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.

Magazines of Yesteryear - Acorn User No. 119 - June 1992

Acorn User began its exceedingly long run in July 1982 and lasted all the way to issue 267 dated Christmas 2003. From the original Beeb to the A6 running Virtual Acorn (although Iynoix, Microdigital and RiscStation machines were still be advertised and, in some cases, actually sold as the final issue rolled off the press!), Acorn User appeared for many years to be the newsstand magazine for Acorn users. I know I picked up more than a few copies from WH Smiths back in the mid-90's. Today, we'll drop a bit further back, to a point where Acorn seemed to be doing pretty well, and check out what the summer of '92 had in store. 

Got to say it takes a very "period" approach to the cover, and that top strip still has the BBC logo - that would disappear from issue 138, January '94. The full Acorn range is covered, and the venerable BBC Micro and Master (the latter hidden by the "Best Selling" corner label) remain in place next to the slightly spritelier Archimedes, the then three year old A3000 and 1991's A5000. And now to the news desk...

All together now: "Where in the world...?"

The first item is about PC World, and we're talking about the very first store! A year later, they would become part of the Dixons Group, and thus spread like wildfire to high streets, shopping centres and retail parks across the land. But back in '92, it was just a single store, and one of Acorn's largest dealers, selling several thousand units per year! Ah, such innocent times...

Contents ahoy!

Acorn take second place with news that they have weathered the recession, returning to profitability for the second half of 1991. A net profit of £694,000 in H2 offset the first half's £420,000 loss, although operating profit was down to £1.1million from £2.6 million. For the year, once interest payments and a "related" company write off of £102,000 had been dealt with, net profit was £274,000 compared to 1990's £1.58 million. Sales volumes dropped from £45.1 million to £40.9 million, but cost control and greater margins helped the previous overdraft of £6.5 million switch to a surplus of £1.4 million. Market share in Australia and New Zealand increased, and Olivetti maintained confidence in the UK firm.

If you take a quick look at how Acorn's competitors in the UK home computer market were fairing at the time, you can see that Acorn wasn't doing that bad considering the margins and market share of their more international foes. Atari posted a net profit in 1991 of $25.6m, which compares nicely with Commodore's $48.2m. Except neither result was anything to shout out about. Atari's figure included a realised profit of $40.9m from the sale of its Taiwanese manufacturing facilities - Archive.org has the 1991 financial report here. Commodore's profit came off the back of $1.04 billion in revenue. Neither of those situations should have inspired confidence at the time. Atari were loss making in general trading terms, and Commodore were haemorrhaging money uncontrollably so that even a relatively minor drop in sales would see profits wiped out. As it turned out, 1992 would see $911m in revenue and a profit of $27.6m. The following year, those figures were $590.8m and a loss of $356.5m (all Commodore figures from The Silicon Underground here). Whilst Acorn was never hugely or consistently profitable, they did enough, and had another string to their bow anyway...

Page 9 sees the news that Acorn has won its second Queen's Award for Technological Achievement for the ARM chip development (their first was for the BBC Micro). Present in over 180,000 Archimedes computers by that time, design had started eleven years earlier and was now handled by spin-of company Arm Ltd. 

Speaking of Arm, a side bar notes the announcement of the Arm610, delivering 15 mips at 20 MHz. This was rather better than the Arm 3 in the A5000 and A540 (13.5 mips at 25MHz), and it wouldn't be long before the Arm610 found a home across the sea, as Arm co-owner Apple Computers would plonk one in their Newton PDA. 

There a quick diversion to the usual  Questions and Answers page, offering solutions to readers queries, before we get to the cover story... ARC vs MAC and PC!

A trio of specs battle it out. Acorn have their less than a year old A5000 pricing at £1,531 in its Learning Curve Pack guise. For that, you get a 25MHz Arm 3 chip (see above), 4Mb of RAM and a 40Mb hard drive. It suffers by lacking a maths co-processor, but still offers Super VGA (800x600) graphics modes and the sleek, minimalist footprint of RISC OS. Apple is represented by their Mac IIsi, with 5MB of RAM and 40Mb hard drive. There is disdainful commentary of the aging GUI and the slightly flaky System 7 OS, but the 68030 processor stands up reasonably well, and as noted, although the £2,500 asking price is much higher than the A5000, the more budget (ha!) conscious LCII models would have been closer in performance to the aging Archimedes A3000 and any generic 386SX. Finally, the PC rocks up with a 4Mb RAM/40Mb hard drive-equipped 486 running at 25MHz. At £1,365, this was about right for the time, but price benefit was set in contrast to the PC is held back by its legacy expansion bus and the wobbly mix of DOS and Windows. The key question was: which was best?

I mean, really? You have to ask in an Acorn mag?

Comparisons are made across Desktop Publishing, "Business" packages, Graphics, Printing and hardware expansion. "Typical users" will find everything they need on Acorn's machine, and whilst the Mac and PC had their place, viewing the A5000 on its merits means that it would be difficult to match the OS/hardware package anywhere else. Not surprising, but less partisan than expected. That didn't, however, really distract from the fact that the best general all-rounder then was the DOS/Windows PC. 

Tell your kids this was The Matrix pre-1999.

Moving on, there are features on getting the most from Impression (a DTP package that still proves useful to this day and a version of which was used to create Acorn User), Assembly Line programming help, the first in a new series on programming in C, the usual Yellow Pages of listings, and sections on Business, Graphics and Educational software.

Somewhere, beyond the C...

Games are also covered, and by this stage of the Archimedes' life, there were quite a few leisure titles out there, belying the reputation RISC OS had garnered as just being suited to educational purposes. Aliped gets a decent review, Pesky Muskrats also just about passes muster, whilst Grievous Bodily 'Arm proves that side scrolling beat 'em ups are a thing for RISC OS players. 

I see what they did with that fighting game title...

It's adverts time now, and as this is a format specific mag, there are a lot of smaller companies to go alongside the more recognisable names (both within the RISC OS market as well as the wider computing scene).

ICS - a cornucopia of RISC OS kit.

ICS lead off with two pages of software and hardware, covering pretty much all of your possible computing needs. You could argue that a sorting by type would have been useful but you can't deny that there was a good amount of software available. 

When Watford closed down, they left a hell of a Gap in the market (not sorry at all!).

Watford Electronics were another long time dealer of Acorn kit, and they take up thirteen pages! There is an absolute boatload of hardware, and it's cool to see the Cambridge Z88 still being advertised too. They were also a very familiar name in the PC world and would make a name for themselves selling reasonable DOS/Windows PC's for a few years.

Desktop Projects would sell you Acorns at rather reasonable prices - that basic A3000 with a 2Mb RAM upgrade for £599 ex VAT wasn't silly, and neither were the monitor packages either. That you could get an ST for less than £300 and an Amiga A1200 for under £400 was neither here no there, honest, guv'nor!

Some fine school memories unlocked with this advert.

Clares had their impressive range of graphical packages for sale, and I remember using ProArtisan quite frequently back in comprehensive. Sadly, the school would never shell out for Render Bender II.

Dealers like these were once the lifeblood of the home computing market.

There also quite a few smaller ads from dealers who would willingly flog you the Acorn set up of your dreams, and in true foot meets bullet style, Acorn would rearrange its dealer relations in the summer of 1995 and dismiss two thirds of its registered approved education dealers. A money decision to be sure, it also removed a good amount of local knowledge for potential buyers - but Acorn weren't the first to do that. In the US in 1987, Atari bought the Federated Group to provide dedicated retail space for the ST, as well as focussing on larger and more specialised resellers. As a result, the small dealer network abandoned the platform. Not saying if they hadn't, it would have changed things much, but it sure as hell didn't help!

A selection of superior Superior software?

Finishing with games, and both The Fourth Dimension and Superior Software had been prolific with releases, and as you can see from both of their ads, they had games aplenty for players of all levels and interests.

4D really were rather prolific back in the early 90's.

That was Acorn User, a popular format specific publication that, while not as big as say Amiga or ST Format would be for their users, was more than good enough for the RISC OS and Beeb owning crowd. As for today's users, Archive magazine and Drag 'N' Drop still fly the flag for an OS that remains in active use and development. Check out RISC OS Open for updates on the current OS, and Riscository and The Icon Bar for news. The former has banners for the various RISC OS shows you can attend throughout the year, and here's a link to this year's Wakefield Show with a handy guide to most of movers and shakers in the RISC OS world.