Acorn Computers
Encyclopedia
Acorn Computers Ltd. 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. Though the company was broken up into several independent operations in 1998, its legacy includes the development of RISC personal computers. Its operating system
continues to be developed (as two fork
s) by RISCOS Ltd
and RISC OS Open
. Some 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".
founded Sinclair Radionics to develop and sell electronic devices such as calculator
s. The failure of the Black Watch
wristwatch and the calculator market's move from LEDs
to LCDs
led to financial problems, and Sinclair approached 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) up and running. In June 1978, SoC launched a microcomputer kit 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 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
was made.
" 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 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 a little while later.
The Acorn Microcomputer, later renamed the Acorn System 1
, was designed by Sophie Wilson
. It was a semi-professional system aimed at engineering and laboratory users, but its price was low enough, at around £80, 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 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 inches (482.6 mm) Eurocard rack that allowed a number of optional additions. The System 2 typically shipped with keyboard controller, external keyboard, 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
.
started at Science of Cambridge in May 1979. Learning of this probably prompted Curry to conceive 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 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 a quite typical set-up for an inexpensive home computer of the early '80s—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.
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 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 the development of Acorn's 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 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 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 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, the BBC Micro being one of the most popular. Schools were offered 50 per cent of the cost of computers, providing they chose one of three suppliers: 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 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.
The 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 early in autumn 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 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, 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.
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 the BBC Micro's principal creators were present, and Sophie Wilson recounted to the BBC how Hermann Hauser tricked herself and Steve Furber to agree to create the physical prototype in less than 5 days. Also in 2008 a number of former staff organised a reunion event to mark the 30th anniversary of the company's formation.
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 stake in the new company was worth £64m (Hauser) and £51m (Curry).
Even from the time of the Atom, Acorn were considering how to move on from the 6502
processor: the 16-bit
Acorn Communicator
developed in 1982 using the 65816 being a key example.
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, 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—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 the 6502. Because of many-cycle uninterruptible instructions, for example, the interrupt
response times of the 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 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 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—and 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. Having ruled out existing CPUs, it was clear to the developers that Acorn should seriously consider designing its own processor. Acorn’s engineers came across papers on the Berkeley RISC project. They could now handle the truth: if a class of graduate students could create a competitive 32-bit processor, then Acorn would have no problem. A trip to the Western Design Center
in Phoenix showed Furber and Wilson that they did not need massive resources and state-of-the-art R&D facilities.
Sophie Wilson set about developing 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.
The official Acorn RISC Machine project started in October 1983, with Acorn spending on it by 1987. VLSI Technology, Inc were chosen as silicon partner, since they already supplied Acorn with ROMs and some custom chips. VLSI produced 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 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 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 the ARM
. Acorn's development of their 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.
was sold, Apple
nearly went bust, and Acorn had solved the one problem it had had throughout its history: production volumes.
The Electron had been launched in 1983, but problems with the supply of
its ULAs 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 illusory: rather than wait, parents bought Commodore 64
s or ZX Spectrum
s for their children's presents. Ferranti
solved 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—supplies of the Electron built up. Acorn was in real trouble: by the end of the year it had 250,000 unsold Electrons on its hands, which had all been paid for and needed to be stored—at additional expense.
Acorn 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 ultimately proved to be something of a flop, with only the 32016-based version ever being sold (as the Cambridge Workstation); and obtaining Federal approval for the BBC Micro in order to expand into the United States proved to be 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. Around $20m was sunk into the U.S. operation but the NTSC modified BBC Micros sold barely at all. They did, however, make an appearance in the school of Supergirl
in the 1984 film Supergirl: The Movie.
on 20 February. The Italian computer company took a 49.3% stake in Acorn for £12 million, which went some way to covering Acorn's £11 million losses in the previous six months. This valuation fell some £165m below Acorn's peak valuation of £190m. In September 1985, Olivetti took a controlling share of Acorn with 79% of shares.
was launched in February 1986 and met with great success. From 1986 to 1989, about 200,000 systems were sold, each costing £499, mainly to UK schools and universities. A number of enhanced versions were launched—for example, the Master 512, which had 512 KB
of RAM and an internal 80186
processor for MS-DOS
compatibility, and the Master Turbo, which had a 65C102 second processor.
The first commercial use of the ARM architecture
was in the ARM Development System, a Tube-linked second processor for the BBC Master which allowed one to write program
s for the new system. It sold for £4,500 and included the ARM processor, 4 MB
of RAM and a set of development tools with an enhanced version of BBC BASIC. (This system did not include the three support chips—VIDC, MEMC, and IOC—which were later to form part of the Archimedes system. They made their first appearance in the A500 second processor, which was used internally within Acorn as a development platform, and had a similar form-factor to the ARM development system.
The second ARM-based product was the Acorn Archimedes
desktop-computer, released in mid-1987, some 18 months after IBM
launched their RISC-based PC/RT. The Archimedes was popular in the United Kingdom
, Australasia
and Ireland
, and was considerably more powerful and advanced than most offerings of the day. The Archimedes was advertised in both printed and broadcast media. One example of such advertising is a mock-up of the RISC OS 2 desktop, showing some software application directories, with the advert text added within windows. However, the vast majority of home users opted for an Atari ST
or Commodore Amiga when looking to upgrade their 8-bit micros. As with the BBC, the Archimedes instead flourished in schools and other educational settings but just a few short years later in the early 1990s this market began stratifying into the PC
-dominated world. Acorn continued to produce updated models of the Archimedes including a laptop (the A4) and in 1994 launched the Risc PC
, whose top specification would later include a 200 MHz+ StrongARM
processor. These were sold mainly into education, specialist and enthusiast markets.
Apple
was developing an entirely new computing platform, the Newton
. Various requirements had been set for the processor in terms of power consumption, cost and performance, and there was also a need for fully static operation in which the clock could be stopped at any time. Only the Acorn RISC Machine came close to meeting all these demands, but there were still deficiencies. The ARM did not, for example, have an integral memory management unit, as this function was being provided by the MEMC support chip and Acorn did not have the resources to develop one.
Apple and Acorn began to collaborate on developing the ARM, and it was decided that this would be best achieved by a separate company. The bulk of the Advanced Research and Development section of Acorn that had developed the ARM CPU formed the basis of ARM Ltd when that company was spun off in November 1990. Acorn Group and Apple Computer Inc each had a 43% shareholding in ARM (in 1996), while VLSI were an investor and first ARM licensee.
system which would allow users to select and watch video
content over a network. In September 1994 the Cambridge Digital Interactive Television Trial of video-on-demand services was set up by Online Media, Anglia Television
, Cambridge Cable
(now part of Virgin Media
) and Advanced Telecommunication Modules Ltd
(ATML)—the trial involved creating a wide area ATM network linking TV-company to subscribers' homes and delivering services such as home shopping, online education, software downloaded on-demand and the World Wide Web
.
The wide area network used a combination of fibre and coaxial cable, and the switches were housed in the roadside cabinets of Cambridge Cable's existing network.
Olivetti Research Laboratory
developed the technology used by the trial.
An ICL video server provided the service via ATM switches manufactured by ATML, another company set up by Hauser and Hopper. The trial commenced at a speed of 2 Mbit/s to the home, subsequently increased to 25 Mbit/s.
Subscribers used Acorn Online Media set-top boxes
.
For the first six months the trial involved 10 VOD terminals; the second phase was expanded to cover 100 homes and 8 schools with a further 150 terminals in test labs. A number of other organisations gradually joined in, including the National Westminster Bank
, the BBC
, the Post Office, Tesco
and the local education authority
.
BBC Education tested delivery of radio-on-demand programmes to primary schools, and a new educational service, Education Online, was established to deliver material such as Open University
television programmes and educational software. Netherhall School
was provided with an inexpensive video server and operated as a provider of Trial services, with Anglia Polytechnic University taking up a similar role some time later. It was hoped that Online Media could be floated as a separate company, but the predicted video-on-demand boom never really materialised.
"Computers for Schools" programme in the UK, providing hardware and software in exchange for vouchers collected from Tesco purchases.
The Welsh Office Multimedia/Portables Initiative (WOMPI), launched in 1996, prescribed that Welsh schools choosing the multimedia option received multimedia PC
s exclusively supplied by RM
. This upset other suppliers and members of the National Association of Advisers for Computers in Education (NAACE).
's The Money Programme
screened an interview with Larry Ellison
in October 1995, Acorn Online Media Managing Director Malcolm Bird realised that Ellison's network computer
was, basically, an Acorn set-top box. After initial discussions between Oracle Corporation
and Olivetti, Hauser and Acorn a few weeks later, Bird was dispatched to San Francisco with Acorn's latest Set Top Box. Oracle had already talked seriously with computer manufacturers including Sun
and Apple about the contract for putting together the NC blueprint machine; there were also rumours in the industry that said Oracle itself was working on the reference design. After Bird's visit to Oracle, Ellison visited Acorn and a deal was reached: Acorn would define the NC Reference Standard.
Ellison was expecting to announce the NC in February 1996. Sophie Wilson was put in charge of the NC project, and by mid-November a draft NC specification was ready. By January 1996 the formal details of the contract between Acorn and Oracle had been worked out, and the PCB was designed and ready to be put into production. In February 1996 Acorn Network Computing was founded. In August 1996 it launched the Acorn Network Computer
.
It was hoped that the Network Computer would create a significant new sector in which Acorn Network Computing would be a major player, either selling its own products or earning money from licence fees paid by other manufacturers for the right to produce their own NCs.
To that end, two of Acorn's major projects were the creation of a new 'consumer device' operating system, Galileo and, in conjunction with Digital Semiconductor and ARM, a new StrongARM chipset consisting of the SA-1500 and SA-1501. Galileo's main feature was a guarantee of a certain quality of service
to each process in which the resources (CPU, memory, etc.) required to ensure reliable operation would be kept available regardless of the behaviour of other processes. The SA-1500 sported higher clock rates than existing StrongARM CPUs and, more importantly, a media-focussed coprocessor (the Attached Media Processor or AMP). The SA-1500 was to be the first release target for Galileo.
After having incorporated its STB and NC business areas as separate companies, Acorn created a new wholly owned subsidiary, Acorn RISC Technologies (ART). ART focused on the development of other software and hardware technologies built on top of ARM processors.
which raised £18 million for Acorn throughout 1998. In June 1998 Stan Boland took over as CEO of Acorn Computers from David Lee and there then followed a review of Acorn's core business.
The company had losses of £9 million in the first 9 months of the year and in September 1998 the results of the review led to a significant restructuring of the company. The Workstation division was to close, a 40% reduction in staff and the Risc PC 2 code-named Phoebe
that was nearing completion was cancelled which allowed for a reduction in on-going losses. Acorn decided to focus on two remaining activities. 1) Development of Set-Top-Box products for the digital TV market, 2) The development of silicon and software for a high performance media centric DSP
.
To concentrate on these two activities Acorn hired a group of former STMicroelectronics
silicon design engineers and they formed the basis of a silicon design centre that Acorn set up in Bristol
. They also started to dispose of some of their interests in the former workstation market. In October they granted distribution rights to the existing designs of machines to Castle Technology
to supply the former Workstation market's dealer network, sold their 50% interest in Xemplar Education to Apple computers in Jan 1999, and in March 1999 RISCOS Ltd
acquired a license to develop and release RISC OS
.
By Jan 1999 Acorn Computers Ltd had renamed to Element 14 Limited (though still owned by Acorn Group plc), this change was to reflect the changed nature of the business and to distance itself from the education market that Acorn Computers was most known for.
During this time the ARM Holdings share value had increased to a point where the capital value of Acorn Group was worth less than the value of its 24% holding in ARM. This situation led shareholders to press Acorn to sell its stake in ARM Holdings to provide a return on their investment.
In May 1999 a deal was offered to Acorn Group plc shareholders by MSDW Investment Holdings Limited, a newly incorporated subsidiary of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Group
, which would give them 2 ARM Holdings shares for every 5 Acorn Group shares that they owned. The shareholders accepted and on 1 June 1999 Acorn Group plc was purchased by MSDW for . The transaction involved the de-listing from the stock market of Acorn Group plc, as a result of which its shareholding in ARM was distributed to Acorn's shareholders.
As part of the deal with MSDW, the STB division was to be sold to Pace Micro Technology for £209,000, and Stan Boland was given the option to lead a management buy out of the DSP business and on 26 July 1999, MSDW sold it for the net asset value of £1.5 million to them.
The newly independent Element 14 set about raising venture capital and subsequently secured £8.25 ($13) million in first-round funding from Bessemer Venture Partners
, Atlas Ventures and Herman Hauser's Amadeus Capital Partners.
In February 2000 Element 14 successfully head-hunted Alcatel's
top digital subscriber line
(DSL) engineers, including designers of analogue front-end and digital ICs, xDSL modem software and specialists in asymmetric DSL
(ADSL) and very high rate DSL (VDSL) systems, and thereby acquired an engineering centre in Mechelen
, Belgium
. This reflected a shift towards the companies targeting of the DSP technology away from Media and towards DSL markets.
Element 14 continued to develop its DSP products until it was purchased by Broadcom
in November 2000 for £366 million ($594 million) and Element 14 became Broadcom's DSL business unit.
In early 2006, the dormant Acorn trademark was licensed from the French
company, Aristide & Co Antiquaire De Marques, by a new company
based in Nottingham
. This company was dissolved in late 2009.
In late 2011, the Acorn Trademark was transfered from the French
company, Aristide & Co Antiquaire De Marques, to French
company, Data Access
.
, a drama based on the rivalry between Acorn Computers and Sinclair's competing machines.
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
company established in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. These included the Acorn Electron
Acorn Electron
The Acorn Electron is a budget version of the BBC Micro educational/home computer made by Acorn Computers Ltd. It has 32 kilobytes of RAM, and its ROM includes BBC BASIC along with its operating system....
, the BBC Micro
BBC Micro
The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, was a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers for the BBC Computer Literacy Project, operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation...
, and the Acorn Archimedes
Acorn Archimedes
The Acorn Archimedes was Acorn Computers Ltd's first general purpose home computer to be based on their own ARM architecture.Using a RISC design with a 32-bit CPU, at its launch in June 1987, the Archimedes was stated as running at 4 MIPS, with a claim of 18 MIPS during tests.The name is commonly...
. Acorn's BBC Micro
BBC Micro
The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, was a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers for the BBC Computer Literacy Project, operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation...
computer dominated the UK educational computer market during the 1980s and early 1990s. Though the company was broken up into several independent operations in 1998, its legacy includes the development of RISC personal computers. Its operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
continues to be developed (as two fork
Fork (software development)
In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a legal copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct piece of software...
s) by RISCOS Ltd
RISCOS Ltd
RISCOS Ltd. is a limited company engaged in computer software and IT consulting. It licensed the rights to from Element 14 and subsequently Pace Micro Technology. It continues to develop...
and RISC OS Open
RISC OS Open
RISC OS Open Ltd. is a limited company engaged in computer software and IT consulting. It is managing the process of publishing the source code to RISC OS...
. Some of Acorn's former subsidiaries live on today—notably ARM Holdings
ARM Holdings
ARM Holdings plc is a British multinational semiconductor and software company headquartered in Cambridge. Its largest business is in processors, although it also designs, licenses and sells software development tools under the RealView and KEIL brands, systems and platforms, system-on-a-chip...
, which is globally dominant in the mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
and PDA
Personal digital assistant
A personal digital assistant , also known as a palmtop computer, or personal data assistant, is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Current PDAs often have the ability to connect to the Internet...
microprocessor
Microprocessor
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
market.
Due to its innovative designs and the future success of many of its former employees, Acorn is sometimes known as the "British Apple".
Background
On 25 July 1961, Clive SinclairClive Sinclair
Sir Clive Marles Sinclair is a British entrepreneur and inventor, most commonly known for his work in consumer electronics in the late 1970s and early 1980s....
founded Sinclair Radionics to develop and sell electronic devices such as calculator
Calculator
An electronic calculator is a small, portable, usually inexpensive electronic device used to perform the basic operations of arithmetic. Modern calculators are more portable than most computers, though most PDAs are comparable in size to handheld calculators.The first solid-state electronic...
s. The failure of the Black Watch
Black Watch (wristwatch)
The Black Watch is an electronic wristwatch launched in September 1975 by Sinclair Radionics. It cost £24.95 ready-built, but was also available for £17.95, as a kit....
wristwatch and the calculator market's move from LEDs
Light-emitting diode
A light-emitting diode is a semiconductor light source. LEDs are used as indicator lamps in many devices and are increasingly used for other lighting...
to LCDs
Liquid crystal display
A liquid crystal display is a flat panel display, electronic visual display, or video display that uses the light modulating properties of liquid crystals . LCs do not emit light directly....
led to financial problems, and Sinclair approached the National Enterprise Board
National Enterprise Board
-History:The National Enterprise Board was set up in the United Kingdom in 1975 to implement the Wilson Labour government's objective of extending public ownership of industry...
(NEB) for help. After losing control of the company to the NEB, Sinclair encouraged Chris Curry
Chris Curry
Christopher Curry is the co-founder of Acorn Computers, with Hermann Hauser and Andy Hopper.-Early life:...
to leave Radionics and get Science of Cambridge (SoC) up and running. In June 1978, SoC launched a microcomputer kit that Curry wanted to develop further, but Sinclair could not be persuaded so Curry resigned. During the development of the MK14, Hermann Hauser
Hermann Hauser
Hermann Maria Hauser, CBE FREng FinstP CPhys , is an entrepreneur who was born in Vienna, Austria but is primarily associated with Silicon Fen in England....
, a friend of Curry's, had been visiting SoC's offices and had grown interested in the product.
CPU Ltd (1978–83)
Slot machine
A slot machine , informally fruit machine , the slots , poker machine or "pokies" or simply slot is a casino gambling machine with three or more reels which spin when a button is pushed...
for Ace Coin Equipment (ACE) of Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. 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
National Semiconductor SC/MP
The SC/MP from National Semiconductor is an early microprocessor, which became available in early 1974. The name SC/MP is an acronym for: "Simple Cost-effective Micro Processor".It features a 16-bit address and an 8-bit data bus...
microprocessor, but soon the switch to a MOS Technology 6502
MOS Technology 6502
The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch for MOS Technology in 1975. When it was introduced, it was the least expensive full-featured microprocessor on the market by a considerable margin, costing less than one-sixth the price of...
was made.
The microcomputer systems
CPU had financed the development of a 6502-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. Acorn was chosen because the microcomputer system was to be expandable and growth-oriented. It also had the attraction of appearing before "Apple ComputerApple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
" in a telephone directory.
Around this time, CPU and Andy Hopper
Andy Hopper
Andrew Hopper CBE FRS FREng FIET is the Professor of Computer Technology and Head of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.-Research:...
set up Orbis Ltd to commercialise the Cambridge Ring
Cambridge Ring
The Cambridge Ring was an experimental local area network architecture developed at the Cambridge University Computer Laboratory in the mid-late 1970s and early 1980s. It used a ring topology with a theoretical limit of 255 nodes , around which cycled a fixed number of packets...
networking system Hopper had worked on for his PhD
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
, but it was soon decided to bring him into CPU as a director because he could promote CPU's interests at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory
The Computer Laboratory is the computer science department of the University of Cambridge. As of 2007, it employs 35 academic staff, 25 support staff, 35 affiliated research staff, and about 155 research students...
. 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 a little while later.
Acorn System 1
The Acorn System 1, initially called the Acorn Microcomputer , was an early 8-bit microcomputer for hobbyists, based on the MOS 6502 CPU, and produced by British company Acorn Computers from 1979....
, was designed by Sophie Wilson
Sophie Wilson
Sophie Wilson is a British computer scientist. She is known for designing the Acorn Micro-Computer, the first of a long line of computers sold by Acorn Computers Ltd, as well as the instruction set of the highly successful ARM processor.- Life and career :...
. It was a semi-professional system aimed at engineering and laboratory users, but its price was low enough, at around £80, to appeal to the more serious enthusiast as well. It was a very small machine built on two cards, one with an LED
Light-emitting diode
A light-emitting diode is a semiconductor light source. LEDs are used as indicator lamps in many devices and are increasingly used for other lighting...
display, keypad, and cassette interface (the circuitry to the left of the keypad), and the other with the rest of the computer (including the CPU
Central processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
). Almost all CPU signals were accessible via a Eurocard connector.
The System 2
Acorn System 2
The Acorn Eurocard systems were a series of modular microcomputer systems based on rack-mounted Eurocards developed by Acorn Computers from 1979 to 1982, aimed primarily at industrial and laboratory use, but also home enthusiasts....
made it easier to expand the system by putting the CPU card from the System 1 in a 19 inches (482.6 mm) Eurocard rack that allowed a number of optional additions. The System 2 typically shipped with keyboard controller, external keyboard, a text display interface, and a cassette operating system with built-in BASIC interpreter.
The System 3 moved on by adding floppy disk
Floppy disk
A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
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
MOS Technology 6502
The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch for MOS Technology in 1975. When it was introduced, it was the least expensive full-featured microprocessor on the market by a considerable margin, costing less than one-sixth the price of...
.
The Atom
Development of the Sinclair ZX80Sinclair ZX80
The Sinclair ZX80 is a home computer brought to market in 1980 by Science of Cambridge Ltd. . It is notable for being the first computer available in the United Kingdom for less than a hundred pounds...
started at Science of Cambridge in May 1979. Learning of this probably prompted Curry to conceive the Atom
Acorn Atom
The Acorn Atom was a home computer made by Acorn Computers Ltd from 1980 to 1982 when it was replaced by the BBC Micro and later the Acorn Electron....
project to target the consumer market. Curry and another designer, Nick Toop, worked from Curry's home in the Fens
The Fens
The Fens, also known as the , are a naturally marshy region in eastern England. Most of the fens were drained several centuries ago, resulting in a flat, damp, low-lying agricultural region....
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 a home computer
Home computer
Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...
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
Allen Boothroyd
Allen Boothroyd is an industrial designer. He trained as a mechanical engineer and went on to study industrial design at the Royal College of Art....
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 a quite typical set-up for an inexpensive home computer of the early '80s—the relatively successful Acorn Atom
Acorn Atom
The Acorn Atom was a home computer made by Acorn Computers Ltd from 1980 to 1982 when it was replaced by the BBC Micro and later the Acorn Electron....
.
To facilitate software development, a proprietary local area network had been installed at Market Hill. It was decided to include this, the Econet
Econet
Econet was Acorn's low-cost local area network system, intended for use by schools and small businesses. Econet is rumoured to be an abbreviation of Economy Network, but Acorn were always careful to stress the Greek root, oikos, meaning "house"....
, 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.
BBC Micro and the Electron
After the Atom had been released into the market, Acorn contemplated building modern 16-bit16-bit
-16-bit architecture:The HP BPC, introduced in 1975, was the world's first 16-bit microprocessor. Prominent 16-bit processors include the PDP-11, Intel 8086, Intel 80286 and the WDC 65C816. The Intel 8088 was program-compatible with the Intel 8086, and was 16-bit in that its registers were 16...
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 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
Input/output
In computing, input/output, or I/O, refers to the communication between an information processing system , and the outside world, possibly a human, or another information processing system. Inputs are the signals or data received by the system, and outputs are the signals or data sent from it...
(I/O). The Tube would later be instrumental in the development of Acorn's 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
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
, The Mighty Micro, in which Dr Christopher Evans from the UK National Physical Laboratory
National Physical Laboratory, UK
The National Physical Laboratory is the national measurement standards laboratory for the United Kingdom, based at Bushy Park in Teddington, London, England. It is the largest applied physics organisation in the UK.-Description:...
predicted the coming microcomputer revolution
Microcomputer revolution
The microcomputer revolution is a phrase used to describe the rapid advances of microprocessor-based computers from esoteric hobby projects to a commonplace fixture of homes in industrial societies...
. It was a very influential documentary—so much so that questions were asked in parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
. As 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
Grundy NewBrain
The Grundy NewBrain was a microcomputer sold in the early 1980s by Grundy Business Systems Ltd of Teddington and Cambridge, England.- Beginnings :...
from Newbury Laboratories.
This selection revealed 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
National Enterprise Board
-History:The National Enterprise Board was set up in the United Kingdom in 1975 to implement the Wilson Labour government's objective of extending public ownership of industry...
, 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 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
Microelectronics Education Programme
The UK Government's Microelectronics Education Programme ran from 1980 to 1986. It was conceived and planned by a Labour government and set up under a Conservative government during Mrs Thatcher's era. Its aim was to explore how computers could be used in schools in the UK...
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, the BBC Micro being one of the most popular. Schools were offered 50 per cent of the cost of computers, providing they chose one of three suppliers: BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum or Research Machines 380Z
Research Machines 380Z
The Research Machines 380Z was an early 8-bit microcomputer produced by Research Machines Limited in Oxford, England, from 1978 to 1985....
. 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 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.
The 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 early in autumn 1981 as the BBC Micro
BBC Micro
The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, was a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers for the BBC Computer Literacy Project, operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation...
. 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 the development of a microcomputer system with many innovative features".
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...
. Curry conceived of the Electron
Acorn Electron
The Acorn Electron is a budget version of the BBC Micro educational/home computer made by Acorn Computers Ltd. It has 32 kilobytes of RAM, and its ROM includes BBC BASIC along with its operating system....
as Acorn's sub-£200 competitor. In many ways a cut-down BBC Micro, it used one Acorn-designed uncommitted logic array
Gate array
A gate array or uncommitted logic array is an approach to the design and manufacture of application-specific integrated circuits...
(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, 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.
In 2008, the Computer Conservation Society
Computer Conservation Society
The Computer Conservation Society is a British organization, founded in 1989. It is under the joint umbrella of the British Computer Society, the Science Museum in London, and the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. Many of the society's meetings are held at the Science Museum...
organised an event at London's Science Museum
Science Museum (London)
The Science Museum is one of the three major museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is part of the National Museum of Science and Industry. The museum is a major London tourist attraction....
to mark the legacy of the BBC Micro. A number of the BBC Micro's principal creators were present, and Sophie Wilson recounted to the BBC how Hermann Hauser tricked herself and Steve Furber to agree to create the physical prototype in less than 5 days. Also in 2008 a number of former staff organised a reunion event to mark the 30th anniversary of the company's formation.
Acorn Computer Group plc (1983–85)
The BBC Micro sold well—so much so that Acorn's profits rose from £3000 in 1979 to £8.6m in July 1983. In September 1983, CPU shares were liquidated and Acorn was floated on the Unlisted Securities MarketUnlisted Securities Market
The Unlisted Securities Market , which ran from 1980 to 1996, was a stock exchange set up by the London Stock Exchange to cater for companies too small to qualify for a full listing....
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 stake in the new company was worth £64m (Hauser) and £51m (Curry).
New RISC architecture
Even from the time of the Atom, Acorn were considering how to move on from the 6502
MOS Technology 6502
The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch for MOS Technology in 1975. When it was introduced, it was the least expensive full-featured microprocessor on the market by a considerable margin, costing less than one-sixth the price of...
processor: the 16-bit
16-bit
-16-bit architecture:The HP BPC, introduced in 1975, was the world's first 16-bit microprocessor. Prominent 16-bit processors include the PDP-11, Intel 8086, Intel 80286 and the WDC 65C816. The Intel 8088 was program-compatible with the Intel 8086, and was 16-bit in that its registers were 16...
Acorn Communicator
Acorn Communicator
The Acorn Communicator is a business computer developed by Acorn Computers in 1985. The system sold in very low numbers to companies requiring a computer with a built-in modem...
developed in 1982 using the 65816 being a key example.
The IBM PC
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
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, the XT (eXtended Technology) was introduced in early 1983. The success of these machines and the variety of Z80
Zilog Z80
The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog and sold from July 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for military purposes...
-based CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
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—the BBC Micro mainboard, the Tube and second processors to give CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
, MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
and Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
(Xenix
Xenix
Xenix is a version of the Unix operating system, licensed to Microsoft from AT&T in the late 1970s. The Santa Cruz Operation later acquired exclusive rights to the software, and eventually superseded it with SCO UNIX ....
) workstations.
Acorn Business Computer
The Acorn Business Computer was a series of microcomputers announced at the end of 1983 by the British company Acorn Computers. The series of eight computers was aimed at the business, research and further education markets. However, the ABC range was cancelled before any of the models were...
(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 the 6502. Because of many-cycle uninterruptible instructions, for example, the interrupt
Interrupt
In computing, an interrupt is an asynchronous signal indicating the need for attention or a synchronous event in software indicating the need for a change in execution....
response times of the 68000
Motorola 68000
The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor...
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 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
Coprocessor
A coprocessor is a computer processor used to supplement the functions of the primary processor . Operations performed by the coprocessor may be floating point arithmetic, graphics, signal processing, string processing, or encryption. By offloading processor-intensive tasks from the main processor,...
. The machine had shown Sophie Wilson
Sophie Wilson
Sophie Wilson is a British computer scientist. She is known for designing the Acorn Micro-Computer, the first of a long line of computers sold by Acorn Computers Ltd, as well as the instruction set of the highly successful ARM processor.- Life and career :...
and Steve Furber
Steve Furber
Professor Stephen Byram Furber CBE, FRS, FREng is the ICL Professor of Computer Engineering at the School of Computer Science at the University of Manchester but is probably best known for his work at Acorn where he was one of the designers of the BBC Micro and the ARM 32-bit RISC...
the value of memory bandwidth. It also showed that an 8 MHz 32016 was completely trounced in performance terms by a 4 MHz 6502. Furthermore, the Apple Lisa
Apple Lisa
The Apple Lisa—also known as the Lisa—is a :personal computer designed by Apple Computer, Inc. during the early 1980s....
had shown the Acorn engineers that they needed to develop a windowing system—and 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. Having ruled out existing CPUs, it was clear to the developers that Acorn should seriously consider designing its own processor. Acorn’s engineers came across papers on the Berkeley RISC project. They could now handle the truth: if a class of graduate students could create a competitive 32-bit processor, then Acorn would have no problem. A trip to the Western Design Center
Western Design Center
The Western Design Center , located in Mesa, Arizona, USA, is a company developing and manufacturing MOS 65xx-based microprocessors, microcontrollers , and related support chips...
in Phoenix showed Furber and Wilson that they did not need massive resources and state-of-the-art R&D facilities.
Sophie Wilson set about developing the instruction set, writing a simulation of the processor in BBC Basic
BBC BASIC
BBC BASIC is a programming language, developed in 1981 as a native programming language for the MOS Technology 6502 based Acorn BBC Micro home/personal computer, mainly by Sophie Wilson. It is a version of the BASIC programming language adapted for a U.K...
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.
The official Acorn RISC Machine project started in October 1983, with Acorn spending on it by 1987. VLSI Technology, Inc were chosen as silicon partner, since they already supplied Acorn with ROMs and some custom chips. VLSI produced 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 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 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
Olivetti
Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, printers and other business machines.- Founding :The company was founded as a typewriter manufacturer in 1908 in Ivrea, near Turin, by Camillo Olivetti. The firm was mainly developed by his son Adriano 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 the ARM
ARM architecture
ARM is a 32-bit reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by ARM Holdings. It was named the Advanced RISC Machine, and before that, the Acorn RISC Machine. The ARM architecture is the most widely used 32-bit ISA in numbers produced...
. Acorn's development of their operating system required around 200 OS development staff at its peak. Acorn C/C++
Acorn C/C++
Acorn C/C++ in computing is a set of C/C++ programming tools for use under the operating system. The tools use the Norcroft compiler suite and were authored by Codemist and Acorn Computers...
was released commercially by Acorn, for developers to use to compile their own applications.
Financial problems
Acorn's watershed year was 1984—it had gone public just as the home computer market collapsed. It was the year when AtariAtari
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
was sold, Apple
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
nearly went bust, and Acorn had solved the one problem it had had throughout its history: production volumes.
The Electron had been launched in 1983, but problems with the supply of
its ULAs 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 illusory: rather than wait, parents bought Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
s or ZX Spectrum
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...
s for their children's presents. Ferranti
Ferranti
Ferranti or Ferranti International plc was a UK electrical engineering and equipment firm that operated for over a century from 1885 until it went bankrupt in 1993. Known primarily for defence electronics, the Company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but ceased trading in 1993.The...
solved 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—supplies of the Electron built up. Acorn was in real trouble: by the end of the year it had 250,000 unsold Electrons on its hands, which had all been paid for and needed to be stored—at additional expense.
Acorn 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 ultimately proved to be something of a flop, with only the 32016-based version ever being sold (as the Cambridge Workstation); and obtaining Federal approval for the BBC Micro in order to expand into the United States proved to be 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. Around $20m was sunk into the U.S. operation but the NTSC modified BBC Micros sold barely at all. They did, however, make an appearance in the school of Supergirl
Supergirl (film)
Supergirl is a 1984 superhero film directed by Jeannot Szwarc, and stars Helen Slater in her first motion picture role in the title role of the DC Comics superheroine Supergirl. Faye Dunaway played the primary villain, Selena. The film was a spin-off from the Salkinds' Superman film series which...
in the 1984 film Supergirl: The Movie.
Olivetti subsidiary (1985–98)
The dire financial situation was brought to a head in February 1985, when one of Acorn's creditors issued a winding-up petition. After a short period of negotiations, Curry and Hauser signed an agreement with OlivettiOlivetti
Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, printers and other business machines.- Founding :The company was founded as a typewriter manufacturer in 1908 in Ivrea, near Turin, by Camillo Olivetti. The firm was mainly developed by his son Adriano Olivetti...
on 20 February. The Italian computer company took a 49.3% stake in Acorn for £12 million, which went some way to covering Acorn's £11 million losses in the previous six months. This valuation fell some £165m below Acorn's peak valuation of £190m. In September 1985, Olivetti took a controlling share of Acorn with 79% of shares.
BBC Master and Archimedes
The BBC MasterBBC Master
The BBC Master was a home computer released by Acorn Computers in early 1986. It was designed and built for the British Broadcasting Corporation and was the successor to the BBC Micro Model B. The Master 128 remained in production until 1993....
was launched in February 1986 and met with great success. From 1986 to 1989, about 200,000 systems were sold, each costing £499, mainly to UK schools and universities. A number of enhanced versions were launched—for example, the Master 512, which had 512 KB
Kilobyte
The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Although the prefix kilo- means 1000, the term kilobyte and symbol KB have historically been used to refer to either 1024 bytes or 1000 bytes, dependent upon context, in the fields of computer science and information...
of RAM and an internal 80186
Intel 80186
The 80188 is a version with an 8-bit external data bus, instead of 16-bit. This makes it less expensive to connect to peripherals. The 80188 is otherwise very similar to the 80186. It has a throughput of 1 million instructions per second....
processor for MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
compatibility, and the Master Turbo, which had a 65C102 second processor.
The first commercial use of the ARM architecture
ARM architecture
ARM is a 32-bit reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by ARM Holdings. It was named the Advanced RISC Machine, and before that, the Acorn RISC Machine. The ARM architecture is the most widely used 32-bit ISA in numbers produced...
was in the ARM Development System, a Tube-linked second processor for the BBC Master which allowed one to write program
Computer program
A computer program is a sequence of instructions written to perform a specified task with a computer. A computer requires programs to function, typically executing the program's instructions in a central processor. The program has an executable form that the computer can use directly to execute...
s for the new system. It sold for £4,500 and included the ARM processor, 4 MB
Megabyte
The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
of RAM and a set of development tools with an enhanced version of BBC BASIC. (This system did not include the three support chips—VIDC, MEMC, and IOC—which were later to form part of the Archimedes system. They made their first appearance in the A500 second processor, which was used internally within Acorn as a development platform, and had a similar form-factor to the ARM development system.
The second ARM-based product was the Acorn Archimedes
Acorn Archimedes
The Acorn Archimedes was Acorn Computers Ltd's first general purpose home computer to be based on their own ARM architecture.Using a RISC design with a 32-bit CPU, at its launch in June 1987, the Archimedes was stated as running at 4 MIPS, with a claim of 18 MIPS during tests.The name is commonly...
desktop-computer, released in mid-1987, some 18 months after IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
launched their RISC-based PC/RT. The Archimedes was popular in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Australasia
Australasia
Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...
and Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
, and was considerably more powerful and advanced than most offerings of the day. The Archimedes was advertised in both printed and broadcast media. One example of such advertising is a mock-up of the RISC OS 2 desktop, showing some software application directories, with the advert text added within windows. However, the vast majority of home users opted for an Atari ST
Atari ST
The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...
or Commodore Amiga when looking to upgrade their 8-bit micros. As with the BBC, the Archimedes instead flourished in schools and other educational settings but just a few short years later in the early 1990s this market began stratifying into the PC
IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
-dominated world. Acorn continued to produce updated models of the Archimedes including a laptop (the A4) and in 1994 launched the Risc PC
Risc PC
The RiscPC was Acorn Computers's next generation RISC OS/Acorn RISC Machine computer, launched on 15 April 1994, which superseded the Acorn Archimedes. The Acorn PC card and software allows PC compatible software to be run....
, whose top specification would later include a 200 MHz+ StrongARM
StrongARM
The StrongARM is a family of microprocessors that implemented the ARM V4 instruction set architecture . It was developed by Digital Equipment Corporation and later sold to Intel, who continued to manufacture it before replacing it with the XScale....
processor. These were sold mainly into education, specialist and enthusiast markets.
ARM Ltd
Acorn's silicon partner, VLSI, had been tasked with finding new applications for the ARM CPU and support chips. Hauser's Active Book company had been developing a handheld device and for this the ARM CPU developers had created a static version of their processor, the ARM2aS.Apple
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
was developing an entirely new computing platform, the Newton
Apple Newton
The MessagePad was the first series of personal digital assistant devices developed by Apple for the Newton platform in 1993. Some electronic engineering and the manufacture of Apple's MessagePad devices was done in Japan by the Sharp Corporation...
. Various requirements had been set for the processor in terms of power consumption, cost and performance, and there was also a need for fully static operation in which the clock could be stopped at any time. Only the Acorn RISC Machine came close to meeting all these demands, but there were still deficiencies. The ARM did not, for example, have an integral memory management unit, as this function was being provided by the MEMC support chip and Acorn did not have the resources to develop one.
Apple and Acorn began to collaborate on developing the ARM, and it was decided that this would be best achieved by a separate company. The bulk of the Advanced Research and Development section of Acorn that had developed the ARM CPU formed the basis of ARM Ltd when that company was spun off in November 1990. Acorn Group and Apple Computer Inc each had a 43% shareholding in ARM (in 1996), while VLSI were an investor and first ARM licensee.
Set-Top boxes
In 1994, a subsidiary of Acorn, Online Media, was founded. Online Media aimed to exploit the projected video-on-demand (VOD) boom, an interactive televisionInteractive television
Interactive television describes a number of techniques that allow viewers to interact with television content as they view it.- Definitions :...
system which would allow users to select and watch video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
content over a network. In September 1994 the Cambridge Digital Interactive Television Trial of video-on-demand services was set up by Online Media, Anglia Television
Anglia Television
Anglia Television is the ITV franchise holder for the East Anglia franchise region. Although Anglia Television takes its name from East Anglia, its transmission coverage extends beyond the generally accepted boundaries of that region. The station is based at Anglia House in Norwich, with regional...
, Cambridge Cable
Cambridge Cable
Cambridge Cable Ltd. was a limited company engaged in the provision of early video on demand. It provided cable infrastructure in the UK as part of the Cambridge Digital Interactive Television Trial .- History :...
(now part of Virgin Media
Virgin Media
Virgin Media Inc. is a company which provides fixed and mobile telephone, television and broadband internet services to businesses and consumers in the United Kingdom...
) and Advanced Telecommunication Modules Ltd
Advanced Telecommunication Modules Ltd
Advanced Telecommunication Modules Ltd was set up in 1993 by Dr Hermann Hauser and Professor Andy Hopper as a spin-off from the Olivetti Research Laboratory in Cambridge....
(ATML)—the trial involved creating a wide area ATM network linking TV-company to subscribers' homes and delivering services such as home shopping, online education, software downloaded on-demand and the World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
.
The wide area network used a combination of fibre and coaxial cable, and the switches were housed in the roadside cabinets of Cambridge Cable's existing network.
Olivetti Research Laboratory
Olivetti Research Laboratory
The Olivetti Research Laboratory was a research institute in the field of computing and telecommunications founded in 1986 by Hermann Hauser and Andy Hopper.-History:...
developed the technology used by the trial.
An ICL video server provided the service via ATM switches manufactured by ATML, another company set up by Hauser and Hopper. The trial commenced at a speed of 2 Mbit/s to the home, subsequently increased to 25 Mbit/s.
Subscribers used Acorn Online Media set-top boxes
Acorn Online Media Set Top Box
The Acorn Online Media Set Top Box was produced by the Online Media division of Acorn Computers Ltd for the Cambridge Cable and Online Media Video on Demand trial and launched early 1996.-Specification:*Memory: 2 MiB 12 MHz RAM...
.
For the first six months the trial involved 10 VOD terminals; the second phase was expanded to cover 100 homes and 8 schools with a further 150 terminals in test labs. A number of other organisations gradually joined in, including the National Westminster Bank
National Westminster Bank
National Westminster Bank Plc, commonly known as NatWest, is the largest retail and commercial bank in the United Kingdom and has been part of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc since 2000. The Royal Bank of Scotland Group is ranked as the second largest bank in the world by assets...
, the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, the Post Office, Tesco
Tesco
Tesco plc is a global grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues and the second-largest measured by profits...
and the local education authority
Local Education Authority
A local education authority is a local authority in England and Wales that has responsibility for education within its jurisdiction...
.
BBC Education tested delivery of radio-on-demand programmes to primary schools, and a new educational service, Education Online, was established to deliver material such as Open University
Open University
The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...
television programmes and educational software. Netherhall School
Netherhall School
The Netherhall School and Sixth Form Centre is a secondary school and sixth form in the Queen Edith ward of Cambridge, England. Its logo is the crest of Cambridge. It is one of the largest schools in the area in terms of capacity. Feeder primary schools include Queen Edith, Cherry Hinton Juniors,...
was provided with an inexpensive video server and operated as a provider of Trial services, with Anglia Polytechnic University taking up a similar role some time later. It was hoped that Online Media could be floated as a separate company, but the predicted video-on-demand boom never really materialised.
Xemplar Education
In 1996, Acorn entered into a joint venture with Apple Computers UK called Xemplar to provide computers and services to the UK education market. A survey in 1998 found that Apple and Acorn systems at that time accounted for and one third of computers in UK primary and secondary schools respectively. Acorn sold its remaining share in Xemplar to Apple in 1999 for , and the company renamed itself to Apple Xemplar Education. Acorn Education and later Xemplar Education were heavily involved in Tesco'sTesco
Tesco plc is a global grocery and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Cheshunt, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest retailer in the world measured by revenues and the second-largest measured by profits...
"Computers for Schools" programme in the UK, providing hardware and software in exchange for vouchers collected from Tesco purchases.
The Welsh Office Multimedia/Portables Initiative (WOMPI), launched in 1996, prescribed that Welsh schools choosing the multimedia option received multimedia PC
Multimedia PC
The Multimedia PC, or MPC, was a recommended configuration for a PC with a CD-ROM drive. The standard was set and named by the "Multimedia PC Marketing Council", which was a working group of the Software Publishers Association . The MPMC comprised companies including Microsoft, Creative Labs,...
s exclusively supplied by RM
RM plc
RM plc is a British company specialising in providing products and services to schools, colleges, universities and government education departments & agencies...
. This upset other suppliers and members of the National Association of Advisers for Computers in Education (NAACE).
Network Computers
When BBC2BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
's The Money Programme
The Money Programme
The Money Programme is a finance and business affairs television programme on BBC2.It was first broadcast on 5 April 1966 and presented by "commentators" William Davis, Erskine Childers and Joe Roeber. At this time David Attenborough was the controller of BBC2...
screened an interview with Larry Ellison
Larry Ellison
Lawrence Joseph "Larry" Ellison is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Oracle Corporation, one of the world's leading enterprise software companies. As of 2011, he is the third wealthiest American citizen, with an estimated worth of $33 billion.- Early life :Larry Ellison was born in the...
in October 1995, Acorn Online Media Managing Director Malcolm Bird realised that Ellison's network computer
Network computer
Network Computer is a trademark of Oracle Corporation that was used, from approximately 1996 to 2000, to market a range of diskless desktop computer devices. The devices were designed and manufactured by an alliance, which included Sun Microsystems, IBM, and others...
was, basically, an Acorn set-top box. After initial discussions between Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
and Olivetti, Hauser and Acorn a few weeks later, Bird was dispatched to San Francisco with Acorn's latest Set Top Box. Oracle had already talked seriously with computer manufacturers including Sun
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
and Apple about the contract for putting together the NC blueprint machine; there were also rumours in the industry that said Oracle itself was working on the reference design. After Bird's visit to Oracle, Ellison visited Acorn and a deal was reached: Acorn would define the NC Reference Standard.
Ellison was expecting to announce the NC in February 1996. Sophie Wilson was put in charge of the NC project, and by mid-November a draft NC specification was ready. By January 1996 the formal details of the contract between Acorn and Oracle had been worked out, and the PCB was designed and ready to be put into production. In February 1996 Acorn Network Computing was founded. In August 1996 it launched the Acorn Network Computer
Acorn Network Computer
The Acorn Network Computer was a network computer designed and manufactured by Acorn Computers Ltd. It was the implementation of the Network Computer Reference Profile that Oracle Corporation commissioned Acorn to specify for network computers . Sophie Wilson of Acorn led the effort...
.
It was hoped that the Network Computer would create a significant new sector in which Acorn Network Computing would be a major player, either selling its own products or earning money from licence fees paid by other manufacturers for the right to produce their own NCs.
To that end, two of Acorn's major projects were the creation of a new 'consumer device' operating system, Galileo and, in conjunction with Digital Semiconductor and ARM, a new StrongARM chipset consisting of the SA-1500 and SA-1501. Galileo's main feature was a guarantee of a certain quality of service
Quality of service
The quality of service refers to several related aspects of telephony and computer networks that allow the transport of traffic with special requirements...
to each process in which the resources (CPU, memory, etc.) required to ensure reliable operation would be kept available regardless of the behaviour of other processes. The SA-1500 sported higher clock rates than existing StrongARM CPUs and, more importantly, a media-focussed coprocessor (the Attached Media Processor or AMP). The SA-1500 was to be the first release target for Galileo.
After having incorporated its STB and NC business areas as separate companies, Acorn created a new wholly owned subsidiary, Acorn RISC Technologies (ART). ART focused on the development of other software and hardware technologies built on top of ARM processors.
Final restructuring and Element 14 Ltd (1998–2000)
During the first half of 1998 Acorn's management were heavily involved in the initial public offering of ARM Holdings plcARM Holdings
ARM Holdings plc is a British multinational semiconductor and software company headquartered in Cambridge. Its largest business is in processors, although it also designs, licenses and sells software development tools under the RealView and KEIL brands, systems and platforms, system-on-a-chip...
which raised £18 million for Acorn throughout 1998. In June 1998 Stan Boland took over as CEO of Acorn Computers from David Lee and there then followed a review of Acorn's core business.
The company had losses of £9 million in the first 9 months of the year and in September 1998 the results of the review led to a significant restructuring of the company. The Workstation division was to close, a 40% reduction in staff and the Risc PC 2 code-named Phoebe
Phoebe (computer)
The Phoebe 2100 was to be Acorn Computers' next generation Risc PC, slated for release in late 1998. However in September 1998 Acorn cancelled the project as part of a restructuring of the company....
that was nearing completion was cancelled which allowed for a reduction in on-going losses. Acorn decided to focus on two remaining activities. 1) Development of Set-Top-Box products for the digital TV market, 2) The development of silicon and software for a high performance media centric DSP
Digital signal processing
Digital signal processing is concerned with the representation of discrete time signals by a sequence of numbers or symbols and the processing of these signals. Digital signal processing and analog signal processing are subfields of signal processing...
.
To concentrate on these two activities Acorn hired a group of former STMicroelectronics
STMicroelectronics
STMicroelectronics is an Italian-French electronics and semiconductor manufacturer headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.While STMicroelectronics corporate headquarters and the headquarters for EMEA region are based in Geneva, the holding company, STMicroelectronics N.V. is registered in Amsterdam,...
silicon design engineers and they formed the basis of a silicon design centre that Acorn set up in Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
. They also started to dispose of some of their interests in the former workstation market. In October they granted distribution rights to the existing designs of machines to Castle Technology
Castle Technology
Castle Technology Ltd. is a British limited company engaged in computer software and IT consulting. It produced and sold ARM computers, and sold the Acorn-branded range of desktop computers that run RISC OS. Prior to Acorn's demise, it was the largest of their dealerships...
to supply the former Workstation market's dealer network, sold their 50% interest in Xemplar Education to Apple computers in Jan 1999, and in March 1999 RISCOS Ltd
RISCOS Ltd
RISCOS Ltd. is a limited company engaged in computer software and IT consulting. It licensed the rights to from Element 14 and subsequently Pace Micro Technology. It continues to develop...
acquired a license to develop and release RISC OS
RISC OS
RISC OS is a computer operating system originally developed by Acorn Computers Ltd in Cambridge, England for their range of desktop computers, based on their own ARM architecture. First released in 1987, under the name Arthur, the subsequent iteration was renamed as in 1988...
.
By Jan 1999 Acorn Computers Ltd had renamed to Element 14 Limited (though still owned by Acorn Group plc), this change was to reflect the changed nature of the business and to distance itself from the education market that Acorn Computers was most known for.
During this time the ARM Holdings share value had increased to a point where the capital value of Acorn Group was worth less than the value of its 24% holding in ARM. This situation led shareholders to press Acorn to sell its stake in ARM Holdings to provide a return on their investment.
In May 1999 a deal was offered to Acorn Group plc shareholders by MSDW Investment Holdings Limited, a newly incorporated subsidiary of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Group
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley is a global financial services firm headquartered in New York City serving a diversified group of corporations, governments, financial institutions, and individuals. Morgan Stanley also operates in 36 countries around the world, with over 600 offices and a workforce of over 60,000....
, which would give them 2 ARM Holdings shares for every 5 Acorn Group shares that they owned. The shareholders accepted and on 1 June 1999 Acorn Group plc was purchased by MSDW for . The transaction involved the de-listing from the stock market of Acorn Group plc, as a result of which its shareholding in ARM was distributed to Acorn's shareholders.
As part of the deal with MSDW, the STB division was to be sold to Pace Micro Technology for £209,000, and Stan Boland was given the option to lead a management buy out of the DSP business and on 26 July 1999, MSDW sold it for the net asset value of £1.5 million to them.
The newly independent Element 14 set about raising venture capital and subsequently secured £8.25 ($13) million in first-round funding from Bessemer Venture Partners
Bessemer Venture Partners
Bessemer Venture Partners is a private venture capital firm with offices in Silicon Valley, New York, Massachusetts, Israel, China, and India.Bessemer Venture Partners is the longest-standing venture capital practice in the United States...
, Atlas Ventures and Herman Hauser's Amadeus Capital Partners.
In February 2000 Element 14 successfully head-hunted Alcatel's
Alcatel
Alcatel Mobile Phones is a brand of mobile handsets. It was established in 2004 as a joint venture between Alcatel-Lucent of France and TCL Communication of China....
top digital subscriber line
Digital Subscriber Line
Digital subscriber line is a family of technologies that provides digital data transmission over the wires of a local telephone network. DSL originally stood for digital subscriber loop. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line ,...
(DSL) engineers, including designers of analogue front-end and digital ICs, xDSL modem software and specialists in asymmetric DSL
Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line
Asymmetric digital subscriber line is a type of digital subscriber line technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. It does this by utilizing frequencies that are not used by a voice...
(ADSL) and very high rate DSL (VDSL) systems, and thereby acquired an engineering centre in Mechelen
Mechelen
Mechelen Footnote: Mechelen became known in English as 'Mechlin' from which the adjective 'Mechlinian' is derived...
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
. This reflected a shift towards the companies targeting of the DSP technology away from Media and towards DSL markets.
Element 14 continued to develop its DSP products until it was purchased by Broadcom
Broadcom
Broadcom Corporation is a fabless semiconductor company in the wireless and broadband communication business. The company is headquartered in Irvine, California, USA. Broadcom was founded by a professor-student pair Henry Samueli and Henry T. Nicholas III from the University of California, Los...
in November 2000 for £366 million ($594 million) and Element 14 became Broadcom's DSL business unit.
Revival of the Acorn trademark
- See main article Acorn Computers (2006)Acorn Computers (2006)Acorn Computers Ltd was a company based in Nottingham, England. It licensed, in early 2006, the dormant Acorn Computers trademark from French company Aristide & Co Antiquaire De Marques. This company sold IBM PC compatible computers and had no connection to ARM.-Launch:In April 2006, internet news...
In early 2006, the dormant Acorn trademark was licensed from the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
company, Aristide & Co Antiquaire De Marques, by a new company
Acorn Computers (2006)
Acorn Computers Ltd was a company based in Nottingham, England. It licensed, in early 2006, the dormant Acorn Computers trademark from French company Aristide & Co Antiquaire De Marques. This company sold IBM PC compatible computers and had no connection to ARM.-Launch:In April 2006, internet news...
based in Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
. This company was dissolved in late 2009.
In late 2011, the Acorn Trademark was transfered from the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
company, Aristide & Co Antiquaire De Marques, to French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
company, Data Access
Data access
Data access typically refers to software and activities related to storing, retrieving, or acting on data housed in a database or other repository...
.
In popular culture
In 2009, BBC4 screened Micro MenMicro Men
Micro Men is a one-off BBC drama television show set in the late 1970s and 1980s, about the rise of the British home computer market, particularly the rivalry between Sir Clive Sinclair who developed the ZX Spectrum, and Chris Curry - the man behind the BBC Micro; played by Alexander Armstrong and...
, a drama based on the rivalry between Acorn Computers and Sinclair's competing machines.
See also
- AcornsoftAcornsoftAcornsoft was the software arm of Acorn Computers Ltd, and a major publisher of software for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron. As well as games, they also produced a large number of educational titles, extra computer languages and business and utility packages - these included ROM-based word...
- ARM HoldingsARM HoldingsARM Holdings plc is a British multinational semiconductor and software company headquartered in Cambridge. Its largest business is in processors, although it also designs, licenses and sells software development tools under the RealView and KEIL brands, systems and platforms, system-on-a-chip...
- List of Acorn Electron games
- Microelectronics Education ProgrammeMicroelectronics Education ProgrammeThe UK Government's Microelectronics Education Programme ran from 1980 to 1986. It was conceived and planned by a Labour government and set up under a Conservative government during Mrs Thatcher's era. Its aim was to explore how computers could be used in schools in the UK...
- OlivettiOlivettiOlivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, printers and other business machines.- Founding :The company was founded as a typewriter manufacturer in 1908 in Ivrea, near Turin, by Camillo Olivetti. The firm was mainly developed by his son Adriano Olivetti...
- RISC OSRISC OSRISC OS is a computer operating system originally developed by Acorn Computers Ltd in Cambridge, England for their range of desktop computers, based on their own ARM architecture. First released in 1987, under the name Arthur, the subsequent iteration was renamed as in 1988...
External links
- The Acorn Atom pre-history
- RISC OS and Acorn pages
- Atom Review documentation of the Atom and lots of extensions made by Dutch Atom clubs
- About Acorn computers and ARM processors
- Acorn information from Retro Madness, the museum of home computing and gaming
- RISC OS Ltd. develop Acorn's OS under licence from Castle
- AdvantageSix develop computers and embedded systems for RISC OS
- Castle Technology are the current owners of RISC OS
- Acorn Computers The collection at The Centre for Computing History
- Steve Furber Video Interview At Manchester University on 17-08-2009
- Acorn legacy FTP Site (hosted by RISCOS LtdRISCOS LtdRISCOS Ltd. is a limited company engaged in computer software and IT consulting. It licensed the rights to from Element 14 and subsequently Pace Micro Technology. It continues to develop...
)