Acorn Atom, BBC Model B, Electron and Archimedes vintage home computers + ARM RISC Chips

[Aaronage1]

Great video!

The history of Acorn/ARM is fascinating, completely underappreciated.

If you haven;t, go watch the Sophie Wilson presentations and interviews available on YouTube, they reveal just how important Acorn were, and just how ahead of the compeition they were with ARM (and all the firsts they achieved, like SoC)

ARM FTW - look forward to getting a Cortex A15 phone sometime this year :)

[EgoShredder]

The Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 had pretty much sewn up the market, by the time the cut down Electron had arrived.  I only knew of one person that owned one and he lived on my street. His father was a maths teacher and probably got it based on the school using BBC Micros. The Electron was ok but I would not have swapped my ZX Spectrum 48K for it at the time in 1983.

[TheEPROM9]

If I remember correctly RS242 is RS232 Serial protocol with different voltage levels.

[Squiddy200]

We used the eco network at school on our BBC B's.The security was aweful. It was very easy to hack into someone else's account and being a school kid, we all did. Changed passwords, etc

[walter0bz]

acorn-phone ... ?

good to see the work done on designing that CPU line found a new home.

[cdmorris101]

Good little history there, thanks

[IlRezzonico]

I remember people wetting themselves with excitement over the Archimedes when I was at university.

[thehiddenleader]

theres an acorn atom just appeared on ebay. its been modified quite a bit but its working.

[SteveBenway]

@thehiddenleader Thanks for the tip. Wish I wasn't so skint :)

[theduderwiggysan]

This brings a tear to my eyes watching this ! Fantastic !

[DrOrphious79]

in the loft we have a bbc b, still working and a huge pile of the square disks.

also we got the acorn electron and we had a expansion riser wich was as wide as the acorn and almost as deep, made it about as big as the bbcb, not sure how much memory that had but it made more games possible, it all still works.

got that same A3010 too

god i miss all that stuff, computers were so much more magic when u could spend a whole week typing in a game you got from a magazine then play a 'free' game lol

[dvamateur]

This is the Vince Clark's machine!

[robertoshorto]

BBC B with a PS3 behind it - such a contrast! My friend showed me the boxart for one game and I've now spent the last hour on youtube looking at all the old games we used to play as kids. And amazingly, there's no video for Caesar the Cat! Thanks for the vids, brings back great memories :)

[kimosaaaabe]

It was more powerful in some areas, the technology was much newer. But it lacked a true pre-emptive multitasking OS like the Amiga. Considering the Amiga stated life as a games console concept back in 1982 it did pretty well...

[cmdfarsight]

My school had a bbc when I was in 3rd yr but we seldom had chance to use it. :( I want one.

[AlxFitz]

My school in around 1983 had 8-bit "Research Machines" computers if I remember rightly.

[crompton33001]

@AlxFitz RM Link 480Z :)

[paulb4uk]

Our school bbc computers were networked you could send a message to different machines i remember you typed *send then the number of the machine and then your message or command . and you could operate one computer from from another computer .great fun was had starting a music playing program on a computer sitting in a corner with no one sat at it .

[jettero1]

And the Apple ][

[Gooberslot]

I did some research after watching your video and the Archimedes seems a lot more powerful than the Amiga. That's kinda sad for an Amiga fanboy like me.

[SteveBenway]

@Gooberslot I have a working Archimedes 3010 now, the model competing for shelf space with the Amiga 1200, and it is indeed a much more capable machine. It's a real pity it didn't sell well, as there's not nearly as much good software for it as it deserves.

[Gooberslot]

@SteveBenway How's the OS compared to the Amiga?

[SteveBenway]

@Gooberslot I've not really looked into it enough to have a valid opinion. From the few minutes I spent tinkering with it, it felt minimalist.

[kimosaaaabe]

@Gooberslot

yep. The problem with the amiga was it's custom chipset, great in the day, but became a shackle to it's future development. The AGA chipset was waaaay overdue...the 1200 should have come out in 1989, not '92...

But at least it had SOME worldwide success, unlike the acorn...

[xadam2dudex]

weren't the Acorns Commodore compatible or Apple compatible ??

[SteveBenway]

@xadam2dudex No, they were entirely different. I believe the Acorn BBC Master with a Z80 co-processor may have been able to emulate certain other 8 bit machines, but I'm not sure about that.

[6F6G]

Around 1980/81 most home computers used either the 6502 or the Z80 processor. The computer press at the time was full of articles saying how superior the Z80 processor was yet the better computers of the time tended to use the 6502.

[scroogeballs]

Benway is a sad little man. The reason why he plays with his computers is very simple, it is becaus his wife is ugly and playing games all day keeps his mind off the beast !! Yes Benway, it is true. It is time for you to leave YouTube because your boring and nobody wants you here. Deactivate you account and go away !!!!

[kpuc1973]

the model Bs at my school were all networked through the ethernet and we used to save our little programs on the main winchester harddrive rather than floppy disks.

some bright spark came up with a little program called forcer which the user could use to take over another computer. bit like IT helpdesks do these days. use or ownership of that program usually ended up with being banished.but in the case of one fellow who deleted anothers final year exam work it ended up with a severe bash

[farcher3]

Thank you VERY MUCH for this review! It was GREAT!

[IBeeMonkey]

Jeez, I remember using a Model B when I was about 7 in Primary school in the early 1990's....blimey. Another ace vid, Steve! :D

[IBeeMonkey]

Jeez, I remember using one of these when I was about 7 in Primary school in the early 1990's....blimey. Another ace vid, Steve! :D

[alanstarkie2001]

I had an Acorn Atom with 12k RAM and (I think) 2x 16 channel output cards which I turned into a special effects computer. 32 channels of mains powered effects synchronised to a big reel-to-reel tape deck that played quad audio in a theatre. Did it all on BASIC. Great computer and very, very reliable.

[6F6G]

RS423 port on the back of the BBC = RS232 serial port for printers etc. Don't know what the difference is.

[xoio]

Acorn Atom .. I remember my School having loads of those, as well as the BBC Bs

I got myself an Electron in late 1993 - Magic!

Who'd have thought at the time that the ARM processors that went into the Archemedes, have their decendents being the defacto processors in most all Phones & many other devices ..

Qualcom, snapdragon. TI etc etc .. These are ALL ARM based processors.

ARM used to stard for Acorn Risc Machine, later renaming the A to Advanced.

[martiekr]

you know very much about Acorn computers :)

did you work at the company ones? :)

[SteveBenway]

@martiekr No, not at all. I've never worked in the computer or gaming industry. I've just been very interested in the subject since I was a kid, and always read a lot about it :)

[martiekr]

I have an other one as a ISA plug-in card into my (old) MS-Dos computer. With a MS-Dos terminal-emulator the Acorn-Atom can use the hardware of the MS-Dos, like the VGA-Screen (full Graphics), 20Mb Hard-Drive etc. The BIOS (Disk- and Graphics-routines) in the Acorn-Atom can standard address this (big) hardware. So drawing a line on a 1024*800 screen works out of the box, but for 1 Mhz CPU the calculations for every point is not very fast. You see the line grow across the screen..

[SteveBenway]

@martiekr Wow... I've never heard about the Atom ISA card. That's really cool. Thanks for telling me about it :)

[martiekr]

@SteveBenway Well, its actually a dutch development, build by Roland Leurs (Netherlands) , Its called "Atom in PC". You can find more info at:

h t t p :\\members.casema.nl\hhaydn\at­omhw.html

Maybe you can use this info to complete your collection :)

(replace / by \ in the URL)

[martiekr]

The Acorn-Atom was my very first computer, good old memories. I bought it as a kit, you had to buid it yourself, like soldering the chip-sockets on the mainboard and push all the chips (cpu, memory etc.) into the sockets. This Acorn-Atom is still running.

[ForViewingOnly]

The BBC Micro is a thing of beauty. It still gives me goosebumps when I see it. Built like a tank, reliable, great keyboard, massive internal power supply unit, BBC BASIC (the most powerful and intuitive BASIC on any British computer in the 80's?), all sorts of interface sockets. I know it was expensive but it was beautifully designed and built.

[mattgfc1893]

i never like the acorn bbc computer it was horrid yeah 1.5m to ever school in the uk

[skankingrudeboy]

When I was at school we had two rooms of networked BBC Micro Bs. The fun we had!!

[rovercrew]

actually Newbury Laboratories put forward the Newbrain for the BBC micro project, Sinclair pushed a different computer, probably the zx81 or spectrum.

[rovercrew]

actually Newbury Laboratories put forward the Newbrain for the BBC micro project, Sinclair pushed a different computer, probably the zx81 or spectrum.

[moonboots69]

i had the B+

[unclechicken]

when i was at school (about 1987-1989) the IT dept got Archimedes computers.

[Lachlant1984]

Is the TV output an RF Antenna type output, or is it Composite AV? I'm guessing the latter given the age of the machine. Do you need a special cassette recorder to load and save data on these machines? If you have a disk drive do it get its power from the machine?

[SteveBenway]

@Lachlant1984 Its RF antenna output (though it has a monitor output too). It'll use any old tape recorder, which is nice.

The disk drive plugs straight into the mains... which surprised me a bit.

[kpuc1973]

a very informative video "yeah i don't know what that is" and "rs432 don't know that" blimey.

[arramus]

I first used a BBC in '82 at school and soon after got an Acorn Electron from our local Argus. I still remember walking there to pick it up and spent the evening absolutely mesmerised with the games that came bundled with it. My buddy had a BBC but some of his games were compatible with my Acorn :)

[DdlyHeadshot]

After 1998, parts of Acorn other than the ARM was bought by a French company who did nothing with it, then passed on just recently to new owners who set it up as a laptop builder/reseller, similar to Acer.

[DdlyHeadshot]

Acorn Models 1 and 2 (Atom predecessors) were business machines. I forget whether they were Mainframes or just Minicomputers, but either way they were monsters with little functionality in a modern sense.

[retrokid76]

i have all the machine acorn made in the 80.s and fined the bbc b to be the best for enjoyment and game play iwas brought up with this machine at school

[SteveBenway]

I definitely agree as far as their 8 bit machines are concerned. I don't know how it would fare against the Archimedes, as mine doesn't work.

[Lachlant1984]

@SteveBenway I hope one day you manage to aquire a working Archimedes machine so you can upload game play footage, I'll check out the YouTube user who you mentioned in the video. I'm really interested in the Archimedes computers, even though I've had very little experience with then and haven't used one in years.

[SteveBenway]

@Lachlant1984 I hope to get a working Archimedes too. They seem like very nice machines, and the games that I've seen appear quirky, in that recognisable Acorn/Superior Soft way that I like.

[motormusic1]

... just for info, my schools BBC B's had a speech chip fitted as well. I heard it was Kenneth Bakers voice used.

i even remember the commands as well lol.

[motormusic1]

My school had the BBC B & the Commodore PET.

the good old days

[rudeydudey05]

I spent most of my school's dinner hours playing on a BBC micro lol.

[TheLoonwolf]

I've been without my own computer for the last month, so got out the old Acorn Electron. I've had several modern computers fail, but the Electron, over 25 years old, been dropped on the floor, had stuff spilled on it, etc. still works fine. And the old tapes still load brilliantly, despite my tape player being dodgy.

Been writing my own programs and playing the old games, Elite, Combat Lynx, English Civil War, Repton, Gunsmoke, Maze, Swag, Deathstar, Brian Jacks Superstar Challenge, etc.

[FASTF0RWARD]

wow,that bbc 'b' brings back memories of junior school, great days, thanks for video.

[ajhomryder]

Those long gaps on the back of the Beeb were for air flow and nothing more!!!! But what you forgot to show was the host of bus connections under the beeb!! I had on mine a 1770 Watford elctronics chip set with a Pace floppy disk drive one of the fastest on the market at the time. Loved my beeb, but like so many old computers got thrown away. I had a right go at my dad for that.

[SteveBenway]

I realised I'd forgotten the expansion bays underneath after I'd finished recording, but couldn't be asked to record the whole thing again. I did things all in one take at that time.

[ajhomryder]

So I take it your bbc is in full working order. Do you have a floppy drive with the unit? Also is it just BBC's you have or do you collect all retro computers? As I sell retro computer games.

[SteveBenway]

My Beeb is fully working and I do have a floppy drive for it. A quick look at the featured video on my main channel page will tell you all about my collection :)

Sadly I'm not currently buying more games, being somewhat unemployed, otherwise I'd likely have been interested.

[UncleFeedle]

I grew up with the Beeb. Some of my fondest memories relate to the machine's use in schools and the fact that almost no teachers had any clue how to use it. It was very common for pupils to instruct teachers on how to operate it. This superior knowledge was often put to use for causing various mischief - altering program code to give wrong answers, embarassing messages, annoying sounds etc. or inserting a little subroutine that would give the impression that the machine had gone wrong! :D

[SteveBenway]

Haha... yes! It was much the same when I was in school :D

[mukatuna]

The Electron was cut down and cost reduced in quite a few ways. Namely it only had one channel sound, and as standard its 6502 ran at 1MHz instead of the 2MHz as used in the Beeb model B. Also it lacked the Mode 7 teletext display option.

Yes nearly all mobile phones use the ARM processor.

[wrestletube1]

Achiemedies is a must.

[JasonB1969]

I was at secondary school from 1981 to 1986 so I used the BBC Microcomputer Model B in the computing lessons.

The school had 5 BBC Micro Model B's and a Research Machines computer, 2 9 pin dot matrix printers. I think each BBC Micro Model B had a colour monitor and the RM machine had a green screen monitor.

I had just 1 hour a week in the computer room but I never had a BBC Micro at home. My first computer at home was the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k model.

[invisionuk]

Strange, my school was very similar, though it was primary school in about the late 80s. My classroom had a BBC Master, the classroom next to us had an Amstrad 6128, and halfway through my primary school life, we had an RM Nimbus machine brought in, with clicky keys, and software on which we used to use to make our own newspapers. With a screen that greeted you on boot that said "Winchester". Man, the memories are all flooding back!

[rudeydudey05]

Used these at School, managed to get my hands on one a few years after i left school, wrote alot of BASIC Programming on a BBC Micro. Didnt like the ones after the BBC Micro.

[75kev]

grew up with the electron and the bbc b great memories!! some cracking games for the beeb. chuckie egg,frak,repton etc etc....good stuff

[dalekfay]

Very informative bravo!

[pipesgt]

Nice one mate. The BBC B was my first ever computer. I still have very fond memories of programming in basic or assembly language. Loved the fact that basic and assembler was built in - as you mention in your video. I don't know how you find the time, but your audience very much appreciate the time you have taken to do these. I look forward to many more.

Jim

[Gamester81]

Great review Steve!

[mariosonic190]

The Master Compact was a Master 128 with a seperate keyboard, a built-in 3½ floppy disk drive in a unit which was designed to have a monitor sit on top, the cartridge slots and cassette port removed, and a graphic user interface that *very* little software was made available for. Hope this helps. :)

[MaximumRD]

I found the series of ACORN computers interesting, had I been in the UK I am SURE I would have been into them................

[lettersfromtheleft]

Score! I love learning about computer/systems I never had a chance to get my hands on here in the states.

[cessnaace]

OMG do I feel old. We had ONE computer when I granduated High School. It used punch cards!!! LOL!

[SteveBenway]

Not so old cessnaace... you're into computers and gaming, in one form or another, that makes you an honorary 21 year old, if not younger.

I'm reminded of an occasion, when I was in school... the headmaster was amazed at how small our RM 480Z computers were. He said "Computers used to fill a whole room, and one day, they'll fit in your pocket." My friend next to me pulled out his little pocket sized Casio programmable computer and said "Yeah... one day."

[cessnaace]

Steve,

I was delayed in responding. YouTube wanted to make sure I wasn't some automated commentor of videos. LOL!

I bought my first games console in 1978 at the age of 20, so I guess I've been stuck at that age for a loooong time. That kind of hits me close to home when I'm reading a gaming magazine (yes, I still read those) and some kid will write "I've been playing video games since clear back to my N64, which I got at the age of 3. " :)

[SteveBenway]

I think the thing that gets me most is when my step-son, who's 24, passes through my games room, looks at a console and asks "what's that?" I reply something like "you've never heard of a Vectrex?" or whatever, and he responds "Yeah, well... I wasn't even born then."

Playstation Home is funny/frustrating. When the kids learn that I'm 40, they ask "Why are you here? You're old!" I always respond with "Gaming is fun. It doesn't stop being fun as you age, so why stop?"

[cessnaace]

Steve,

You're 40. I'm 51. they'd probably freak if I showed up. LOL!

There;s a computer that I had back in the day that I don't recall you mentioning. The Applle III. My dad was selling computers briefly, but he was never able to sell an Apple III. It was expensive for it's day. The version that I had cost nearly $8,000. It had 256k of RAM, which was alot back then (it sold between 1980-84).

The thing that I remember amout it was that it was heavy. It used a heat sink instead of fans,

[SteveBenway]

I've read a little of the Apple III. I don't recall if it was an offshoot of the abortive Apple Lisa, though I know it was released around the same time.

They got canned after a time, so as not to distract buyers from the new Macintosh.

[cessnaace]

It's code name was Sarah, although I don't believe that was in any of the documentation. It used a custom operating system called Apple SOS (Sophisticated Operating System), pronounced Apple Sauce (I'm not kidding).

The printer that I had for it was by C.Itoh. It was the fasted Dot Matrix printer on the market at that time. It was damn loud though. The main program that I had for it was called 3 Easy Pieces, which was a Word Processor, Database, and Spreadsheet program.

[NEC003]

Love watching your videos... You never stop amazing me!

[Paperclown]

I see a TI-994/a in the background! I used to have one before my dad took it back to the store and told me to use his Commodore 64 and because I already had an atari 2600 :(

[SteveBenway]

Damn, that sucks.

The TI99/4a's a really cool machine. Not a huge library of software, but there's some really unusual stuff on it, and good quality too. It was also the first 16 bit home computer, long before the Sinclair QL and even later ST and Amiga.

[Paperclown]

we must be talking about a different computer then. The TI99/4a was inferior to commodore, and as I recall the graphics were not much better than the 2600

[SteveBenway]

I think we're talking about the same machine... just maybe we have different perspectives on it. I have a couple of videos of games for it, somewhere on my channel.

[sicboypeachy]

Thanks Steve as informative as allways although my sides are syill aching from the Hobgoblin Vid! (best episode ever) Yea I remember using bbc's (omg 12k of ram!! ;D) all through out my school life till PC's at secoundry school. I was begging my parents to get me a bbc for years till they aventually got me the Amstrad 464cpc 74k of ram yea!! (but by that time I had gotten into consoles and had to begg again for the atari2600 lol) But thanks for the info on the 32 chip, I never knew that!

[Ogma01]

Having grown up in the US where ACORN and BBC systems were unheard of (we had Atari, Apple, Commodore, Coleco Adam, Radio Shack and Sinclair all competing), I found this overview fascinatiing! Thanks!

[RossPK81]

The Acorn Electron was my first games machine/computer. I got one for Christmas in about '83 or '84 when I was about 8.

[delldimension2345]

Hi Steve,

You would be very lucky to get hold of an Acorn Atom for less than £300 Nowerdays !

[SteveBenway]

Blimey! That's shot up.

I watched a couple on ebay over the winter, both of which settled at around £70. Oddly though, retro computers sell for less over the winter. I'm gonna have to watch a few more, just to see what they go for now, as a price guide is part of my website.

[madbob73]

£399 !! I always thought my mates family were loaded lol

[Sipie007]

Yep rememeber using this in primary school back in the 80s. I know of a local school who actually was still using one up until recent years believe it or not.I remember using the BBC Doomsday Project Laserdisc through the BBC computer.

[Sipie007]

Actually think it was the BBC Master that was required to view the Doomsday Project Discs.

[Rockythefishman]

You are right about the BBC in Uk schools, I remmber still using them as late as 1996 in high school.

[Lachlant1984]

I went to the Royal Victorian Institute For The Blind when I was very young as I have a serious vision imparement, this was back in 1990 to 1992, and the school had quite a few BBC machines, I think but don't quote me, they were BBC Master machines, the keybpard is simillar to the model B, but the LED are at the top left of the keyboard, and the speaker is in the very top centre of the keyboard, does that mean anything to you?

[SteveBenway]

I'm aware of the Master, but not overly familiar with it.

I know the keyboard layout with the red function keys was much the same, but with the addition of a numeric keypad. The size and general shape was somewhat different, with a recessed area on the right housing two cartridge slots.

I personally find them quite ugly compared to the Model B, though they were a much more capable and expandable machine.

[wuerdelos]

Thanks for posting this. Nice to know a little more about this obscure computer system (at least its an obscure computer over here in Sweden, since I have never seen anyone for sale nor had the opportunity to try it out).

Keep up your great work here, I really enjoy it.