Acorn Archimedes

The Acorn Archimedes was the first RISC-based personal computer.[4][1] The first models were released in June 1987, as the 300 and 400 series. The 400 series included four expansion slots (although a two slot backplane could be added to the 300 series as an official upgrade, and third parties produced their own 4-slot backplanes) and an ST-506 controller for an internal hard drive. Both models included the Arthur operating system (later replaced by RISC OS as a paid-for upgrade), BBC BASIC programming language, and an emulator for Acorn's earlier BBC Micro, and were mounted in two-part cases with a small central unit, monitor on top, and a separate keyboard and three-button mouse (the middle one used for pop-up context menus of the operating system). All models featured eight-channel 8-bit stereo sound and were capable of displaying 256 colours on screen.[5][6]

Three models were initially released with different amounts of memory, the A305, A310 and A440. These were soon replaced with the A410/1, the A420/1 and A440/1 which featured an upgraded MEMC1a. The A540, which supported up to 16 MiB of RAM and included higher speed SCSI and provision for connecting Genlock devices,[7] was unveiled in September 1990. The 300 and 400 were followed by a number of machines with minor changes and upgrades:

Acorn Archimedes A3000 computer main unit

Acorn Archimedes A3000 computer with cover removed

Acorn Archimedes A3000 main PCB. Corrosion from a leaky NiCd battery can be seen in the bottom left corner.

The owl logo of the BBC Computer Literacy Project appeared on the keyboard, above the numeric keypad on the Archimedes 300 series and A3000 keyboards.

Work began on a successor to the Arthur operating system. Initially named Arthur 2, it was renamed to RISC OS 2. New computers were shipped with it pre-installed. A number of new machines were introduced along with RISC OS 2 and in May 1989, the 300 series was phased out in favour of the new Acorn A3000 (the 400 series was kept in production). Earlier models which shipped with Arthur could be upgraded to RISC OS 2 by replacing the ROM chip containing the operating system. Because of the ROM chip containing the operating systems, the computer booted instantly (to its GUI system, rare for its time).

The A3000 used an 8 MHz ARM2 and was supplied with 1 MB of RAM. Unlike the previous models, the A3000 came in a single-part case similar to the BBC Micro, Amiga 500 and Atari ST computers, with the keyboard integrated in the base unit. This kind of housing consumes a lot of desktop space, a problem that Acorn tried to overcome by offering a monitor stand that attached to the base unit.[8] The new model sported only a single internal expansion slot, which was physically different from that of the earlier models, although electronically similar. An external connector could interface to existing expansion cards, although they really needed to be housed in an external case joined to the main unit.

A300 series, A400 series, R140 and A3000 machines had the VIDC1a video chip, which provided a wide variety of screen resolutions, such as those provided officially by the operating system:

• 160 × 256 with 4, 16 or 256 possible colours
• 320 × 256 with 2, 4, 16 or 256 possible colours
• 640 × 256 with 2, 4, 16 or 256 possible colours
• 640 × 512 with 2, 4, 16 or 256 possible colours
• 800 × 600 with 2, 4 or 16 possible colours

while the chip could be made to run others, such as:

• 1152 × 896[9] with 2 possible colours

where the palette range was 4096 colours (12-bit) and the VIDC1a had 16 hardware palette registers. This meant that in screen modes with sixteen colours or fewer, the colours could be mapped to any of the 4096 available. However, in 256 colour modes, 4 bits of the colour data were hardware derived and could not be adjusted. The net result was 256 colours, covering a range of the 4096 available colours.[10] It also had no horizontal sync interrupt, meaning that it was difficult to display additional colours by changing the palette for each scan line, but not impossible, thanks to the 2 MHz IOC timer 1.[11] Many demos managed to display 4096 colours on screen, or in a sense more though dithering.[12] It had also one hardware 32-pixel wide sprite with unlimited height (by default used for the mouse pointer), where each pixel is coded on two bits: value 0 is for transparency, and the three others are freely chosen from the 4096 colour palette.[13][14]

A5000 with top removed

In 1991, the A5000 was launched. It featured the new 25 MHz ARM3 processor, 2 or 4 MB of RAM, either a 40 MB or an 80 MB hard drive and a more conventional pizza box-style two-part case (HxWxD: 100 mm × 430 mm × 340 mm[15]). Its enhanced video capabilities allowed the A5000 to comfortably display VGA resolutions of up to 800×600 pixels. It was the first Archimedes to feature a High Density capable floppy disc drive as standard. This natively supported various formats including DOS and Atari discs; RISC OS' own ADFS floppy format had a relatively large capacity of 800 KB for "double" (low) density or 1600 KB for high density. A later version of the A5000 featured a 33 MHz ARM3, 4 or 8 MB of RAM, an 80 or 120 MB hard drive.

The A5000 initially ran the new 3.0 version of RISC OS, although several bugs were identified; most were shipped with RISC OS 3.10 or 3.11. As before, earlier machines were capable of being upgraded to the new RISC OS 3, though some needed to have an additional daughterboard installed first.[16] Earlier models could also benefit from the video performance of the A5000 via a third party upgrade.[17]

A3010

In 1992, a new range was produced, utilising the first ARM system-on-chip: the ARM250 microprocessor, a single-chip design including the functionality of an ARM3 chip without cache, the IOC1 (Input Output Controller), VIDC1a (VIDeo and sound Controller) and MEMC1a (MEMory Controller) chips all integrated into one chip. The increase in clock frequency, from 8 MHz to 12 MHz, gave a performance of 7 MIPS. The machines were supplied with RISC OS 3.10 or 3.11. The A30x0 series had a one-piece design, similar to the A3000 but slightly more shallow, while the A4000 looked like a slightly slimmer A5000. The A3010 model was intended to be a home computing machine, featuring a TV modulator and standard 9-pin joystick ports, while the A3020 targeted the home office and educational markets, featuring a built-in 2.5" hard drive and a dedicated network interface socket. Technically, the A4000 was almost identical to the A3020, only differing in hard disk size (3.5-inch in the A4000), though it sported a different appearance. All three ARM250-based machines could be upgraded to 4 MB with plug-in chips (though the A3010 was designed for 2 MB, third party upgrades overcame this) and one "mini-podule" slot as used for internal expansion in the A3000.

Also in 1992, Acorn introduced the A4 laptop computer featuring a slower 24 MHz (compared to the 25 MHz A5000) version of the ARM3 processor and a LCD screen capable of displaying a maximum resolution of 640 × 480 pixels in 15 levels of grey. However, it did feature a monitor port which offered the same display capabilities as an A5000. A notable omission from the machine was a built-in pointing device, requiring users to navigate with the cursor keys or attach a conventional Acorn three-button mouse.[18]

The A7000, despite its name being reminiscent of the Archimedes naming conventions, was actually more similar to the RiscPC, the line of RISC OS computers that succeeded the Archimedes in 1994. It lacked, however, the DEBI expansion slots and multi-slice case that characterized the RiscPC (though by removing the CDROM, a backplane with one slot could be fitted).