The Acorn Archimedes is, broadly speaking, a British 32-bit computer that competed with the Amiga and Atari ST.
History.
History.
In 1987, Acorn Computers Ltd. already had experience in the home computing field, thanks to the success of its 8-bit computer, the BBC Micro, during the early 1980s. This little-known machine was really popular in the UK, almost as popular as the early Spectrums. And it was especially popular in the educational sector, as it was the machine that many schools chose for their first computer classes.
But times were moving, and it was time to move to 16 bits. Or rather, 32 bits. I say this because although its appearance and performance are very reminiscent of the 16-bit computers of that time, the heart of the Archimedes was a 32-bit RISC ARM-2 processor, running at a speed of between 4 and 8 Mhz.
The rest of its specifications were rather like those of the other 16-bit computers it competed with: screen resolutions of up to 640 x 512 pixels (color) or 1280 x 960 (monochrome), up to 16 Mb. of RAM, a 3.5-inch, 800 Kb floppy disk drive. And finally, hard drives with a capacity of between 20 and 50 Mb.
Probably the most remarkable curiosity of the Archimedes was its operating system, the so-called RISC OS, which still came in the computers’ ROM as if it were an 8-bit computer. This undoubtedly limited the possibilities of the OS, but in exchange guaranteed a much higher reliability, since any error on the part of the user was resolved by resetting the computer so that everything returned to factory settings.
However, the impact of the Archimedes on the market was very small. As was the case with its 8-bit predecessor, the BBC Micro, the Archimedes was relegated practically from the beginning to the educational market. And that was thanks to the hypermarket chain TESCO, which sponsored the Computers for Schools initiative with Acorn, and other professional fields (such as medicine, radio and TV). But even the Archimedes’ moderate success in these fields was reduced to practically nothing by the time the 1990s arrived, and with it the inevitable PCs and Apple Macintoshes.
Far from throwing in the towel, Acorn continued to apply the design lessons learned with the Archimedes (32-bit RISC processor, OS in ROM) in its next generation of personal computers, the Risc PC, launched in 1994 and which can still be found on the market, despite the fact that today’s PCs have made them completely obsolete.
Games library.
There is none, I think. I’m afraid, big deal, although there are quite a few versions of classic games from that era, such as the early games in the Lemmings series or Cannon Fodder series, which alone are worth taking a look at this peculiar system.
Emulation.
It’s pretty simple. All you need is a good Archimedes emulator, such as the Arculator, and you’ll also need a copy of the RISC OS. This comes in several versions, with v3.10, v3.11, and v3.70 being the most common. These usually consist of one or more files, usually with a ROM extension, and should be copied unzipped into the ROMS folder.OS> of the emulator.
Once this is done, simply run the ARCULATOR.EXE file, create a virtual machine (which should be basic but with at least 1 MB of RAM) and start it. If the system files are correct, after a few moments we will see the following screen:
If the desktop does not appear, enter the command DESKTOP from the start screen.
Once on the desktop, it is time to use the instructions Disc –> Change disc –> Drive 0 from the menus to load the disk with our favorite program / game. In our case, we will use the game disk Lemmings, from Psygnosis.
We notice that during the emulation, our mouse takes control of the Archimedes mouse pointer. To regain control of the Windows pointer, to use the emulator menus, we use the combination CTRL + End.
Note also, as a curiosity, that the Archimedes emulators use disk images in ADF format, just like the Amiga emulators.
Once the disk is inserted in drive 0 (another coincidence with the Amiga, what a coincidence), we double-click on the icon of this, at the bottom left, and the contents of the disk appear.
We double-click on the iconLemmings that is inside the disk. Program loading starts automatically…
