Since I joined the Internet, I have become increasingly aware of the ever-present cry of 'my computer is better than yours'. Although most use a mainline IBM compatible, some swear by a Mac. Quite a lot (I'm told) swear at a PC! Then there is Acorn. Yes - there are also Amigas and Ataris and lots more: sorry, but I am not expert enough to compare these: I don't know much about Macs either but what I do know about IBMs and Macs convince me that Acorn is in fact better!
I use an Acorn - and I so must surely be biased. But I have no 'commercial' axe to grind: 4QD do not sell computers not software and I do not expect to get a commission on any sales! My wish is simply to see a piece of good technology succeed! Moreover, Acorn is British!
A computer is such a complex piece of equipment that it is virtually impossible for anyone to be very familiar with more than one, let alone three platforms. Herein lies the rub: we all get to like, or at least to use, whatever we become most familiar with. The initial choice is usually based on accident, not intention, and it is easy enough to justify using what one already knows and uses. I believe there are logical reasons why Acorn is, in fact, the best. I try to keep an open mind!
'Accident' has caused the IBM compatible market to snowball at the expense of the other platforms. Most people know of Apple Macs, though few know much about them, but almost nobody is aware of Acorn. So I decided to write a page trying to compare Acorn with mainline computers. I am trying to be impartial, trying to be factual. Trying to not simply be a blind devotee: the task (of impartial comparison) is not easy since I am not impartial! So I'll put all the known information and pros and cons down in a, hopefully, entertaining manner and let you, dear reader, judge for yourself.
Recently I got a copy of Win 95... As an Acorn user I was very impressed indeed!
Windows is an amazingly clever and complex piece of software. What clever people Microsoft employ!
But what's really amazing is that Microsoft have convinced users that software actually needs to be so complicated! That's much more clever than the crap software!
Ugh... I'll stick with RiscOS.
RiscOS actually makes my computer friendly. RiscOS actually tries to help me, a mere human, interact with a complicated computer in a simple way. It helps me to do what I want! RiscOS does not insist officiously in making me do what the computer tells me!
Win 95 'allows' me to use the computer, but with a large amount of disdain! Win 95 gives me the impression that it's putting up with me and would rather get on with things itself!
The clever thing about RiscOS is that is makes a difficult task seem easy. It allows me full access to the computer and helps me do things the way I want. It does not keep screaming at me that I've done the wrong thing and must do something else. Now that's really clever computer programming.
Pity about Acorn's crap marketing....
So I decided to do my bit to help! Here it is.
To answer this, a small history lesson.. When microcomputers started in the 1980s, lots of manufacturers tried to sell them. In USA we had Commodore PET, Apple, IBM. In Britain we had Sinclair, Dragon, Tangerine, and Acorn. Acorn had a very good 8 bit computer which was designed for the British Broadcasting Corporation as part of the BBC's computer literacy program.
In the early '80s, Chris Curry, one of Acorn's founders, had been working with Clive Sinclair. Sinclair in those days had got into the first pocket calculators and digital watches. The microcomputer chips started to become available.
The take that follows is based on my best understanding of the situation: I used to work for Clive and left Sinclair in the late '70s. Soon after this time Sinclair Radionics was in trouble (and about to go bankrupt) and Chris Curry approached Clive about 'doing his own thing'. Chris wanted to start his own company. So, with Clive's backing he formed a company called 'Science of Cambridge' and released a primitive computer: in those days this was a micro, a small display and a keyboard for programming it in Hexadecimal machine code!
Eventually Sinclair Radionics went broke, Clive decided to take an active interest in the company he had formed with Chris. The disagreement between them that ended in 'fisticuffs' in a Cambridge pub was well documented in a local paper!
So Chris parted company with Clive. Science of Cambridge became Sinclair research and produced the ZX80 and its successors. Chris teamed up with Herman Hauser and produced one of the very first micro computers with a proper keyboard: the Atom. This was a useful computer and started Acorn off.
Acorn were developing a better computer (provisionally called the Proton) when the BBC started their computer literacy scheme. There were so many different styles of computer around that the BBC were unable to decide which one they liked enough for their project. So they wrote their own specification for a computer and asked the British computer manufacturers to make it.
It turned out to be quite similar to the Proton which Acorn were developing, so it did not take Acorn long to come back with a prototype to show the BBC. The BBC liked it and so was born the first BBC computer.
The BBC used the same 6502 microprocessor as did the Commodore Pet. Acorn's programmers, working with the BBC's requirements, did some very clever things with it and, in the early '80s the BBC computer was a far more versatile and 'cutting edge' machine than the contemporary IBM 8086 microcomputers.
In the early '80s Acorn's back-room boys were aware that they were stretching the performance of the 8 bit 6502 to its limit. So they started looking at the newly emerging microprocessors, to see what micro they should use to supplant the 6502. But they couldn't see anything that looked to be able to give them the sort of performance they wanted: the emerging 16 bit versions of the 8086 were, quite simply, not as capable as the micro they were using.
So the back-room boys started designing their dream microprocessor. It was to be a full 32 bit micro, with a full 32bit address and data bus. And it was to be a Risc processor.
Then the microcomputer bubble burst. Acorn went bust and Olivetti bought the remains of the failing Acorn.
Only after they had purchased it did Olivetti find that they had inadvertently acquired the complete design of a cutting edge 32 bit Risc microprocessor.
The design was put onto silicon, the Arm processor was manufactured and the 'Archimedes' - the world's first 32-bit risc processor-based production microcomputer saw the light in 1987. It had a operating system called Arthur.
But Acorn's history had been in making educational computers. Their whole ethos was towards making their software as easy to use and interface with as possible. They did not see their customers as illiterates incapable of programming a computer, so their whole push was towards making the computer as easy to program as possible. Rather than attempting to insulate the user from the technical bits via the user interface (as Apple were doing) or trying to make the operating system do everything (as Microsoft seem to be doing) Acorn help the user to do what the user wants. Acorn try to encourage users to fully use their computer, they make access to the operating system as easy as possible.
Of course a computer with the complexity of a windows based operating system must always present difficulties, because there is so much to it. I used to program on the early BBCs but when the operating system expanded I found that there was simply too much of it and I simply could not remember enough about it. I was not frustrated at the computer, which was still easy to program, but at my own inability to remember how to do what I wanted. I found myself spending more and more time digging in the manual for the information than I did programming, so I gave up! But it is still very easy to do small bits of programming on the Acorn. Access to the command language is very easy and writing simple 'Obey' files (similar to IBM .BAT files) is easy. Acorn also has, built into it, what is widely reputed to be the best Basic available.
All of which makes Acorn friendly - I have never found IBM systems as friendly. I am certain that, had I been born an American and had I been weaned on IBMs I would now be nowhere near as computer literate as I am. The computer is a well trusted friend which I enjoy using. I never get annoyed that I cannot do what I want; I never feel that the computer is being difficult, or thwarting my attempts to use it. Sometimes I get frustrated at myself for not remembering how do do what I want, but once I recall the method, it is usually very difficult to see how the facility could have been made any easier to use!
The Arm chip which Acorn designers produced way back in late '80s has today been developed by ARM Ltd who do not produce anything physical; they simply design and sell intellectual property. The ARM design is now licensed to 29 (on last count) different semiconductor manufacturers. This makes is the most widely licensed RISC computer design in history and it is finding its way into Personal Digital Assistants (the Psion 5 uses it), fax machines, mobile phones and lots of other embedded controller applications.
This is something which Windows has - Acorn does not. Ironically this may be the death-knell for Acorn. Let me explain...
'Killer Applications' are rare. A killer App is something new which causes lots of people to want it. In the early days of computing they were common. As computing matured, the available packages got fewer as the popular ones grew and the unpopular ones faded. The more mature the market gets, the more features are already in the popular packages and the harder it is for a new package to do anything useful, so software mainly consists of selling upgrades. Killer Apps get rarer.
Now the mainline market realises this: their market is in a cycle of new processors which require new versions of the OS and which won't run old programs, so these also have to be upgraded. This generates a lot of business. The cunning thing is that this 'pedalling' of the market has to be psychologically correct: it has to be done in such a way that is is perceived as necessary. Microsoft and Intel seem to excel at this deception.
Acorn don't keep upgrading the processor/operating system - it is not necessary. There are better processors and the OS is gradually improved - but you don't need a complete new OS to run with the latest processor and, where there is a major OS upgrade, generally only minor changes are needed to run old programs. So the 'replacement program' market is small - it does not generate a lot of money.
A 'bug fix' in the Acorn world is usually free, involves only a very minor change and is almost transparent. In the mainline world new programs may be bug fixes - but are almost completely new programs - one suspects with deliberate new bugs to fuel future upgrades.
Back to the index.
Modular software design
Acorn's software is modular in design. So too, after a lesser fashion, is Windows. But all Acorn's operatin ... application.
Acorn also has a different (and I believe, superior) system of file typing. We don't use the .EXT system but a separate number coded in the disk directory information. This number is allocated for each particular file type and, when a folder containing an application is opened for the first time, a special !Boot file inside the application is run. This loads up 'sprites' (as Acorn's icon files are called) to indicate the icon for any file type claimed by the application. It also tells the operating system what action to take when a file of that type is selected.
So we have a file type for text - and many different applications which could be chosen to write (or load) the text file. As a user, I chose which file to use by making sure that the operating system sees this application during boot-up. If I have other editors I want to use occasionally, I make sure they are not seen during boot - or make sure their !Boot file doesn't claim that file type. All this is very simple to do - and I control it, simply by arranging my hard disc as I want!
Alternatively I can load the alternative application (by clicking on it) then simply drag the text file onto it's icon on the icon bar. It's all very easy for me to control the computer.
Resource management: !System and !Scrap
Then there's a rather special folder called !Boot. Not surprisingly this contains lots of stuff that is looked up when you boot up the computer. In here you can add applications that you want to automatically load. In here also is another folder called !System: in here (away from accidental view) are additional operating system modules that are available to add to (or replace) modules in ROM. This is nice - because it keeps all the operating system files in one place, without cluttering the hard disc up with inscrutable names.
Also in here is a folder called !Fonts: you can add additional fonts here if you want them to be available to virtually all programs. Also in !Boot is a folder called !Scrap. Surprise: this is a temporary area where any application can park a temporary file. Acorns do not litter their hard discs with inscrutably named temporary files (or ones you though were temporary - until you deleted them)!
Acorn is a dying standard, as was video 2000 and
Betamax
This statement seems, at first sight, to be true. But imagine if all video recorders were 'kludged' so that they would only use BrandX video tape! Of course this is impossible on a Video - but it exactly the position that MicroSoft seem to have manoeuvred themselves into.
Acorn's RISC processor is a lot smaller and simpler than a corresponding Intel chip; as a result they are a lot cheaper to produce and they also consume a lot less power. You get Pentium-type performance off a couple of penlight cells! This has resulted in Acorn's main market being licensing their chip design and Software for devices other than desktop computers. They are used in TV set-top boxes, network access machines, faxes, photocopiers, portable digital assistants, portable phones and games machines: Acorn's market for chips outside standard computers is huge!
As well as the actual operating system, Acorn's ROMs contain several quite usable applications: There's an Alarm, a character picker (to pick those top-bit characters that you cannot remember the ALT code for), a bit-map editor called !Paint, which in itself is a very usable painting program: I have a ten year old son who has Down's Syndrome so is severely disabled, yet he can always get !Paint running and loves doodling with it. There's a text editor, !Edit, again quite a respectable and useful program. A !Help application to give interactive help with any correctly written program and a vector drawing package, also extremely useful.
Now all of these, although very useable, have limitations and each, without exception, has caused programmers to write 'better' replacements. The case of !Draw is fairly typical. !Draw if a vector drawing package: lines are defined by two points, and a curved line by ends, control points and colours. Various geometrical shapes are similarly defined. A vector drawing can be redrawn by the computer to any required scale, so never looks grainy and 'pixcelly' (depending on available screen resolution. But !Draw was never very good at engineering drawings. So one programmer decided, for his own pleasure, to re-write it and a public domain program called !DrawPlus was born. It's good and free and used by a lot of people.
It was so good that a software house approached the author and got him to write an even better package called !Vector. Based on DrawPlus, this is the package which 4QD ue for all our drawings including circuit diagrams (see the electronics section for examples) and for our circuit board layouts. Just about all of the GIFs were prepared by 'screenshots' of !Vector. These won't look as good to you as they do to me, sorry - but the PC software is simply not capable of displaying things as well as Acorns! There has been a lot of talk in Acorn NGs about how to display pictures so PC users can see them as well as Acorn users and the consensus is - it cannot be done! Sorry.
So, useable though Acorn's in-built applications are, each one of these has become a definition of a minimum standard - if you want to write a similar program, this is what you must beat. It's proved to be an excellent way of helping to maintain a high quality of software. And most of the spawned programs are either PD (free) or low cost, high quality shareware.
You will have to make your own mind up on this - it's a personal decision. However Acorn encourages learning about the computer. Computers are changing. If you are learning - can you tell me what computers will be like in ten years time - let alone what software will be running? I cannot. I would far rather be learning about computing generally than learning to run a particular program under a particular operating system. With an Acorn it is far easier to learn about and get interested in computing rather than operating one piece of software. Better by far to have a computer you really enjoy using than one you are scared of!
Acorn are usually dismissed in the British media as being an enthusiast's machine - in the sense that nobody but an enthusiast chooses one. I put it that the situation is almost exactly the reverse of this and that almost everyone who chooses an Acorn becomes enthusiastic about them! You don't need to be an enthusiast to start using them, but the more you do use them - the more enthusiastic you will get!
It is well known that the last place a good British invention or product ever gets recognition is - in the British media!
Statistics show that 'Computer Rage' is widespread and quite serious: many people get furious that their computer won't do what they want. It must be very annoying.
Yet I believe the phenomenon is far less common amongst Acorn users. Yes, we get annoyed, frustrated. But not against the computer! I get frustrated, not because what I want to do is difficult, but simply because I cannot remember how to do it! Usually I know it is very easy - but I simply can't remember how I did it last week. I never get the idea the computer is fighting me: the computer is as helpful as a dumb machine could be. Usually, when I find out how to do what I want, I try and work out a simpler way that the programmer could have embodied the feature: it is usually very obvious why it is where it is, and very difficult to suggest an improvement.
And when I can think of an improvement, I can contact the software house and, usually, the improvement appears in the next version.
The odd thing about this 'computer phobia' is that most people are, subconsciously, scared of computers. When people are scared they tend to act a little like sheep, flocking together and doing the 'safe' thing, in this case all buying a 'standard' computer with 'standard' software. A very safe action. But, ironically, it is the very nature of the 'standard' that causes the initial computer phobia.
I cannot prove that computer phobia does not exist amongst the Acorn users: if is is (as I suspect) rare then it could be because computer phobes don't chose Acorn. But I suspect that people who learn on Acorn machines are much less likely to develop phobia!
In retrospect, this was a non event. But Risc OS users thought it to be one large joke! Call us complacent if you wish - we will indeed have our 'year 2000' problem - but sometime in 2248 !
I personally don't intend to live that long so I'll leave my descendants to worry about it!
I did have one small concern: PipeDream (the program I use most) used to take the date 8.8.21 as being 8 August 1921, so it meant that to get the correct date I would have to type in the whole 8.8.2021. Big deal! However in the last (free) upgrade they changed this to a sliding year: current year -70 or +30 so now 8.8.29 comes out as 2029 and 8.8.26 comes out as 1926!
Does your dealer sell Acorn?
Does your dealer make money from selling IBM compats?
Do you really expect an impartial opinion from him?
If you can honestly say yes to all three then either you have a good
dealer who is giving you the best advice (and, undoubtedly an IBM compat
is the best choice for many people) - or you a are a fool! So buy an IBM
compat - fools don't buy Acorns! Well - I said I'd try to be impartial, I
did not promise to succeed!
But I'm usd to Microsoft. Won't the change be
difficult?
I quote a small piece of a discussion on a mailing list recently..
> Microsoft products and its way of thinking are now embedded in most
> people's minds. Yes RISC OS is more elegant but they can't face learning
> a new system.Folk may think that to be a problem, but as I came to RISC OS after long term use of PC format, I can state that the change was easy and helped my productivity. In fact the change was less of a problem than it had often been to change from one software package to another within the pc arena.
For myself, it is difficult to give personal advice but it is certain that the general feeling amongst Acorn users is that the operating system makes the Acorn computer their favourite. People who use Acorn, Mac and IBM almost all prefer Acorn's OS out of the three.
One of Acorn's special areas of expertise has always been 'second processors' - running a second processor of a different type to the main microprocessor. The had an 8086 card which worked with the old BBC, and they have various PC cards which work with the Risc PC: these use the Risc processor for the graphics, so can be pretty fast. So, for a small extra cost, you can run Windows within a window on the Risc PC's desktop.
There is to be released soon a new RiscPC (called Phoebe) which should be available with a Pentium Microprocessor.
However - if you only interest is in running standard Win95 programs, forget the RiscPC: the native RiscOS is so much better that it always feels 'foreign' working on the PC card!
From what I hear - it is next to impossible to get any real support on an IBM compatible! There are lots of dealers trying to sell the stuff to you, but few can give any sensible help when things go wrong.
On the other hand - there are very few Acorn dealers but, almost without exception, they ae dealing in Acorn because they enjoy doing so. If they were there only for the money they would not be selling Acorn! So they are all very helpful and knowledgeable. A lot of them are internet connected so are easy to contact. Far better to have competent and caring and accessible help five thousand miles away that incompetent, uncaring ignorance next door!
Also Acorn users are mostly quite technical and they enjoy helping each other, so the Acorn newsgroups are full of questions and friendly advice. Pop into the newsgroup comp.sys.acorn.misc and have a look sometime.
The same goes for Acorn software developers: almost all are very accessible and very open to suggestions and keen to help their users.
So I am certain that I get better help from being an Acorn user than ever I would if I used an IBM. Not only that - but a lot of the things I want are easier for me to understand and fix myself.
Acorn users are strong on the Internet: there are several news groups devoted to Acorn, e.g
There are also Acorn sites in our 'Links to other sites' available from the bottom of this page.
Acorn is (though clearly better) still a minority platform. Some people ask why we run an a non-standard computer? A fair question. We are considered as being a little odd by some.
But if we find we need to run an IBM program - we can. Or we can buy a PC for occasional use.
But I do not intend to cripple our business by 'standardising' on a less productive computer!