Acorn Computer
"The choice of experience"
|
|
| Industry | Computer hardware |
|---|---|
| Fate | Bought by Morgan Stanley |
| Founded | December 1978 |
| Founder |
Hermann Hauser Chris Curry |
| Defunct | November 2000 |
| Headquarters | Cambridge, England, United Kingdom |
|
Key people
|
Chris Curry Steve Furber Hermann Hauser Andy Hopper Sophie Wilson Jim Mitchell |
| Products |
Acorn System 1 Microcomputer System Atom BBC Micro Electron Master series Archimedes range Risc PC range Acorn Network Computer Phoebe |
| Website | www |
Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the UK, including the Acorn Electron and the Acorn Archimedes. Acorn's BBC Micro computer dominated the UK educational computer market during the 1980s. It is more known for its BBC Micro model B computer than for its other products.
Though the company was broken up into several independent operations in 1998, its legacy includes the development of reduced instruction set computing (RISC) personal computers. One of its operating systems, RISC OS, continues to be developed by RISC OS Open. Some of Acorn's former subsidiaries lived on: ARM Holdings technology is dominant in the mobile phone and personal digital assistant (PDA) microprocessor market.
Acorn is sometimes referred to as the "British Apple" and has been compared to Fairchild Semiconductor for being a catalyst for start-ups. In 2010, the company was listed by David Meyer in ZDNet as number nine in a feature of top ten fallen "Dead IT giants". Many British IT professionals gained their early experiences on Acorns, which were often more technically advanced than commercially successful US hardware.
On 25 July 1961, Clive Sinclair founded Sinclair Radionics to develop and sell electronic devices such as calculators. The failure of the Black Watch wristwatch and the calculator market's move from LEDs to LCDs led to financial problems, and Sinclair approached 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 Mk 14, that Curry wanted to develop further, but Sinclair could not be persuaded so Curry resigned. During the development of the Mk 14, Hermann Hauser, a friend of Curry's, had been visiting SoC's offices and had grown interested in the product.
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