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Apricot Computers
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Apricot Computers is a British manufacturer of business personal computers, originally founded in 1965 as "Applied Computer Techniques" (ACT), changing their name to Apricot Computers, Ltd. in the 1980s. They were a wholly owned UK company for most of their history but were acquired in the early 1990s by the Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, which hoped that Apricot would help them compete against Japanese PC manufacturers, in particular NEC which commanded over 50% of the Japanese market at the time.
Apricot was a remarkably innovative computer hardware company.
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Encyclopedia
Apricot Computers is a British manufacturer of business personal computers, originally founded in 1965 as "Applied Computer Techniques" (ACT), changing their name to Apricot Computers, Ltd. in the 1980s. They were a wholly owned UK company for most of their history but were acquired in the early 1990s by the Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, which hoped that Apricot would help them compete against Japanese PC manufacturers, in particular NEC which commanded over 50% of the Japanese market at the time.
Apricot was a remarkably innovative computer hardware company. The Birmingham R&D center could build every aspect of a personal computer (except for the actual silicon itself) from custom BIOS and system-level programming to the silk-screen of motherboards and metal-bending for internal chassis all the way to radio-frequency testing of a finished system. This coupled with a smart and aggressive engineering team allowed Apricot to be the first company in the world with several technical innovations including the first commercial shipment of an all-in-one system with a 3.5-inch floppy drive (ahead of Apple), while in the early 90's they manufactured one of the world’s most secure x86-based PCs, sold exclusively to the UK government.
Their technical innovation unfortunately led them down some paths which were smart technical choices but proved to be highly disadvantageous in the open market. For example when IBM abandoned their ill-fated but technically superior Micro Channel Architecture (MCA), Apricot was the only other OEM shipping it (in the form of the Apricot Qi and VX FT ranges of PC's). This left the company at a technical dead-end without the financial or market power which helped IBM survive the failure of MCA.
Apricot continued to experiment with unusual form-factors in a market dominated by standardised 'beige boxes'. They produced a range of high-availability servers (the VX and Suhogun ranges) with integrated UPS, low-profile 'LANStation' PC's specifically designed for use on office networks, and even diskless workstations with remote booting.
This long-running pattern of tenaciously investing in technical innovation and complete end-to-end system design and manufacture created terrific computers but meant that Apricot was slow to adapt as the worldwide market grew and changed. By the mid 90's major PC OEMs like Compaq and Hewlett-Packard were outsourcing their own complete end-to-end system design and manufacture to Original Design Manufacturer (ODM) solutions based in Taiwan and were moving their at least some of their manufacturing to cheaper locations overseas.
Apricot was very late in adopting this method of manufacturing, even though an equivalent motherboard designed and manufactured in Asia cost Apricot as little as 1/3 of what it cost them to design and test in-house in Birmingham and manufacture in Scotland.
Apricot eventually tried to move to outsourcing but the market outpaced them, and MELCO closed the company down, selling off the final assets in 1999.
History
1980s
In 1982, ACT released their first microcomputer. It was built by another company, but marketed under the ACT brand. In America it was a moderate success. Later in 1982 ACT signed a deal with Victor to distribute the "Victor 9000" as the ACT "Sirius 1" in the UK and Europe. It sold for £2754 and was a commercial success, but did not become popular in the US. The "Sirius 1" was not IBM PC compatible.
In September 1983 the Apricot PC was released, based on an Intel 8086 microprocessor running at 4.77 MHz. It was often referred to as the 'ACT Apricot'. It ran MS-DOS or CP/M but was not compatible at a hardware level with the IBM PC. It had two floppy disks, and was one of the first systems to use 3.5" disks, rather than the 5.25" disks which were the norm at the time.
The graphics quality was critically acclaimed, with an 800 x 400 resolution and a keyboard with 8 "normal" and 6 flat programmable function keys along with a built-in LCD screen (40 characters / 2 lines) which displayed the function of the keys, or could be configured to echo the current command line in MS-DOS. The keyboard contained an integrated calculator, and the results of a calculation could be sent to the computer where it would appear on the command line, or in the current application. Microsoft Word and Multiplan were supplied with the Apricot PC. Lotus 123 was also available, and took advantage of the machine's high-resolution graphics. The industrial design of the machine was well conceived, with an integrated flap covering the floppy drives when not in use. The keyboard could also be clipped to the base of the machine, and an integrated handle could be used for transporting it. The supplied green phosphor monitor had a nylon mesh glare filter.
A model (known as the Apricot PC Xi) was made available later in 1984 with a built in 10Mb hard disk.
In 1984 ACT released a home computer, the "Apricot F1." It ran MS-DOS with "Activity", a GUI front end; like the Apricot PC, it was not IBM PC compatible. The machine was only successful in the UK. It was bundled with software for graphics, communication, word processing, a spreadsheet, some games, and system tools. It had one 3.5" floppy disks.
The same infra-red trackball pointing device used with the Apricot Portable was also available for the F1. Also in 1984, the Apricot Portable was released, with an infra-red keyboard, a voice system, 4.77 MHz CPU, 640 x 200 LCD display for £1965.
In 1985 ACT was renamed "Apricot Computers". By this time, the F1 had become one model in the F Series; other machines in the series were the F1e (a cheaper F1 with less RAM standing at 256KB); the F2 (with two floppy drives) and the F10 (with a 10MB Rodime hard drive, 512KB RAM and a more conventional-looking infra-red keyboard). The Activity GUI was replaced by GEM. The F1e contained a 360KB single sided floppy drive, and the F10 contained a 720KB double sided drive. Some F1e computers shipped with an expansion card that could also be used in the F10, that would modulate the RGB video signal to RF enabling the computer to be used with a domestic television set. This card also contained a composite video output. The machine was unusual in that it contained the same 36-way Centronics parallel port that appeared on many contemporary printers (and continued to do so until virtually replaced with USB and ethernet). This means that a standard 36-way centronics male to centronics male cable needs to be used to connect a printer - and these were hard to find since IBM had introduced the DB25F connector.
Interestingly, the F-series infra-red keyboards contained a real-time clock. During the machine's boot sequence, the BIOS would graphically prompt the user to press the 'DATE/TIME' key. This would transmit the date and time settings from the keyboard to the computer via IR, setting the RTC in the computer. The Infra-Red trackball could also be used as a mouse by tilting the unit forward - the ball protrudes from the top and bottom of the unit and can roll on a surface. The units also shipped with fibre-optic 'Light Pipes' that can channel the IR signals, designed to prevent multiple keyboards and trackballs from interfering with adjacent machines in office environments where multiple F-series computers were (predicted to be) in use.
The F10 shipped with a 'PC Emulator' which provided very limited text-mode support for IBM PC compatible applications, but was unable to run applications that used graphics modes. Microsoft Windows 1.03 is an application that would not run in this environment.
The last Apricot computer not to be IBM compatible was the XEN (October 1985), a 286-based system intended to compete with the IBM AT and running Windows 1.0. It was superseded in 1986 by the XEN-i, the first in a line of IBM compatible systems. The Xen-i initially shipped with a 5.25" floppy drive to further improve it's IBM compatible credentials. The 3.5" drive made a reappearance when IBM themselves switched formats with the release of the PS/2 range.
In 1989, a cover story by Byte magazine announced the Apricot VX FT Server as the world's first machine to incorporate the intel 486 micro processor. This machine, designed by Bob Cross, was a fault tolerant file server based on Micro Channel architecture, incorporating an external RAM cache and its own UPS. The VX FT line consisted of Series 400 and Series 800, with four different models each. These (and their other systems) were manufactured in their state of the art factory in Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland.
British magazines dedicated to the early Apricots were Apricot User, which had the official approval of Apricot Computers, and the more technically oriented Apricot File.
1990s
In January 1990 Apricot acquired Information Technology Limited, a UK-based developer of UNIX systems. Apricot took the opportunity to change its name back to the original, ACT.
Although ACT's proprietary computers were successful in the UK, the IBM PC had achieved critical mass in the US market before ACT could make a dent.
Apricot's acquisition by Mitsubishi marked the end of their unique design style. Subsequent product launches were far more conventional designs. Mitsubishi decided to pull out of PC manufacture, and shut down the Apricot brand.
Apricot come-back (2008)
Recently acquired by a UK company, , the Apricot brand was relaunched on 16 October 2008, with the introduction of the Apricot Picobook Pro netbook.
The device is specified with:
- Processor:
- VIA® C7-M™ Ultra Low Voltage 1.2 GHz VIA TwinTurbo™ Technology - 400 MHz Clock speed
- Chipset:
- VIA VX800 Unified Chipset
- Graphics:
- VIA Chrome9™ HC3 integrated graphics core, full DirectX 9.0 support.
- Operating System:
- Picobook Pro VL - Novel®l Networks SUSE
- Picobook Pro VX - Windows® XP Home Edition
- Audio:
- VIA Vinyl HD Audio controller. Up to 8 HD channels. 192 kHz sampling rate
- Display:
- 8.9" Wide Screen WSVGA (1024x600)
- Video-out supports LCD, CRT, TV, or LCD/CRT Dual Display
- Communications:
- 10/100 based-T LAN
- 3945ABG Wireless LAN 802.11abg
- Bluetooth,
- Wimax (option)
- I/O:
- D-SUB 15Pin
- USB 2.0 x 2
- Microphone-in
- Line in
- RJ45
- 4 in 1 Card-reader
- Storage/ Memory
- 60 Gigabyte Hard Disk
- 1024MB (1GB) DDRII RAM 667Mhz
- Power:
- 4400mA Li-Ion Battery - up to 4 hours use.
- International auto-sensing adapter 110-240V
- Webcam:
- 1.3 Mega-pixel Integrated Webcam
- Physical:
- Size: 230mm x 171mm x 38.7mm
- Weight: 0.98 kg
The new logo is very similar to that formerly used by Mitsubishi a decade earlier.
Further reading
- Stephen Morris: Getting to Know Your Apricot, Duckworth, 1984
- Mario de Pace: The Apricot Personal Computer, Collins, 1985
- Peter Gosling: The Apricot, Pitman, 1985
- Peter Rodwell: Advanced User's Guide to the Apricot Business Computer, Heinemann, London, 1986
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