Lost Computers - The Acorn Archimedes

[gazj82]

I don't get my A3000 out often, but I would never part with it. It is a fantastic machine. My school probably was one of the last to jump to PC. (probably due to be a Cambridgeshire school). They still had Acorn machines when I left in 1998.

Anyway anyone who is curious and has a spare Raspberry PI around can install the RISC OS on it.

[idrougge]

I have a RiscPC with Kinetic accelerator with extra RAM and USB, but it's mostly unused. I should see to a way to transfer its contents to a Raspberry Pi image.

[TroyWilkins]

I find the Acorn Archimedes machines to be incredibly entreating, I never saw one here in Australia, and when I was at school I know of one person in my whole school who used to try to tell me they were better than Amigas - but he also used to say the same thing about the Apple Mac Plus, so I didn't take much notice of him.

I'd particularly appreciate any information or links that can go into detail regarding it's operating system and advantages/drawbacks when compared with the Amiga range, so I can add it to my web site as another machine that the Amiga competed against during it's lifetime.

[spannernick]

The Acorn Archimedes is in away still here, everyone uses one without knowing it, Acorn redeveloped its CPU and turned it into a well known SoC now called ARM, ARM SoCs are used in Mobile Phones and Tablets, the Raspberry PI and in Mini Consoles so its still here just under a different name, ARM did stand for Acorn RISC Machines but because Apple put money into the company ARM Holdings(so they could make the iPad and iPhone) they had to changed it to `Advanced RISC Machines`, RISC(Reduced instruction set computer) was the name for the Acorn Archimedes CPU and its OS.

Acorn do not make computers any more but they still design CPU ARM SoCs under the name ARM Holdings so when you see a iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy S22/Zfold/Flip or Android phone/tablet its CPU is part of the Acorn Archimedes Architecture, where would we be now if they never made Acorn Archimedes Computer in 1987, its just a shame they marketed it just for schools but that probably why they got away with it looking like the Amiga because it was not really made for home use, I did have one, the Acorn Archimedes A3000(mine had green F keys on it)that looked like the Amiga A500 but I used the Amiga more...

[MatthewFifield]

Back in the late 80s, and into the early 90s, I ran two small UK mail-order software companies called Matt Black and Atomic Software.

We published clip art packs under the Matt Black brand, and games under the Atomic Software brand, for the Acorn Archimedes and Risc PC range of computer systems.

We published these games:

Aggressor
Blood Sport
Bobbie Blockhead Vs The Dark Planet
Spheres of Chaos

Blood Sport is missing from my Archimedes retro game collection.

An ADF file of the Blood Sport game would help me complete my collection.

Thanks to anyone who has a working copy that you could share with me.

[CCCP alert]

From 1984-1989 the top contenders for best of the best were

1984 Mindset PC (OTT bespoke graphics/sound like FM Towns)
1985 Amiga 1000
1987 Archimedes A3xx/A4xx series
1987 Sharp x68000
1989 FM Towns

We forget just how rapidly things advanced.

Archimedes was a nice system, awesome true stereo 8 channel audio, a 256/4096 colour display, a CPU of approx 16-20mhz 68000/68020 from what I remember. Wasn't that much more than the A500 in summer 87.

Zarch was my fav' back then.

[copse]

Originally Posted by MatthewFifield

Blood Sport is missing from my Archimedes retro game collection.

An ADF file of the Blood Sport game would help me complete my collection.

Thanks to anyone who has a working copy that you could share with me.

Have you tried the Stardot forum?

https://stardot.org.uk/forums/

[jotd]

There's a version of Gods on it.

That's enough for me.

[CCCP alert]

Lotus 2 and Chaos Engine are good on it, but more or less identical to A1000 running them, still the best of their genre on it IMO.

I have 2 A3010 models (50% faster CPU) but one had battery leakage.

[TCD]

What is the best emulator to use on Windows and is there a NoIntro or similar set?

[PortuguesePilot]

Originally Posted by TCD

What is the best emulator to use on Windows and is there a NoIntro or similar set?

I still use Red Squirrel. It's probably not the best anymore, but I'm used to it and it does all I need to (play ADFs and use Hard Disk support for RISC OS use).


I notice a lot of people talking about Arculator lately. Maybe give that one a try...

[TCD]

Cheers I'll try both and see which one works better for me.

[CCCP alert]

If you get odd instrument sounds rather than sampled SFX on Zarch you need to use older ROMs IIRC. Been a long time since I used any emus so probably a lot better now.

[Megalomaniac]

The Archimedes was actually the first 16-bit I ever used, I've got vague memories of a driving game called E-Type and something called Thunderbug or similar that was obviously 'inspired' by Thunderbirds.

A shame it didn't catch on really, but I can see why it didn't. With such a different processor to the Amiga / ST / Mac, with a different coding philosophy required (I think), and little realistic hope of gaining a market outside the UK (or Europe at best), you can see why it didn't really catch on. Sounds like the initial serious software was poor too.

The lack of specialist custom chips probably stopped it being better than the Amiga for pure 2D arcade games too (is there anything for the standard model that suggests otherwise?). The main 640x256 in 256 colours is a lot of data for a processor to move around, the processor may be about 5 times as fast as the ST, but that's nearly 5 times as much data to move around by my in-my-head maths, and the ST struggled with some things like that.

[PortuguesePilot]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

The Archimedes was actually the first 16-bit I ever used, (...)

The Archie was actually a 32-bit computer.

[Megalomaniac]

Well spotted. Change that to 'the first fourth-generation computer I ever used' then. Hopefully the rest is salvageable...