The Acorn PCW? Well, not quite...

Hold up! Before anyone gets too excited, no, we're not talking about Acorn making an actual equivalent to the computing legend that was, and is, the Amstrad PCW. No, what we're here today to talk about is the form factor due to an intriguing little nugget from the Business column of Acorn User's January 1995 issue. Something to make you think, what if...?

Not the original PCW 8256, but something more akin to the aesthetic of the era... ish.

By that point in Acorn's life, it was becoming clear that the range of machines launched in 1992 - the home-focused A3010, the school-centred A3020, and the slightly up market (and designed for business/higher education) A4000 - were in need of replacement. Times they had a changed, and whilst the '92 range were not exactly underpowered, their capabilities were starting to look a little stale. For example, sure, they could handle 640x480 at 256 colours in Mode 28, but higher resolutions such as the more prevalent 800x600 of the DOS/Windows world were limited to 16 colours rather than the PC's 256. This mattered to serious users, and the Business column had some thoughts...

Could Acorn have done it? Absolutely.

Did they do it? Obviously not!

Would it have worked if they had? Well...

To be fair, it wasn't a silly suggestion back then, but for those unfamiliar with either the original Amstrad PCW or the 1990's Compaq Presario all in one's, here's a brief refresher. 

Although there were many computers that could have been described as fairly inexpensive as and of themselves in 1985, adding printing to the mix was not cheap at all. Amstrad tackled this issue with the PCW (Personal Computer Word-processor), shoving a Z80 running CP/M into an all in one design rocking a 90-column display and a bundled printer, all for £399 ex VAT. Despite feeling a tad cheap, it and its successors sold by the bucket load because many people wanted the ability to print their works. Previously that had meant either dealing with the limitations imposed by the cheaper home micros, or the added expense of an MS-DOS PC, as well as pricing in a printer. The PCW bridged the gap nicely and thus sold like proverbial hot cakes.

The later Presario 460, but the form factor was the same for the 425.

Cut to the early 1990's, and Compaq were experimenting with the all in one concept with the original Presario 425, a 486SX machine running at 25MHz that would do what every other Windows 3.1 machine could do, just with the gubbins in one, fairly un-expandable, box. 

The "Family" PC.

That was 1993, and by late 1994, multimedia was king in the world of the PC compatible, and thus the Presario CDS 520 became a thing (as seen above in this December 1994 advert in Personal Computer World). Naturally, given the all-singing, all-dancing nature of the machine, it was pricey, so the ad leaned heavily into the "Family PC" concept because paying north of £1,500 to play Doom was worth it back then, 'onest, G'vnor! Having said that, despite rocking a ton of CD software and an integrated 9,600bps modem (think Virgin Media fibre on an average day...), the end result still felt compromised - only 4Mb of RAM, and that 486SX/2 might be running at 66MHz, but was seriously missing the D - that's the maths co-pro of the DX, you dorty minded porvorts!

So the question raised by the AU comment if Acorn had gone for an all in one form factor, what would the result have been? 

Undoubtedly the same specs as the A7000 that eventually did launch in the summer of 1995. A 32MHz ARM7500 that in effect made the A7000 equivalent to an unexpanded original Risc PC. The case was compact, offering space for either a CD-ROM or an expansion card, and yes kids, the CD-ROM would have been the better option for most, and all for roughly £1,100 inclusive of VAT for the 2Mb RAM, 425Mb hard drive model. That also included Acorn's AKF60 monitor, so actually fairly close to what the business column hinted at. Educational prices were somewhat lower - that bundle coming in at £799 ex VAT, but that was strictly educational only!

Acorn User's feature on the then new A7000.

Of course, if it were an all-in-one, the design would have been a smidge different. Expansion might have been a little better considering the extra space fitting the 14-inch display into the case would have entailed. The footprint of the CDS 520 was something like 36x38cm compared to the A7000's 36x28cm (rounded figures from what I have read), so a couple of podules and the CD-ROM could have been do-able. Some may have had concerns over that display size since users would have been stuck with it built-in. However, a quick check of a contemporary Watford Electronics ad in Personal Computer World shows a £40 difference between their own brand high end 14-incher and a 15-inch display. Not much, but still additional cost to Acorn if they'd have plumped for the extra inch - and yes, I am aware of the difference between consumer pricing and manufacturing costs. The difference would have been negligible but not zero. Also, let's also not kid ourselves here, 800x600 was going to be the sweet spot for the ARM7500 and fourteen inches was good enough. 

It would have been a reasonable offering for the new entry-level/mid-range RISC OS machine, fitting in quite nicely below the more expandable and powerful Risc PC700. However, there would be no room for a cheaper "headless" offering, and the cost of entry in to the world of RISC OS, already higher than it was when the A3010 was released, would have been kept relatively high due to nature of the all-in-one design. I also don't think Acorn had the resources or the desire to have two near-identical models to muddy the entry point market, either.

There was also the issue of price competition from the PC market. Using the CDS models alone, by the autumn of 1995, those pricey 1994 specifications were no longer as expensive. As you can see above and below, the CDS range was cheaper and re-spec'd by the time of these ads in the October 1995 issue of Personal Computer World. The SX model (sans modem) was now just £799 ex VAT, and a proper D-equipped computer (stop it, all of you!), although more expensive at £1,039 ex VAT, was still some £250 cheaper than the older CDS 520. The slightly re-jigged DX offering (the CDS 523 below rather than the CDS 524 above) could be had from another dealer for even less - £899 ex VAT. The point being that aside from changing the designs, there was no way Acorn could compete against the speed at which the PC market was advancing specs and lowering prices. That was the nature of the beast for every non-DOS/Windows platform, but raises the question as to how could Acorn reduce costs when one of the biggest considerations was the display. It made far more sense having just a box, and not only for ease of manufacture, logistics, and pricing flexibility. This also allowed the customer the freedom of using an existing display or Acorn being able to tack on a self-branded monitor for them to get a few extra quid for the balance sheet.

An all-in-one would have been funky, but nothing so great as to attract non-RISC OS users to the fold. It would also have done nothing to make the Acorn range price competitive for long against the juggernaut that was the PC. The fact that someone thought it might have been a go-er is still something to consider, and as we have seen here, park it in the "hmmm, interesting..." folder for reference.

P.S.

An all-in-one could have been an option in 1992, replacing both the A3020 and the A4000, but that thought doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. The A3020 was the new school machine, leveraging the same design as the A3010, with economies of scale for design and manufacturing. The A4000 was a business machine rocking a business-like case and EU-compliant separate keyboard. Their price points were similar, but not the same, as the A4000 offered a slightly bigger hard disk for serious users, and the A3020 could be had minus a hard drive anyway for those who just wanted a network machine. And what if you already had a perfectly good monitor but wanted something more than an A3010 but without the expense of the A5000? No, the 1992 range as it was made perfect sense for the time, and an all-in-one would have been pretty redundant. So effectively the same as 1995 then.