This website is an archived copy of "Chris's Acorns", now hosted by The Centre for Computing History as part of The Chris Whytehead collection.
To view the page in it's original forms without this header, append "?cfch-archive=orig" to the URL.

Acorn System Computers

[Atom]   [Computers]   [Home] 

 Introduction

Acorn's first computer was the Acorn Microcomputer, designed in 1978 by Sophie Wilson and shipped in April 1979. The System computers are all based on Eurocards, the Acorn Microcomputer has 2 - 1 CPU and 1 x keyboard, the other models are rack mounted with a selection of Eurocards. This means it is not easy to define a "standard" System computer.

Manual and documents

For a description of the System computers see F J Kraan's The Acorn Atom pre-history . In particular see the Control Universal catalog which includes the Acorn System 1 - 4A and many of the Acorn Eurocards used in them. I think the catalogue dates from 1980-81 because it does not include the System 5. I have used the descriptions of the computers and eurocards extensively in these pages.

Here is a catalogue of System Computers and Eurocards.  It is incomplete, but it describes many of the Acorn Eurocards.

Models

Eurocards

Details of the Acorn eurocards are available in 8-bit upgrades under Atom and System Upgrades.