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General Category => Other retro => Topic started by: Charlie on 15:00, 13 February 11

Title: Acorn stuff
Post by: Charlie on 15:00, 13 February 11

Hello all.
Out of curiosity who here has a soft spot for 32bit Acorn computers..?

Title: Re: Acorn stuff
Post by: robcfg on 18:19, 13 February 11

I bought an A3010 just for curiosity and fell in love with Acorn's elegant architecture and RiscOS.

Then I bought an A3020, an A7000+ and a 233mhz StrongARM RiscPC.

It's amazing to see the ARM processors first designed by Acorn in the 80% of all mobile devices today!

Title: Re: Acorn stuff
Post by: Charlie on 19:35, 13 February 11

Ah! A new-ish convert to 32bit Acorns...


...good to hear. Wonderful, wonderful computers. I quite agree the combination of elegant and powerful hardware, and RiscOS was in it's day hard to beat...
...a StrongARM based RiscPC remains quite useful too, not just a retro toy.


If anyone (like robcfg) is interested in taking the plunge here's a thought:


They are still quite cheap to buy (unlike the Amiga) and run a surprising number of classic retro games along with their own catalogue - Hamsters is a work of evil genius.


A few random piccies to get those retro-juices flowing:


An A3000 - somewhat upgraded
(http://grope.thruhere.net/Qube/systems/images/A3000ARM3/A3000ARM3HomeThumb.jpg)


A RiscPC - four slice jobbie
(http://grope.thruhere.net/Qube/systems/images/KineticRPC/KRPCOpenThumb.jpg)


An A540/1 - He, he...
(http://grope.thruhere.net/Qube/systems/images/A5000/A5000RunningThumb.JPG)


RiscOS 3.1 - from 1992!
(http://grope.thruhere.net/Qube/pages/images/ClassicRiscOS/CROSWiMPThumb.png)


My Omega's desktop (1680x1050)
(http://grope.thruhere.net/Qube/systems/images/omega/omegadesktopthumb.png)

Title: Re: Acorn stuff
Post by: EgoTrip on 22:11, 13 February 11

I remember these, they had them at my school. I used to spend loads of time playing Lemmings.

Title: Re: Acorn stuff
Post by: villain on 18:00, 14 February 11

I owned a A5000 after I sold my Amiga. I liked the machine and it´s OS, there were also some cool games and demos but sadly Acorn was not able to announce the advantages of their system in the right way...

Title: Re: Acorn stuff
Post by: redbox on 20:24, 14 February 11

I remember playing on one of the first Archimedes at a computer fair I was sent to by my school.  We were supposed to show off our BBC stuff and just spent the whole day playing the Zarch demo on the Arch and trying to find rude images on the Doomsday laser disc.

I nearly got an Archimedes first time round (a friend of mine was a huge fan) and we had some at school, but I plumped for a PC instead and never gave them a second thought.  Would be nice to have one for the 'collection' though, and the RISC was indeed way ahead of it's time.

Title: Re: Acorn stuff
Post by: Charlie on 17:29, 15 February 11

Funny, I have a not dissimilar memory from back in the day...

Title: Re: Acorn stuff
Post by: arnoldemu on 17:43, 15 February 11

Quote from: Charlie on 15:00, 13 February 11

Hello all.
Out of curiosity who here has a soft spot for 32bit Acorn computers..?

I enjoyed playing Chocks Away with a friend at our secondary school.

The room mostly had cpc6128s but in the back was a nimbus and a3010 machine.
That game is great fun.

Title: Re: Acorn stuff
Post by: Charlie on 16:20, 17 February 11

Chocks Away,
I loved that game - by far my favourite 'arcadey' flight sim. Major pain that it won't HD-install. Emulation original floppy which is a worry with such old media.