RM Nimbus was a range of personal computers from British company Research Machines (now RM Education) sold from 1985 until the early 1990s, after which the designation Nimbus was discontinued. The first of these computers, the RM Nimbus PC-186, was not IBM PC compatible , but its successors the PC-286 and PC-386 were. RM computers were predominantly sold to schools and colleges in the United Kingdom for use as LAN workstations in classrooms.
122-559: The BBC Domesday Project was a partnership between Acorn Computers , Philips , Logica , and the BBC (with some funding from the European Commission 's ESPRIT programme) to mark the 900th anniversary of the original Domesday Book , an 11th-century census of England . It has been cited as an example of digital obsolescence on account of the physical medium used for data storage. This new multimedia edition of Domesday
244-526: A $ 45 million contract to produce the BBC Micro for the US market. During the search for potential financing partners, an Olivetti director had approached Close Brothers, ostensibly as part of Olivetti's strategy of acquiring technologically advanced small companies. After a short period of negotiations, Curry and Hauser signed an agreement with Olivetti on 20 February. With the founders relinquishing control of
366-704: 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. Acorn initiated its RISC research project in October 1983, and by 1987 had spent £5 million . VLSI Technology, Inc were chosen as silicon partner, since they already supplied Acorn with ROMs and some custom chips. VLSI produced
488-701: A Thorn EMI VHD video disc player. Acorn's success in the interactive video market was reportedly hindered by Acorn's financial difficulties of 1985 putting the company's "support or commitment" into question, even leading to the BBC taking over the development of the Domesday Project's retrieval software from Acorn. Consequently, a contract for 1500 machines with Lloyd's Bank ended up being signed by Video Logic, and other potential customers had not progressed beyond trial purchases of Acorn's machines. By early 1988, "fewer than 2,000" Domesday systems had been sold, with
610-569: A serial port , it uses quadrature signalling Keyboard - Earlier models - Proprietary keyboard port, Later models - PS/2 keyboard port Video - 5-pin DIN plug with TTL RGB output compatible with BBC Micro monitor connectors - modified CGA output Parallel - Optional via expansion card - usually with BBC Micro 'user port' alongside- both with ribbon pin connectors Network -BNC connector - Zilog Z-NET, Ethernet expansion cards were available for later models - both allowed network boot Piconet -
732-512: 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. After testing all of the available processors and finding them lacking, Acorn decided that it needed a new architecture. Inspired by white papers on the Berkeley RISC project, Acorn seriously considered designing its own processor. A visit to
854-759: A Philips VP415 LaserVision laserdisc player. The user interface consisted of the BBC Master's keyboard and a trackball (more specifically the Marconi RB2 Trackerball rebranded by Acorn). The enhancements provided by the Philips VP415 permitted computer control and access to data stored on the discs. The project was split over two laserdiscs: The application software for the project was written in BCPL (a precursor to C ) for portability between different hardware and software platforms, although
976-556: A Windows icon, that would load a BIOS extension TSR and restart Windows in Real Mode . Various configuration options could be set before launch, and returning to normal IBM-compatible mode was a simple matter of running the same program again with a particular option switch. RM Nimbus PCs were usually connected to local area network supplied by RM. The company's initial network solution was RM Net , comprising RM Nimbus PC-186 workstations and servers. Later an RM Nimbus AX or VX became
1098-462: A bias towards urban areas in the design of the survey criteria. Although as many as 13,000 schools showed an interest in collecting and submitting data, these schools mainly covered urban areas, leaving "large gaps of knowledge" in rural areas, and leading the Domesday Project team to reach out to the Women's Institute , Scout Association , Guide Association and to farmers. In addition to preserving
1220-497: 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
1342-467: 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 1980s: 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,
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#17327719843261464-549: A catalyst for start-ups. On 25 July 1961, Clive Sinclair founded Sinclair Radionics to develop and sell electronic devices such as calculators . The failure of the Black Watch wristwatch and the calculator market's move from LEDs to LCDs led to financial problems, and Sinclair approached government body the National Enterprise Board (NEB) for help. After losing control of the company to
1586-476: A close relationship with Torch Computers in the early 1980s, Acorn sought to acquire Torch in 1984 with the intention of making Torch "effectively the business arm" of Acorn, despite a lack of clarity about competing product lines and uncertainty about the future of Acorn's still-unreleased business machine within any rationalised product range, although this acquisition was never completed, with Torch having pulled out as Acorn's situation deteriorated. At around
1708-460: A combination of BBC Micro and Sony Betamax video tape recorder bundled with interface, single disc drive, colour monitor and software for £2,450. Earlier competitors included the Felix Link interface from Felix Learning Systems, supporting laserdisc, VHD video discs, U-Matic tapes, with VHS tapes promised, along with Cameron Communications' Interact B system offering touchscreen control over
1830-565: 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
1952-499: 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 (then Roger Wilson). It was a semi-professional system aimed at engineering and laboratory users, but its price was low enough, at around £80 (equivalent to £420 in 2023), to appeal to
2074-752: A disappointing summer season in 1984, Acorn had evidently focused on making up for lost sales over the Christmas season, with the Electron being a particular focus. However, a refusal to discount the BBC Micro also appeared to inhibit sales of that machine, with some dealers expressing dissatisfaction to the point of considering abandoning the range altogether. With rumours of another, potentially cheaper, machine coming from Acorn, dealers eventually started to discount heavily after Christmas. For instance, high street retailer Rumbelows sought to clear unsold Christmas stocks of around 1500 machines priced at £299, offering
2196-494: A discount of around £100, also bundling them with a cassette recorder and software. The rumoured machine turned out to be the BBC Model B+ which was a relatively conservative upgrade and more, not less, expensive than the machine it replaced. It was speculated that the perception of a more competitive machine soon to be launched might well have kept potential purchasers away from the products that Acorn needed to sell. Acorn
2318-424: 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. It was claimed that Acorn spent £10 million on its US operation without this localised variant of the BBC Micro establishing a significant market share. The machine, however, did make an appearance in the school of Supergirl in
2440-484: A failure to consider local market conditions and preferences, with "complex technical efforts" having been made to make the machine compatible with US television standards when local market information would have indicated that "US home computer users expect to use a dedicated personal computer monitor". Consequently, obtaining Federal approval for the BBC Micro in order to expand into the United States proved to be
2562-640: 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
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#17327719843262684-444: A hard drive, as well as a 3½" floppy drive. By default they were equipped with a Zilog Z-Net interface card, but a second Ethernet card could be added alongside to allow both network interfaces to be used simultaneously, however, the two network interfaces were not able to be bridged. Expansion cards could be added to standard 8-bit and 16-bit ISA sockets, which were both on the motherboard, and on an attached expansion board which
2806-513: 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
2928-442: A market capitalisation of about £135 million. CPU founders Hermann Hauser and Chris Curry's stakes in the new company were worth £64m and £51m, respectively. Ten per cent of the equity was placed on the market, with the money raised from the flotation "mainly" directed towards establishing US and German subsidiaries (the flotation raising around £13.4 million ), although some was directed towards research and product development. By
3050-498: A new multi-tasking OS, four internal ROM sockets, and shipped with a software suite based on View and ViewSheet. It also had an attached telephone, communications software and auto-answer/auto-dial modem. However, with Acorn's finances having sustained the development cost of the Archimedes, and with the custom systems division having contributed substantially to the company's losses in 1987, a change in strategy took effect towards
3172-488: A proprietary serial interface for connecting peripherals Power - Standard IEC connector in and out for monitor supply The RM Nimbus AX and VX models were launched in 1986 and used the 80286 (later the 80386 ) processor. They were fully IBM-compatible, as were all subsequent RM computers. The AX and VX were offered for use as a network file server or as a high-end workstation. They employed either EGA or VGA graphics cards, and were equipped with an ESDI interface for
3294-420: A relatively low-cost Ethernet interface card utilising Intel's 82586 network controller chip. Torus later released a network management solution called Tapestry, based on Icon and marketed by IBM for its own networking technologies. Torus also released support for the use of Novell's Advanced Netware product on its own networking hardware. The company eventually entered receivership in 1990 with Acorn reporting
3416-659: A standard for an educational microcomputer system analogous to the MSX computing architecture and to the established IBM PC compatible architecture. Deliberations continued into 1986, with Acorn proposing its own ARM processor architecture as the basis for the initiative, whereas Thomson had proposed the Motorola 68000. Expectations that Olivetti would actively market Acorn's machines in Europe were, however, frustrated by Olivetti's own assessment of Acorn's products as "too expensive" and
3538-578: A stint in the set-top box and educational markets. However, financial troubles led to the company closing down its workstation division in September 1998, effectively halting its home computer business and cancelling development of RISC OS and the Phoebe computer. The company was acquired and largely dismantled in early 1999. In retrospect, Acorn is sometimes referred to as the "British Apple " and has been compared to Fairchild Semiconductor for being
3660-489: A subsidiary, Acorn Video, offering the platform under the name Master Video with a choice of Philips or Pioneer laserdisc player for £3220, or £3750 for a more compact version. (This ostensibly followed on from earlier products: the Acorn Interactive System, based on the BBC Micro and Pioneer or Philips laserdisc player, which only supported unidirectional control of a laserdisc player via a serial link, and
3782-771: A team at BBC Learning, headed by George Auckland , republished much of the Community disc data in a short-lived web-based format. This data comprising around 25,000 images was loaded onto the BBC Domesday Reloaded website which went online in May 2011 and offline in June 2018, being hosted in archived form at the National Archives thereafter. The data extraction underlying the Domesday Reloaded site
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3904-724: A £242,000 loss associated with the investment. Such were the ambitions of Acorn's management that a joint venture company was established in Hong Kong under the name Optical Information Systems , apparently engaging in the development of "digital, optical technology for computer data storage". Involving a Hong Kong turntable manufacturer, Better Sound Reproduction Ltd., Acorn were to set up a research and development facility in Palo Alto, California, US to bring "compact laser disk drives designed as floppy disk drive replacements" to market within 18 months. In February 1985, speculation about
4026-659: Is Welsh to write about their local area in a foreign language. A compromise saw the BBC allowing ten pages of Welsh text that were to be accompanied by ten pages of English translation for each school submitting content in the Welsh language. With such schools effectively seeing their allocation being reduced from twenty pages to ten, some Welsh schools were apparently boycotting the project in protest at this apparent discrimination. Other concerns from Welsh schools were raised in relation to featured amenities to be surveyed by each school, these being less commonplace in rural areas, suggesting
4148-525: Is to create hardware and software to permit the use of the BBC Domesday system without the need for the rare and expensive specialist hardware employed by the original system, also providing support for the original hardware, releasing developments under free software and open hardware licences. The Centre for Computing History in Cambridge has undertaken a similar project to preserve the data from
4270-640: The ARM . Acorn's development of their RISC OS 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. Having become a publicly traded company in 1983 during the home computer boom, Acorn's commercial performance in 1984 proved to be consequential. Many home computer manufacturers struggled to maintain customer enthusiasm, some offering unconvincing follow-up products that failed to appeal to buyers. The more successful manufacturers, like Amstrad, emphasised
4392-490: 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 her and Steve Furber to agree to create the physical prototype in less than five days. Also in 2008 a number of former staff organised a reunion event to mark
4514-516: 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. After the Atom had been released into the market, Acorn contemplated building modern 16-bit processors to replace the Atom. After a great deal of discussion, Hauser suggested
4636-526: The Nimbus name, although it was still used late enough to appear on some early (and still ISA-based) 486 models shipped in slightly taller (2 x 5.25" bay) cases. By this point, RM's computers were essentially ordinary IBM clones being sold specifically to the education market, with standard processors and buses, operating systems and software, as well as the normal ports (5-pin AT keyboard , 9-pin serial - including
4758-527: The Western Design Center in the US, where the 6502 was being updated by what was effectively a single-person company, showed Acorn engineers Steve Furber and Sophie Wilson they did not need massive resources and state-of-the-art research and development facilities. Sophie Wilson set about developing the instruction set, writing a simulation of the processor in BBC BASIC that ran on
4880-819: 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. Acorn became more known for its BBC Micro model B than for its other products. In 2008,
5002-403: The 1981 census. Over a million people participated in the project, including children from more than 9,000 schools. Initially estimated to require the involvement of 10,000 schools and about one million children, the intention was to make the role of schools central in a data gathering project that would assign each school to a geographical area, have parents and local societies collect data, with
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5124-458: The 1984 film Supergirl: The Movie . Acorn also made or attempted various acquisitions. The Computer Education in Schools division of ICL was acquired by Acorn in late 1983 "reportedly for less than £100,000", transferring a staff of six to Acorn's Maidenhead office to form Acorn's Educational Services division and to provide "the core of education support development within Acorn". Having had
5246-480: The 1990s, identifying the market as the largest in Europe whose technically sophisticated computer retailers were looking for opportunities to sell higher-margin products than IBM PC compatibles, with a large enthusiast community amongst existing and potential customers. Efforts were made to establish a local marketing presence and to offer localised versions of Acorn's products. Despite optimistic projections of success, and with Acorn having initially invested £700,000 in
5368-558: The 30th anniversary of the company's formation. The BBC Micro sold well—so much so that Acorn's profits rose from £3000 in 1979 to £8.6 million in July 1983. In September 1983, CPU shares were liquidated and Acorn was floated on the Unlisted Securities Market 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
5490-579: 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
5612-509: The ACE controller was based on a National Semiconductor SC/MP microprocessor, but soon the switch to a MOS Technology 6502 was made. CPU had financed the development of a SC/MP 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
5734-612: The AIV platform such as the Domesday Display application suite which allowed users to extract data and pictures from the laserdiscs and to present them in the form of a slideshow. The Domesday Presenter application focused on Domesday and AIV system laserdiscs, whereas the Domesday Captions application allowed video frames to be selected from AIV system laserdiscs or any other CAV (constant angular velocity) laserdisc, with
5856-548: The Acorn founders with less than 15% ownership of the company. Meanwhile, the financial difficulties had reduced the number of employees at Acorn from a peak of 480 to around 270. With Brian Long appointed as managing director, Acorn were set to move forward with a new OEM-focused computer named the Communicator and the Cambridge Workstation , whose launch had been delayed until the end of July 1985 due to
5978-698: The BBC Domesday project based in Bilton House in West Ealing. Pre-mastering of data was carried out on a VAX-11/750 mini-computer, assisted by a network of BBC Micro microcomputers. The discs were mastered, produced, and tested by the Philips Laservision factory in Blackburn, England. Viewing the discs required a BBC Master AIV - an Acorn BBC Master expanded with a SCSI controller and the 65C102 "Turbo" co-processor - which controlled
6100-459: The BBC's plans, the BBC allowed other manufacturers to submit their proposals. Hauser quickly drafted in Steve Furber (who had been working for Acorn on a voluntary basis since the ACE fruit machine project) and Sophie Wilson to help complete a revised version of the Proton which met the BBC's specifications. BBC visited Acorn and were given a demonstration of the Proton. Shortly afterwards,
6222-742: 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% of the cost of computers, providing they chose one of three models: BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum or Research Machines 380Z . In parallel,
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#17327719843266344-643: The Companion system from Bevan Technology which could control VHS-based tape and Philips LaserVision players, both apparently offered support for integration with applications using the Microtext language. Ivan Berg Software (a one-time partner with Acornsoft on various titles) offered the Take Five system on Betamax format video tape with the BBC Micro supplying "question-and-answer frames" in interactive training course material. The Polymedia PCL 1000 also offered
6466-584: 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
6588-571: The Domesday Project and made it available online. In 2011, with the National Disc and Community Disc processed, the museum was investigating copyright issues before releasing the URL to the general public. An emulator has since been made available in collaboration with the Domesday86 project. The museum has a working Domesday system on display and accessible to the public. They also have possibly
6710-571: The Domesday Project content, known as the Domesday Advanced Interactive Video (AIV) System, was also intended as a platform to support other interactive video applications, integrating with programming languages such as BASIC and Logo via the operating system. Opportunities were perceived for the introduction of the technology beyond the education sector and into various areas of the public and private sectors, estimating "300,000 potential business customers". Acorn set up
6832-635: The Free Software emulator, BeebEm, was then used to access the archived data, with enhancements introduced to support emulation of the Turbo co-processor, SCSI communication and laserdisc player functionality. Another team, working for the UK National Archives (who hold the original Domesday Book) tracked down the original 1-inch videotape masters of the project. These were digitised and archived to Digital Betacam . A version of one of
6954-589: The NEB, Sinclair encouraged Chris Curry to leave Radionics and get Science of Cambridge (SoC—an early name for Sinclair Research ) up and running. In June 1978, SoC launched a microcomputer kit, the MK14 , 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
7076-399: The RISC OS platform also supported use of laserdisc players such as the Key Plus data collection and analysis software for the educational market. Oak Solutions' Genesis product supported use of laserdisc hardware, with The Battle of the Somme title, produced by Netherhall School in conjunction with NCET and the Imperial War Museum, incorporating "Laservision material which really brings
7198-412: The System 1 in a 19-inch (480 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
7320-417: 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 Motorola 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
7442-402: The Viewpoint Interactive Video Workstation.) BBC Enterprises and Virgin released interactive video discs for education. Following on from the initial Domesday content, the Ecodisc from BBC Enterprises provided an ecological simulation of Slapton Ley nature reserve designed to complement biology and ecology field trips at secondary school level. It was priced at £169 plus VAT, with one side of
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#17327719843267564-411: 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; this was not going to be easy with
7686-404: The bundling of computers with essential peripherals such as monitors and cassette recorders along with value for money. The collapse of the market from the manufacturers' perspective, it was argued, was due to the "neglect of the market by the manufacturers". Market adversity had led to Atari being sold, and Apple nearly went bankrupt. The Electron had been launched in 1983, but problems with
7808-433: The company and seeing their combined stake fall from 85.7% to 36.5%, the Italian computer company took a 49.3% stake in Acorn for £10.39 million, which went some way to covering Acorn's £10.9 million losses in the previous six months, effectively valuing Acorn at around a tenth of its valuation of £216 million the year before. Acorn's share price collapse and the suspension of its listing was attributed by some news outlets to
7930-443: The company's failure to establish itself in the US market, with one source citing costs of $ 5.5 million related to that endeavour. In July 1985, Olivetti acquired an additional £4 million of Acorn shares, raising its ownership stake in the company to 79.8%. Major creditors agreed to write off £7.9 million in debts, and the BBC agreed to waive 50% of outstanding royalty payments worth a reported £2 million. This second refinancing left
8052-417: The creators knew that the technology would be short-lived but that the archivists had failed to preserve the material effectively. An initial decision to only support the entry of text in English for the Domesday discs led to a dispute involving Welsh schools in areas where local education authorities supported both English and Welsh as first languages: There's no way you can ask children whose first language
8174-410: The development of computer technology like processors . The company's Acorn Electron , released in 1983, and the later Acorn Archimedes , were highly popular in Britain, while Acorn's BBC Micro computer dominated the educational computer market during the 1980s. Acorn also developed the reduced instruction set computing (RISC) architecture set in 1985 and an operating system , RISC OS , for
8296-473: The disc containing the interactive content and data, the other side containing the BBC Schools Television programme Ecology and Conservation . Virgin's North Polar Expedition title, in contrast to Ecodisc, provided the software to support interaction on separate floppy disks instead of as LV-ROM content. It was priced at £199 plus VAT, and was reportedly a "testbed for CDI applications" planned by Virgin Publishing. Having received one unfavourable verdict that
8418-417: The disc. Initial estimates indicated a total storage capacity of 2 GB per disc, described as sufficient for 80,000 pictures (including satellite images) and "half a million text pages" plus software to process maps and graphical information. The delivered product was estimated to offer a "total potential capacity" of around 1400 MB with half of that capacity filled. Data and images were selected and collated by
8540-425: The discs using emulation techniques. The CAMiLEON project transferred the text and database files stored on the Domesday laserdiscs to a Linux-based computer using an SCSI connection to the player. Images, stored as still-frame video, were digitised at full resolution using video capture hardware and stored uncompressed, ultimately requiring around 70 GB of storage per side of each laserdisc. A modified version of
8662-460: The discs was created that runs on a Windows PC. This version was reverse-engineered from an original Domesday Community disc and incorporates images from the videotape masters. It was initially available only via a terminal at the National Archives headquarters in Kew, but was published on the web as Domesday 1986 (at domesday1986.com) in July 2004. This version was taken off-line early in 2008 when its programmer, Adrian Pearce, suddenly died. In 2011,
8784-555: The end of 1984, Acorn Computer Group was organised into several subsidiary companies. Acorn Computers Limited was responsible for the management of the microcomputer business, research and development, and UK sales and marketing, whereas Acorn Computer Corporation and Acorn Computers International Limited dealt with sales to the US and to other international markets respectively. Acorn Computers (Far East) Limited focused on component procurement and manufacturing with some distribution responsibilities in local markets. Acornsoft Limited
8906-467: The end of 1987, moving away from "individual customers" and towards "volume products", resulting in 47 of Acorn's 300 staff being made redundant, the closure of the custom systems division, and the abandonment of the Communicator. In February 1986, Acorn announced that it was ceasing US sales operations, and sold its remaining US BBC Microcomputers for $ 1.25 million to a Texas company, Basic, which
9028-477: The endeavour, the loss-making operation was closed in 1995 as part of broader cost-cutting and restructuring in response to a decline in revenue and difficulties experienced by various Acorn divisions. Ostensibly facilitated or catalysed by Olivetti's acquisition of Acorn, reports in late 1985 indicated plans for possible collaboration between Acorn, Olivetti and Thomson in the European education sector to define
9150-470: 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
9272-734: The future of the LV-ROM format, in contrast to Laservision and CD-ROM, also indicating that CD-I would remove various restrictions experienced with the laserdisc medium. The BBC's Countryside disc provided various census and agricultural datasets and was sponsored by a broad consortium of public and private sector organisations. The BBC's Volcanoes disc, produced in association with Oxford University Press, featured volcanic eruption footage and animated computer graphics sequences by award-winning animator, Rod Lord, together with hypertext features. The Volcanoes disc (priced at £194.35) employed "new AIV features like hypertext" and had graphical content that
9394-547: The hardware. The company also designed the ARM architecture; this part of the business was spun-off as Advanced RISC Machines under a joint venture with Apple and VLSI in 1990, now known as Arm Holdings , which is dominant in the mobile phone and personal digital assistant (PDA) microprocessor market today. Acorn in the 1990s released the Risc PC line and the Acorn Network Computer , and also had
9516-527: 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
9638-516: The largest Domesday and interactive laserdisc archive in the world. The National Museum of Computing based beside Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes has a working Domesday system in its BBC Micro Classroom for visitors to use. The deputy editor of the Domesday Project, Mike Tibbets, has criticised the UK's National Data Archive to which the archive material was originally entrusted, arguing that
9760-436: The latter out of a total of 450 employees. Meanwhile, Acorn's chosen method of expansion into West Germany and the United States through the establishment of subsidiaries involved a "major commitment of resources", in contrast with a less costly strategy that might have emphasised collaboration with local distributors. Localisation of the BBC Micro for the US market also involved more expenditure than it otherwise might have due to
9882-517: The literacy programme computer contract was awarded to Acorn, and the Proton was launched in December 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
10004-489: 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 ARM processor . In early 1980, the BBC Further Education department conceived the idea of a computer literacy programme, mostly as
10126-500: 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
10248-508: The mouse, 15-pin HD-sub VGA - although some 386 models used the less common 9-pin variant, etc), and the previous non-standard holdovers from the 380Z days long since abandoned. Despite moving to a standard IBM-compatible architecture from the X series onwards, RM somewhat unusually maintained backwards compatibility with software written for their original Nimbus model by way of a "PC186" program that could be launched from MS-DOS or via
10370-492: The portfolio. Even from the time of Acorn's earliest systems, the company was considering how to move on from the 6502 processor, introducing a Motorola 6809 processor card for its System 3 and System 4 models. Several years later in 1985, the Acorn Communicator employed the 16-bit 65816 processor as a step up from the 6502. The IBM PC was launched on 12 August 1981. Although a version of that machine
10492-635: The position of seeking a financing partner for Acorn, but in a significantly more urgent timeframe, making "financial institutions or a large computer company" the most likely candidates, these having the necessary resources and decision-making agility for a timely intervention. The dire financial situation was brought to a head in February 1985, when one of Acorn's creditors issued a winding-up petition. It would eventually emerge that Acorn owed £31.1 million to various creditors including manufacturers AB Electronics and Wong's Electronics. Wong's had been awarded
10614-561: 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,
10736-537: 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, and supplies of the Electron built up. At the time of the eventual financial rescue of Acorn in early 1985, it still had 100,000 unsold Electrons plus an inventory of components which had all been paid for and needed to be stored at additional expense. 40,000 BBC Micros also remained unsold. After
10858-455: The project alive" and offering "potentially a new beginning for that old Domesday system". Acorn Computers Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge , England in 1978 by Hermann Hauser , Chris Curry and Andy Hopper . The company produced a number of computers during the 1980s with associated software that were highly popular in the domestic market, and they have been historically influential in
10980-500: The project, untangling the copyright issues also presents a significant challenge. In addition to copyright surrounding the many contributions made by the estimated 1 million people who took part in the project, there are also copyright issues that relate to the technologies employed. It is likely that the Domesday Project will not be completely free of copyright restrictions until at least 2090 (assuming no further extensions of copyright terms). The BBC Master-based system used to deliver
11102-535: The proprietary operating system offering "limited flexibility". Instead, Olivetti sought to promote its M19 personal computer for the European schools market, offering it to Acorn for sale in the UK (ultimately, as the rebadged Acorn M19 ). Olivetti would eventually offer both Acorn's Master Compact and the Thomson MO6 to the Italian market with its Prodest branding. RM Nimbus The RM Nimbus PC-186
11224-429: The result of disagreement between Acorn and Lazards over the measures needed to rescue the company, with Lazards favouring a sale or refinancing whereby the founders would lose control, Acorn and their replacement advisors, Close Brothers, were reported to be pursuing a "radical reorganisation of the company". Lazards had sought to attract financing from GEC but had failed to do so. Close Brothers also found themselves in
11346-525: The same time, Acorn also bought into Torus Systems - a company developing a "graphics-controlled local network called Icon" for the IBM PC platform - to broaden Acorn's networking expertise. Icon was a solution based on Ethernet, as opposed to the Acorn-related Econet and Cambridge Ring technologies, equipping appropriately specified IBM-compatible computers to participate on a network using
11468-456: The schools "acting as a focus and providing the computer". Questionnaires about geography, amenities and land use were to be completed, with school pupils and other contributors also able to write about their local area and "the issues affecting them" in their own words. In the context of the educational relevance of microcomputers and of information retrieval software operating on repositories of data that might potentially be built by children, it
11590-601: The series Cautionary Tales , described and contextualized many of the troubled issues surrounding the historical trajectory of the BBC Domesday Project's data. However, the BBC later announced that the CAMiLEON project (a partnership between the University of Leeds and University of Michigan , led by Margaret Hedstrom and managed by researcher Paul Wheatley) had developed a system capable of accessing
11712-468: The software required additional patches to run on the RM Nimbus version of the system. An Amiga version of the system was considered but not initiated. In 2002, concerns emerged over the potential unreadablility of the discs as computers capable of reading the format became rare and drives capable of accessing the discs even rarer. Aside from the difficulty of emulating the original code, a major issue
11834-420: The state of Acorn's finances intensified with the appointment of a temporary chief executive, Alexander Reid, to run the company, together with the announcement that Acorn had replaced its financial advisors, Lazards, and that the company's stockbrokers, Cazenove, had resigned, ultimately leading to the suspension of Acorn shares, these having fallen to a low of 23 pence per share. With these events reportedly being
11956-506: The supply of its ULA 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 ephemeral: rather than wait, parents bought Commodore 64 or ZX Spectrum for their children's presents. Ferranti solved
12078-413: The suspension of Acorn's shares. Of subsequent significance, Hermann Hauser was also expected to announce a "VLSI chip design using a reduced instruction set". Unveiled towards the end of 1985, the Communicator was Acorn's answer to ICL's One Per Desk initiative. This Acorn machine was based around a 16-bit 65SC816 CPU, 128 KB RAM, expandable to 512 KB, plus additional battery-backed RAM. It had
12200-465: 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
12322-600: The system reflected: The concept behind Domesday is very far reaching, since for the first time large quantities of images and data can be held together. For publishers and knowledge workers, the media for communication will never be quite the same. And this really is just the start. The project was stored on adapted LaserDiscs in the LaserVision Read Only Memory (LV-ROM) format, which contained not only analogue video and still pictures, but also digital data, with 300 MB of storage space on each side of
12444-527: The title offered "a tired question and answer format in what should be an innovative new medium", a response to this particular review attempted to address such criticisms by noting the limitations of the interaction method employed by the Domesday system, the tightly coupled sound and video capabilities of the medium, and the need to deliver and improve the software without involving the "expensive and complex LV-ROM mastering process". The response also questioned
12566-618: The total price of the system being around £5,200. However, a voucher scheme had been in operation, reducing the purchase price to £3000, and this was to be extended until the end of that year. Subsequent Acorn machines were also featured in laserdisc solutions. For instance, a system was offered by Eltec Computers and the British Nuclear Forum consisting of a BBC A3000 , LaserVision 406 player, genlock card, and three discs designed by educators at Newcastle University aimed at secondary schools. The system cost £1899. Some software on
12688-509: The two different lines of business separate. The microcomputer kit was named as Acorn System 75. Acorn was chosen because the microcomputer system was to be expandable and growth-oriented. It also had the attraction of appearing before " Apple Computer " 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
12810-441: The user adding their own captions. Although this particular interactive video implementation had progressed away from previous "cumbersome and boring" solutions relying on the navigation of sequential-access video tape, tape-based solutions persisted as competitors. For example, the tape-based VP170 Video Presenter package from Interactive Media Resources (whose system processor was packaged similarly to an Acorn second processor) and
12932-463: The usual choice of fileserver. PC-186 workstations could be designated as print servers , allowing shared access to printers from all workstations. The network used Microsoft MS-Net server and client software, Zilog Z-Net network interface cards, coaxial cable and BNC connectors . It allowed up to 127 workstations to be connected and booted directly from the network server . Network users could be members of user groups, with each group receiving
13054-569: Was a 16-bit microcomputer introduced in 1985. It is one of a small number of computers based on the Intel 80186 processor, a version of the Intel 8086 (as used by the IBM PC ) originally intended as a processor for embedded systems. It ran MS-DOS 3.1 but was not IBM PC compatible. The PC-186 could run Windows versions up to and including Windows 3.0 , but only in real mode , as protected mode
13176-1087: Was a subsidiary of Datum, the Mexican manufacturer of the Spanish version of the BBC Microcomputer (with modified Spanish keyboards for the South American market). The sales office in Woburn, Massachusetts was closed at this time. Acorn was reported as having achieved "negligible U.S. sales". In 1990, in contrast, Acorn set up a sales and marketing operation in Australia and New Zealand by seeking to acquire long-time distributor Barson Computers Australasia, with Acorn managing director Sam Wauchope noting Acorn's presence in Australia since 1983 and being "the only computer manufacturer whose products are recommended by all Australian state education authorities". Acorn also sought once again to expand into Germany in
13298-507: 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
13420-553: 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 delivered few products, with only the 32016-based model ever being sold (as the Cambridge Workstation). The company's research and development staff had grown from around 100 in 1983 to around 150 in 1984,
13542-403: Was carried out in 2003 and 2004 by Simon Guerrero and Eric Freeman. Subsequent efforts by the Domesday86 project have taken a broader approach to preservation by attempting to preserve the technologies used to access Domesday and other interactive video content, along with the content itself, focusing on the laserdiscs as preservation artefacts in their own right. The stated objective of the group
13664-558: Was compiled between 1984 and 1986 and published in 1986. It included a new "survey" of the United Kingdom , in which people, mostly school children, wrote about geography, history or social issues in their local area or just about their daily lives. This was linked with maps, and many colour photos, statistical data, video and "virtual walks". The project also incorporated professionally prepared video footage, virtual reality tours of major landmarks and other prepared datasets such as
13786-408: Was created on Archimedes computers. Shell Education Services offered an "interactive video project pack" intended for educational use in various subjects based on "a system developed by Shell UK to provide route maps in filling stations". Epic Industrial Communications offered a "complete course in solid state electronics" for the AIV system, priced at £2300 plus VAT. Support software was also made for
13908-447: Was felt that: It is in the handling of data that children can best develop an understanding of what counts for knowledge. They can be led into the areas of critical interpretation. As the computer takes over the role of storing and sorting the data, children can increasingly involve themselves in analysing the significance of the data. With regard to potential applications of the system and of its significance, one contemporary reviewer of
14030-461: 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
14152-602: Was largely similar to the System 4, but included a newer 2 MHz version of the 6502 . Development of the Sinclair ZX80 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.
14274-602: Was only available on 286 or higher processors. Most PC-186 systems were used as workstations within a local area network and were supplied without a hard disk. The operating system was started from a floppy disk or via a remote boot ROM on its network interface card, connecting to the LAN's fileserver . Stand-alone workstations were rarer but available with either twin floppy drives or a 20Mbyte hard drive and single floppy drive. Mouse - 9-pin D-Sub connector , sometimes confused as
14396-460: 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,
14518-447: Was responsible for development, production and marketing of software for Acorn's computer range. Vector Marketing Limited was established to handle distribution-related logistics and the increasing customer support burden. As part of Acorn's office automation aspirations, conducting "advanced software research and development", Acorn Research Center Incorporated was established in Palo Alto, California. Acorn Leasing Limited rounded out
14640-464: 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
14762-646: Was supplied as standard. RM released PCs based on Intel 286 and 386 processors under the RM Nimbus name. The PC-286 and early PC-386 versions were termed the M Series due to the MCA bus used, and had a similar case design to that used by later models of the PC-186. Later RM PCs using the 386 processor used an ISA bus and were shipped in a particularly ("S" for) slimline desktop case with only two 3.5" drive bays. The processor typically ran at 16 or 25MHz. Later models dropped
14884-451: Was that the still images had been stored on the laserdisc as single-frame analogue video, which were overlaid by the computer system's graphical interface. The project had begun years before JPEG image compression and before truecolour computer video cards had become widely available. In November 2023, a podcast episode by Tim Harford, "Laser Versus Parchment: Doomsday for the Disc," from
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