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Acorn Atom
The Atom was Acorn's first computer to be aimed squarely at the home market.
Manufacturer
Acorn Computers
Type
Personal Computer
Release date
March 1980; 44 years ago (1980-03)
Introductory price
£120 (in kit form), £170 (assembled)
Discontinued
1982 (1982)
Media
100KB 5¼-inch floppy disks, Cassette tapes
CPU
1 MHz MOS Technology 6502
Memory
2 KB RAM (expandable to 12 KB), 8 KB ROM (expandable to 12 KB)
The Acorn Atom is a home computer made by Acorn Computers Ltd from 1980 to 1982,[1] when it was replaced by the BBC Micro. The BBC Micro began life as an upgrade to the Atom, originally known as the Proton.
The Atom was a progression of the MOS Technology 6502-based machines that the company had been making from 1979. The Atom was a cut-down Acorn System 3 without a disk drive but with an integral keyboard and cassette tape interface, sold in either kit or complete form. In 1980 it was priced between £120 in kit form, £170 (equivalent to £921 in 2023) ready assembled, to over £200 for the fully expanded version with 12 KB of RAM and the floating-point extension ROM.[2]
^Acorn Atom computer, Science Museum Group. Object collection number Y2002.13
^Whytehead, Chris. "Acorn Atom Computers". Chris's Acorns. The Centre for Computing History. Archived from the original on 19 November 2022. Retrieved 28 January 2024.
The AcornAtom is a home computer made by Acorn Computers Ltd from 1980 to 1982, when it was replaced by the BBC Micro. The BBC Micro began life as an...
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...
modular system strongly influenced the design of Acorn's first all-in-one home computer, the AcornAtom, released in March 1980; and also much of the circuitry...
the BBC science-fiction series Blake's 7. Acorn System 2 Acorn System 3 Acorn System 4 Acorn System 5 AcornAtom Meyer, David (November 19, 2010). "Dead...
variety of computer platforms, in chronological order: the AcornAtom, BBC Micro, Z88, Atari ST, Acorn Archimedes, Microsoft Windows, Linux, and more recently...
include: Acorn Computers Acorn Eurocard systems Acorn System 1 AcornAtom BBC Micro Acorn Electron BBC Master Acorn Archimedes RiscPC Acorn Network Computer...
required host environment and licensing. While the ARM processor in the Acorn Archimedes is a 32-bit chip, it only had 26-bit addressing making an ARM/Archimedes...
rival Acorn Computers put forward their proposed Proton computer, a design – of which a prototype did not yet exist – based on the AcornAtom. To Sinclair's...
turn superseded by the Acorn Access+ software. Econet was specified in 1980, and first developed for the AcornAtom and Acorn System 2/3/4 computers in...
the television programmes and literature, Acorn won the contract with the Proton, a successor of its Atom computer prototyped at short notice. Renamed...
Acorn System BASIC and Atom BASIC are two closely related dialects of the BASIC programming language developed by Acorn Computers for their early microcomputers...
was Acorn Computers's low-cost local area network system, intended for use by schools and small businesses. It was first developed for the AcornAtom and...
entitled Interface. This User Group then expanded to include the ZX81, AcornAtom and Spectrum computers, and provided a springboard for Tim and Trevor...
Home computers and video game consoles using the 6502 or its variants AcornAtomAcorn Electron Apple I Apple II Apple IIe Atari 2600 Atari 5200 Atari 7800...
Dragon 32/64, Laser 200, TRS-80 MC-10/Matra Alice, NEC PC-6000 series, AcornAtom, and the APF Imagination Machine, among others. It is a relatively simple...
customers, which in turn led to the Acorn Eurocard rack systems made generally available, and then the AcornAtom released in March 1980. Wilson, initially...
processing API on the operating systems for the AcornAtom and the BBC Micro, and on RISC OS for the Acorn Archimedes and later machines, use the vertical...
game console is released only in Germany. Computer The Sinclair ZX80 and AcornAtom are the first home computers to play games in the UK. Tandy releases the...
Motorola 6847 video display generator chip, as used in the Dragon 32 and AcornAtom among others. At least three emulators for the system exist. The machine...
mail order. Ultimately, the BBC chose Acorn and standardized on a successor to the AcornAtom—originally named Acorn Proton, but ultimately branded as the...
Motorola and used in the TRS-80 Color Computer, Dragon 32/64, Laser 200 and AcornAtom among others. The MOS Technology 6560 (NTSC) and 6561 (PAL) are known...
system usage, and carry out administrative tasks from a host computer. Acorn Archimedes (and derivatives) Aster CT-80 BBC Micro Commodore SuperPET/SP9000...
lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of RISC instruction set architectures (ISAs) for...
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