Differences between version 21 and predecessor to the previous major change of Acorn.
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Newer page: | version 21 | Last edited on Sunday, November 9, 2003 5:15:27 pm | by AristotlePagaltzis | Revert |
Older page: | version 16 | Last edited on Tuesday, September 2, 2003 1:28:39 am | by AristotlePagaltzis | Revert |
@@ -3,21 +3,23 @@
[Acorn] is a now disfunct, innovative british system design company - and the story of an underdog who didn't but did win, kinda. See also [FOLDOC|http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?query=acorn]
%%%
-!!!Rising Action: Electron
+!!!Rising Action: Atom
-(One of?) their
first products was the Electron
computer. It plugged into the television, had 16 KB of memory, and ran [BASIC] in [ROM]. You could load programs from cassette tape via a normal audio tape deck, or you could type them in. A floppy disk, even a harddrive, were available as insanely expensive expansion modules. The [CPU]
was a 6502B, just slightly different from what powered
the hugely successful [Commodore64] home computer
. Unfortunately, neither graphics nor sound capabilities could hold a candle to those of the [Commodore64].
-
-
''I had one of those.. *sigh* memories.
.'' --AristotlePagaltzis
+Acorn's
first real
computer product
was the Atom
. ''AddToMe - needs description
.''
%%%
!!!Mounting Tension: [BBC]
-The next model was the
Acorn [BBC]. Because they were British, schools in the UK used the [BBC] computers. Some schools in NewZealand followed suit. The [BBC] Model B also had a 6502 processor. This
was probably mid-
to-late 80's to early 90's
.
+The Acorn [BBC] Model B appeared in 1981
. Because they were British, schools in the UK used the [BBC] computers. Some schools in NewZealand followed suit. The [BBC] Model B also had a 6502 processor. Its builtin [BASIC] dialect had some impressive language features; procedural programming with parameter passing and local variable scopes remained foreign to other microcomputers for a long time. The modularity of its operating system and its use of interrupts were far ahead of the curve as well. There
was a MOS for all the basic functions like video graphics, buffered keyboard input, vectored interrupts, buffered sound. 16k ROMs were available
to accomodate networking routines and many different programming languages ([BASIC], LOGO, [Pascal], [Forth], you name it)
.
-The BBC's graphics
and sound hardware were well accessible under [BBC] [BASIC] with
the powerful plot
and envelope
[1
] command, respectively. They were both far ahead of anything any other computer
in this class had to offer. What really set the
[BBC
] apart was the modularity of its operating system and its use of interrupts
. There was
a MOS for all the basic functions like video graphics
, buffered keyboard input
, vectored interrupts
, buffered sound. 16k ROMs
were available to accomodate networking routines and many different programming languages (
[BASIC
], LOGO,
[Pascal
], [Forth
], you name it
).
+The Electron was a later, smaller brother of the
BBC built to attack the Sinclair Z80
and early Commodore microcomputers. It plugged into
the television, had 16 KB of memory,
and ran
[BASIC
] in [ROM
]. You could load programs from cassette tape via
a normal audio tape deck
, or you could type them in. A floppy disk
, even a harddrive
, were available as insanely expensive expansion modules. The
[CPU
] was a 6502B
, just slightly different from what powered the hugely successful
[Commodore64
] home computer. Unfortunately
, neither graphics nor sound capabilities could hold a candle to those of the
[Commodore64
].
+
+''I had one of those.. *sigh* memories..'' --AristotlePagaltzis
+
+In both computers
, the graphics and sound hardware were well accessible with powerful __plot__ and __envelope__ commands, respectively (though there was little to access in the Electron
). The envelope command took 14 parameters that controlled a full [ADSR] synthesizer
.
%%%
!!!Climax: Archimedes
@@ -31,20 +33,20 @@
%%%
!!!Falling Action: RiscPC
-An attempt to counter the rising popularity of the then so-called "[IBM] compatibles" was called __RiscPC__ and ran the [StrongARM] series [CPU]s
. These too ran RiscOS and had a novel system design consisting of modules. To update the hardware, you didn't have to open the case, you just added a new module just as
you do to
"update" your stereo system. Unfortunately.
..
+An attempt to counter the rising popularity of the then so-called "[IBM] compatibles" was called __RiscPC__. These too ran RiscOS and had a novel system design consisting of modules, ie a box in the same design as the computer's case that contains the desired extension and plugs into the computer's [Bus] with a connector
. To update or expand
the hardware, you didn't have to open the case, you just stacked modules, much the way
you'd
"update" your !HiFi
stereo.
+
+While [Acorn] equipped their RiscPC started with the ARM610 (ARM6 core) and then the ARM710 (ARM7 core), later RiscPC clones such as those manufactured by Castle featured [StrongARM] processors
.
%%%
!!!Denouement
In the end, [Acorn] Computers Ltd. was shut down (accompanied by much mourning in the connaissant geek community), as [WinTel] machines dominated the market and drove them out of business.
-However, the [CPU] design was
sourced out to the newly funded
[ARM Ltd.|http://www.arm.com], an IntellectualProperty only company that holds the rights to the [StrongARM]
architecture. Even [Intel] have licensed it, and a huge market share of hand held and embedded devices nowadays run on [StrongARM] derivatives.
+However, the [CPU] design had been
sourced out to [ARM Ltd.|http://www.arm.com], founded 1990 in a joint venture with AppleCorporation as
an IntellectualProperty only company that holds the rights to the ARM processor
architecture. Even [Intel] have licensed it, and a huge market share of hand held and embedded devices nowadays run on [StrongARM] derivatives.
So, in a way, "the king is dead - long live the king"...
----
Part of CategoryCompany and CategoryOldComputers
-
-[1] Actually, the electron had the envelope command as well (it also ran BBC BASIC). The envelope command took 14 parameters, and I must have spent many hundreds of hours playing with the parameters to see what effect it had on the resulting sound, without ever figuring out what each parameter did :) Obviously it wasn't just a single pitch; one command could rise and fall multiple times with varying loudness...