.smalltalk.org.br/fotos/casa3.jpg http://www.smalltalk.org.br/fotos/casa3.jpg While the chips were indeed created specifically for the Archimedes, it would have been possible for some other company to have made a machine with them before Acorn.
- mattlondon 6y agoYour story sounds interesting - is there more we can read about it?
- jecel 6y agoSome pictures from 1983 to 2008: http://www.merlintec.com/swiki/hardware/28.html http://www.merlintec.com/swiki/hardware/28.html A talk about Smalltalk computers includes my projects, but I didn't make it very clear in the slides which ones are mine (13-15, 22, 24, 28, 29, 35, 36, 40, 42-54): http://www.merlintec.com/download/2019_slides_jecel_fast1v2.pdf http://www.merlintec.com/download/2019_slides_jecel_fast1v2.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tATpzsyC6OA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tATpzsyC6OA
- Flow 6y agoI remember you from the Tunes project. :) http://tunes.org/ http://tunes.org/
- imtringued 6y agoNowadays ARM is just "arm". The acronym has no specific meaning.