6 ms·

This takes me back. For those somewhat younger than me... This was the first 32 bit machine widely and cheaply available in the UK. It shipped, briefly with

This takes me back. For those somewhat younger than me... This was the first 32 bit machine widely and cheaply available in the UK. It shipped, briefly with Arthur OS (as mentioned in article), and then RiscOS came out which was so much better. C was supported. Apps were a folder containing the code, plus a "magic" file called !Boot, which was scanned and ...executed... by the OS. Which lead to the first bunch of viruses. An upgrade chip was available a couple of years afterwards (33Mhz IIRC). The software wasteland as described in the article wasn't as bad as it sounds, there was lots of "home brew" software being distributed via floppy disks in the school playground (no internet kids!), including a hypertext/markup editor (that I can't find the link to) but for static docs, not internet ones. Impressions [1] was the word processor of choice. And was leagues ahead of WordPerfect and Word. Published magazines were also full of code (that you had to type in), as well as the beginnings of "free disk on the cover of this magazine". The archimedes shipped with !Draw and a few other built in apps. !Draw was a vector drawing app, that was again, unlike anything on any other machine. So many (mainstream) firsts, but just didn't "win" (a bit like a lot of tech today). It's just such a shame that Acorn didn't have any reach into America and sell it in volume. 1. http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/cgi/archive.pl?type=Software&platform=Acorn%20Archimedes http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/cgi/archive.pl?type=Softw...

stevekemp 4y ago
I remember when I went to sixth form in the early nineties they had a couple of the Archimedes machines around the place - but all the kids, and staff, used the x86 machines (running GEM IIRC) instead. I had a couple of friends at the time who'd owned BBC Machines, but most people had the ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64. I never knew anybody who personally owned an Archimedes at all, and other than seeing them at the sixth form I never saw any at all in the wild.
- DrBazza 4y ago
  My school back then went from BBC micros straight to PCs as well (I suspect it might have been govt policy, or lack thereof). And the PCs then were awful compared to the Arch. Can't remember if it was an early version of Windows or OS/2, but back then the PC gui desktop was absolutely shocking in comparison to the Archimedes and Macintosh.
mattkevan 4y ago
My school was all in on Acorn, so we had a number of different Acorns over the years, starting with Arthur and then upgrading to RiscOS. In fact, my first experience of computer hardware was prising out the Arthur ROM chips and replacing them with RiscOS ones. It truly was unique - could boot in seconds and was usable immediately thanks to the built in vector, bitmap and text editors. It was a shock whenever I visited a friends house and they had an IBM PC - DOS and Windows felt like relics from the past in comparison. Really wanted to get a Risc PC, but by the mid 90’s it was clear Acorn weren’t going to make it. We got an Apple instead, which at the time it wasn’t obvious they were going to make it either.
- DrBazza 4y ago
  Digging a ROM out of a motherboard made you value the machine even more. I can distinctly remember bending the leg on one of the chips and carefully straightening it, otherwise that would have been £80 (?!?!?) down the drain which was a lot back in the early 90s.

stevekemp 4y ago

I remember when I went to sixth form in the early nineties they had a couple of the Archimedes machines around the place - but all the kids, and staff, used the x86 machines (running GEM IIRC) instead. I had a couple of friends at the time who'd owned BBC Machines, but most people had the ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64. I never knew anybody who personally owned an Archimedes at all, and other than seeing them at the sixth form I never saw any at all in the wild.

DrBazza 4y ago
My school back then went from BBC micros straight to PCs as well (I suspect it might have been govt policy, or lack thereof). And the PCs then were awful compared to the Arch. Can't remember if it was an early version of Windows or OS/2, but back then the PC gui desktop was absolutely shocking in comparison to the Archimedes and Macintosh.

mattkevan 4y ago

My school was all in on Acorn, so we had a number of different Acorns over the years, starting with Arthur and then upgrading to RiscOS. In fact, my first experience of computer hardware was prising out the Arthur ROM chips and replacing them with RiscOS ones. It truly was unique - could boot in seconds and was usable immediately thanks to the built in vector, bitmap and text editors. It was a shock whenever I visited a friends house and they had an IBM PC - DOS and Windows felt like relics from the past in comparison. Really wanted to get a Risc PC, but by the mid 90’s it was clear Acorn weren’t going to make it. We got an Apple instead, which at the time it wasn’t obvious they were going to make it either.

DrBazza 4y ago
Digging a ROM out of a motherboard made you value the machine even more. I can distinctly remember bending the leg on one of the chips and carefully straightening it, otherwise that would have been £80 (?!?!?) down the drain which was a lot back in the early 90s.