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Acorn Archimedes

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Acorn Archimedes computers were standard school issue in the early 90s and replaced the aging BBC computers that had served the previous generation.

The Archimedes was the very first RISC-based personal computer and was technically a very advanced machine. Unfortunately the Acorn Archimedes series never proved commercially successful and disappeared from most schools to make way for the popular Intel PCs.

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Do You Remember Acorn Archimedes?

Do You Remember Acorn Archimedes?

  • Anonymous user
    on
    I still have an Acorn 3010 and from time to time run it to transfer resources at present on floppies (ADFS 1.6M), into stuff that can be read on Windows XP.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I bought this machine when fisrt at university. I programmed it to show 3d charts of two dimensional functions. I really enjoyed it. I also used it to calculate and show fractals, pixel by pixel. I still got it and I am curious if it would work when plugged.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I remember this geek kid in the library at my school, oneday he showed me how to make a program where i could click the mouse on a box on the screen and it would beep. since that day i have been a geek and now programme every computer lanaguage going.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    Borrowed a brand new Archimedes from school to finish my course work off and spent the entire time playing chocks away!!
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I remember once finding out how to set a system password on the machines, so I set it to be the name of another kid in my class who was mean to me. Shortly after discovering this, I managed to copy a directory into itself, something RISC OS didn't seem to prohibit. The Acorn broke horribly, and they called in the professionals who restored the system and uncovered the password I'd set... The other kid got the blame for it all!
  • Anonymous user
    on
    My Dad was the Head of IT at my school in Solihull. Luckily he was a popular teacher, so I didn't get much stick from other kids! Because I was"connected" my friends and I would be allowed to stay in at lunchtimes and after school and use the machines, and during school holidays my dad would bring the A5000 back home with him! I'm getting all nostalgic thinking about it, even though I'd probably hate to use one now! the idea of 2mb of RAM and an 80MB Hard drive seemed EXTRAORDINARY at the time! Mind you, i was impressed when the school bought a 486 PC with Windows 3.1 on it!
  • Anonymous user
    on
    My secondary school had a few rooms of these by the time I left. Were much easier to use than a PC on Windows 3.1, though lack of a hard drive was a problem. I still have a disk or 2 of stuff from school, we were allowed to used them at dinnertimes, & my best friend had one, which should have been for his Dad's business work, but we spent most of the time playing games on it. My Aunt had one about 10 years ago, it might still be in her attic.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I used to remember using the A300 or 400 series (one of the two, it wasn't the ones where it was built into the keyboard) when I was 4 or 5 at school. That was back in 1990, and it ran on RISC OS2. I remember that if I behaved, I the teachers let play Pac-Mania at break-time!!! But I also did some work on it, a bit of typing and using Paint (or was it Paintbrush). Ah good times. It was better than a PC with Windows 95!
  • Anonymous user
    on
    It is a pity that the Archimedes never took off. Although not as powerful as the 386 or 486 PCs about at the time (as I recall), the 'Archie' was fast, slick, capable and able to compete with the PCs. Sadly, underdevelopment and Acorn's stubbornness in keeping prices high meant that such a wonderful computer was unable to trounce even the Amiga, a point not passed-by by the spectators.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    Home to the best version of Elite. Chocks Away and Holed Out were good fun, too!

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