The Acorn Computers Ltd Archives

This section of the website includes archive materials from Acorn Computers Ltd (1979-1998).

A quick history

Acorn Computers Ltd didn't start maintaining an FTP space until late in the day. Instead one of it's most active employee's, Dave Walker, started assembling an FTP resource in June 1995 that could be used by Acorn staff, dealers and customers. The FTP site was maintained and enlarged until September 1998 when Acorn Computers Ltd was dissolved.

After the dust cloud had settled a new company, RISCOS Ltd, took over development of RISC OS and also took over the hosting of the FTP site. RISCOS Ltd hosted the FTP site totally unchanged from 1998 to 2013. When 3QD Developments Ltd took over the responsibility of looking after RISC OS we decided to 'spruce up' the FTP site.

The original site included software downloads, promotional materials, technical support articles and more besides. We decided to split the site up and arrange the software downloads by RISC OS version and make these available via the various product pages of this website. The written documents have been moved here into the archive.

Once we started sifting through the files it became obvious that some work needed to be done. Many files were compressed in archive formats not commonly used by RISC OS and most of the files had lost their RISC OS filetypes. We have worked through the entire archive, converting text files to html, rebuilding archives into ZIP format and correcting missing file information. Hopefully this will make the archive more useful and help ensure it's kept alive for another 25 years.

Aaron Timbrell (3QD Developments Ltd)

Acorn Document Archive

Each of the links below will open in a new window.

Acorn Clan

The Clan was launched by Acorn in 1994, it was a 'club' for users of Acorn equipment. The members paid a single fee for lifetime membership and received newsletters, beta test versions of applications and could buy various Acorn branded products such as mugs, pens and t-shirts.

Acorn Clan disc archive
This section includes copies of the floppy discs sent to Clan members.

Acorn Products

Product information for dealers and the press
This section includes documents designed for dealers and press releases for distribution to magazines.

Safety information for Acorn products
Safety information showing how to disassemble products without injury because Risc PC case pins are sharp.

Acorn Processors
Information on various models of ARM (Acorn Risc Machine) processors prior to 1998

Acorn Datasheets for the RiscPC 600
Datasheets relating to the new 1994 Acorn Risc PC computers

Circuit diagrams for some Acorn products
Many of the circuit diagrams for Acorn products existed as drawings only. An attempt was made to start digitising these drawings so that they could be made available to dealers and developers. This section includes all off the diagrams that had been digitised prior to Acorn's closure.

Brochures for various Acorn Products
Acorn produced a lot of brochures over the years. Many were produced to a high standard using sophisticated and expensive graphic design, however Acorn never quite got the message. Here's a funny story. At one point in the early 1990's Acorn started to push their products into the print/design market. The aim was to undercut Apple products and get Acorn into printshops, whcih was a growth industry at the time. Acorn produced a wonderful brochure singing the praises of their products combined with Impression, Artworks etc. The brochure was designed on Apple Macs, as anyone reading the small print on the back would have realised.

For dealers and developers

Customer Hotline Articles
Copies of the Acorn 'Customer Hotline Articles' as published in Acorn User Magazine.

Application Notes for Developers
Articles provided to dealers and developers. Many of these articles cover fixing problems (often in hardware). These articles were originally supplied either on Floppy disc via a subscription scheme or as ftp downloads from the old Acorn Computers servers.

FCO (Field Change Orders)
FCO (Field Change Orders) are hardware updates that are applied to products after manufacture. The Field Change Orders were supplied to dealers so they could 'fix' machines prior to sale, or undertake fixes to customers machines post sale.

Technical Support

Acorn computers Ltd year 2000 compliance
Document that covers Acorn computers and the 'millenium bug'

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