Submitted by “This year marks the 20th anniversary since Children’s BBC began using the familiar format of sitting a presenter behind a live camera in a small continuity suite, dubbed the ‘Broom Cupboard’. Prior to this move in September 1985, and for several years after, the BBC used Acorn kit to produce their broadcast graphics and animations.
For a happy trip down a long memory lane, we caught up with Chris Poole, who produced the early ident graphics using a BBC B and later an Archimedes which ran RISC OS.”
I live in the States, and would love to get my hands on an Acorn. It’s easy to find units in the UK or Australia (from eBay), but does anyone have tips on where Acorns can be found in the U.S?
Can’t offer any specific help, I’m afraid. Bare in mind that most Acorn machines have an integrated power supply and work with the UK 50hz 240V UK system. So, you’d need some sort of adaptor.
Briefly, there are two main eras of Acorn kit. The 1982 8bit BBC Micro machines (similar in capability and intended market to perhaps the Apple II) and the 1987 Archimedes RISC work stations.
Acorn went bust in about ’94 but the platform is still being actively developed. Check out the site which was referenced in this article and http://www.drobe.co.uk/ for more info.
Good luck and I hope you manage to get an Acorn machine together.
Oh wow, I thought I was the only one that remembers these. My dad was in the Air Force and bought like two of those while in the UK. I still remember loading things off casette tapes, swaping out computer chips to install new versions of their word processor program, and coding games out the backs of computer magazines. Ahh, the good old days ;-). Knowing my dad he probably still has them. However, I don’t think he’ll give them up, sorry.
There was a special USA version of the Acorn BBC. From the programmer’s manual, I remember reading about the OSBYTE system call to retrieve the OS version. One of the values you could get referred to a USA version of the OS.
Also see this article on RISC OS in the US:
http://riscos.blog.com/326360/
Although this relates to newer 32-bit machines.