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 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. The company also designed the ARM architecture and the RISC OS operating system for it. The architecture 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 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 a catalyst for start-ups.

On 25 July 1961, Clive Sinclair founded Sinclair Radionics to develop and sell electronic devices such as calculators.^{[citation needed]} The failure of the Black Watch wristwatch and the calculator market's move from LEDs to LCDs led to financial problems, and Sinclair approached a government body, the National Enterprise Board (NEB), for help. After losing control of the company to 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 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, 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 the two different lines of business separate. 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 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.