Acorn A3000

[dresitomat]

got one of them in my very smal computr collection

[CommandLineCowboy]

The economies of scale from the taiwanese PCs killed it. They should designed a reference board, licensed the OS and let the Taiwanese build it as cheap as only they could. A 'fabless' business model that has worked so well for ARM. Can't wait for windows 8 on ARM. Anyone know how much cheaper a Cortex A15 is compared to i3?

[CommandLineCowboy]

I had an a305, for its day it had terrific performance. Acorn went there own way a bit too much. The graphics modes weren't PC compatible so you couldn't use cheap PC VGA monitors (at first). You had to use expensive SCSI CDROM drives NZ$2000 when you could get a soundblaster CDROM kit for NZ$500. Couldnt expand the memory beyond 4Mb. Sound was 8 bit logarithmic (equivalent 12bit) and noisy. Graphics palette was (effectively) fixed 256 colours

[DANATRINGWOOD]

god damn 700quid lol my new laptop cost me 500 lol

[fluffboyjr12]

Can it play Crisis!?!

[itchywitchy]

It's a pity they were so expensive compared with the Atari ST and Amiga, they were a great computer for the time.

[coolshit28]

What a no internet - this pc sucks! :p

[bazfanv2]

When Commodore did there A500 promo it really got you engrossed in the machine as it went into detail about what it could do. This ad did not or would not sell me an A3000, sorry Acorn.

[tribalmasters]

@bazfanv2

I had the A3020 it was great!! For home use it was not as good as the Amiga though for obvious gaming reasons!!

[kinmanyuen]

I met someone who programs games on the acorn and sold them in the uk

[jeremykyleftw]

they still had an acorn archimedes in my maths class by the time i left in 2003.

[canis77]

Used to love these machines at school, extremely powerful for the time, good OS and easy to use.

Shame they went the way they did. I suppose the Legacy lives on in the amount of hardware with ARM processors in them.

[Rory1471]

This is such a cheesey ad :P

[blazerrips91]

lol rember apple computers at the time with there gay pride apple logo

[spoonnz]

hahah memores

[falkerhard]

Good computer, but crappy advert. Would scare me away from it. But I do know it's a good computer since they were in all our schools.

[wootlanter]

We were still using these in high school in 1997 (year I left). By this time, many people had PCs at home running windows 95 and we regarded whatever OS this had as junk, unstable as Windows 95 was.

What was that thing about a waiter in the OS?

[cmcnum]

loved these pc's i started school in 1997 and played goldielocs and the 3 bears game last time i seen one in a school were 2005 and all it was used for was lemmings as soon as windows 98 came into schools they just chucked them in a skip what a shame

[fanboy112]

Was very nice!

[kimosaaaabe]

state of the art in 1987. i have an a310 in the loft somewhere, gathering dust...

[ogicabp4u]

compared to ANY other computer available at the time...it was Sooo advanced... the best PC out at the time was the P90 with 4Mb of Ram. I remeber my mate bought one...he was showing off some games to me...then I showed him so demo software and Starfighter 3000. He was absolutely gobsmacked! Awesome computer for the time...shame it was only really marketed as an education computer.

[Jamiep84]

The Archimedes was released way before the P90. In 1987 the 386 PC had only just been released, and Windows (version 2) was seriously crap and hardly being used anywhere.

[ogicabp4u]

@Jamiep84 True, True. I showed him my RiscPC which came out later. Blew the pants off his P90. I had an A310 and an A3000 and an A3010 as well. Compared them to the Amigas. Before pentiums comparing an Archie to a IBM PC compatible was like comparing a dinosaur to an iphone. Remeber CGA...4 colors WOW! or Tandy IBM compatible Hercules graphics? 2 colors(In high def no less...256x320??)...no comparison to an Amiga or early Archie.

[jamesleetrigg]

I had one with a massive 45Mb SCSI Hard drive & 2Mb ram :) them where the days. did alot of programing in BBC basic on it. it's 8MHz ARM2 yields 4.5-4.8 MIPS in repeatable benchmark tests compared to my ST one 1MIP. if they could only have build them at same price a ST we might have been usings acorns today.

[Bedsitdweller]

I remember I always used to get banned for knowing how to use them. I liked how the files were really folders so when you held shift and double clicked on an icon all the files for that program were inside it, so I used to hide games like Lemmings inside applications like paint on the hard drive. PCs are shit.

[kgm1000uk]

That's quite funny, hiding games in other apps. Just had to say Files aren't folders so much as Apps are a kind of directory (whose name starts with by a ! character).

[mynamesmatt111]

The, Ultimate. GAMING PC!

[blazerrips91]

its funny you should say that (it was) lmfao

[whelan82]

hahaha £699+vat not everything shown included! omg!

thats like £6.999 these days :P

[hamster700]

yes people thaght britain was an industrial hub in 19th century but sony is based here hewlett packard is based here elenex is based here im using a british computer now in fact i will always use one becuse BRITAIN RULZ

[Bellwestern80]

The Acorn PCs had a bit of Apple design, such as the pointer and the display bar to exit programs.

[hamster700]

BRITAIN ROX

[blazerrips91]

same here

[Anyone300]

My old school had one of these when I was in first grade in 1995.

[samthornley]

Acorn computers were the people that developed the first ever 32 bit ARM RISC processor. Today they are used in wireless routers, Nintendo DS, GPS devices and even the iPod.

[xandercraw]

i thought that was amiga ....you learn something everyday thanks

[cucho69]

Yes, the evolution of MOS6502.

[RobotwarsKing]

Teacher never told me the Acorn had Pac-Mania on it!

[swinkyuk]

Yes, powerful!, this was years ahead of anything else at the time. Brilliant machines.

[Pyroman1990]

I used to work with them at school they sucked

[Furrowbrow]

No, they were indeed massively ahead of the equivalent PC technology of the time. BBC computers were a great British institution - you should be proud of them.

[swinkyuk]

maybe you sucked?

[Pyroman1990]

Powerful? LOL!!!!

[m1omg]

it was created 3 years before you were spawned sucker