• skisnow@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    What is that Acorn? I don’t remember the BBC having an “Acorn Bus Extension”, and it looks too narrow to be a Master…

    (nm, I found it online: Acorn Atom. I’ve never seen one in real life.)

    • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      Yes, it was a nice little machine, the first computer I used at home. I shared it with some friends because our parents couldn’t afford it unless we pooled our money. Each of us would have it for a week then take it to the next kid’s house. In those days you had the option of buying it prebuilt or (cheaper) as a kit, and I still remember how excited I was when my dad and I came out of the electronics shop with a bag full of circuit boards, chips and keys that would magically become a computer when soldered together.

      The Acorn story is really amazing: a tiny hobbyist company that got a break when the BBC commissioned the BBC micro from them, that went on to invent the ARM chips that are in billions of phones and other devices now.