{"id":20341,"date":"2018-12-05T18:00:01","date_gmt":"2018-12-05T17:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jungsi.de\/?p=20341"},"modified":"2026-08-28T09:17:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T07:17:49","slug":"acorn-electron-acorn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jungsi.de\/en\/acorn-electron-acorn\/","title":{"rendered":"Acorn Electron [Acorn]"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Electron<\/em> was designed as the little brother of the BBC Micro<\/em> to compete with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum<\/em>. The computer was released in August 1983. For a short time, it was the best-selling computer in England. I owe my computer to a generous donation from Sebastian Braunert<\/em>, who also develops games for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum<\/em> and the Amstrad CPC<\/em>. The computer arrived along with the GoSCD<\/em>, an SD card solution for the Electron<\/em>, and the original manual. Thank you very much! This has encouraged me to get more involved with Acorn<\/em> computers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The aim of Acorn<\/em> was to develop a computer that offered better graphics than the Spectrum<\/em> from Sinclair,<\/em> whilst remaining compatible with its big brother, the BBC Micro<\/em>. This aim was to be achieved through the development of a ULA (Uncommitted Logic Array). This made it possible to eliminate 90 per cent of the Micro\u2019s 100 chips, thereby also reducing the cost of the computer. However, there were setbacks and the planned delivery of the computer to customers had to be postponed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Die Bewertungen des Rechners fielen meist gut aus und stellten die hervorragende Grafik im Vergleich zum Commodore 64<\/em> fest. W\u00e4hrend die Geschwindigkeit gegen\u00fcber dem C64<\/em> und konkurrierenden Computern annehmbar war, war der Electron<\/em> jedoch viel langsamer als der BBC Micro. So berichtete beispielsweise Popular Computing Weekly<\/em>, dass die BBC Micro<\/em> Spiele „weniger als halb so schnell“ liefen, was ihre Attraktivit\u00e4t stark beeintr\u00e4chtige.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Die ULA verursachte weiterhin Probleme und verz\u00f6gerte die Herstellung in gro\u00dfem Ma\u00dfstab. Bis Oktober 1983 hatte Acorn<\/em> Auftr\u00e4ge f\u00fcr mehr als 150.000 Einheiten erhalten und erwartete, jeden weiteren Monat vor Weihnachten 25.000 St\u00fcck zu produzieren. Der bestehende R\u00fcckstand w\u00fcrde mehr als sechs Monate in Anspruch nehmen. Trotz der Reduktion der Chips lag der Preis f\u00fcr den Rechner bei 175 \u00a3 und der des Konkurrenten Sinclair ZX Spectrum<\/em> bei 130 \u00a3.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Acorn
Acorn Electron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Acorns <\/em>Christmas sales in 1984 fell well short of expectations, and in January 1985 the company reduced the price of the Electron<\/em> to \u00a3129. Olivetti<\/em> acquired the company later in 1985 and wound up Acorns<\/em>\u2019 home computer business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the Acorn Electron<\/em> may not have been as popular as the Spectrum, Commodore 64<\/em> or Amstrad CPC<\/em>, it sold in sufficient numbers to ensure that new software continued to be produced until the early 1990s. This meant that the Electron<\/em> had a lifespan that was not much shorter than that of the better-known BBC Micro<\/em> computers and much longer than that of its competitors, the Oric-1<\/em> and Dragon 32<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardware<\/strong>
CPU:<\/em> MOS Technology 6502A
RAM:<\/em> 32 kB
ROM:<\/em> 32 kB
Graphics modes:<\/em> 160\u00d7256 (4 or 16 colours), 320\u00d7256 (2 or 4 colours), 640\u00d7256 (2 colours), 320\u00d7200 (2 colours \u2014 distance display with two blank horizontal lines following every 8 pixel lines), 640\u00d7200 (2 colours \u2014 spacing display)
Colours:<\/em> 8 colours (TTL combinations of RGB primary colours) + 8 flashing versions of the same colours
Sound:<\/em> 1 channel, 7 octaves; built-in loudspeaker. Software emulation of the noise channel is supported
Connections:<\/em> Expansion port, cassette recorder port (1200 baud CUTS \u2013 a variation of the Kansas City standard for data encoding, via a 7-pin circular DIN socket), TV antenna port (RF modulator), composite video and RGB monitor output<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Acorn
Acorn Electron – Anschl\u00fcsse<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Extensions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Acorn Plus 1<\/em>
Das Acorn Plus 1<\/em> verf\u00fcgt \u00fcber zwei ROM-Cartridge-Steckpl\u00e4tze, eine analoge Schnittstelle (unterst\u00fctzt zwei Kan\u00e4le) und einen Centronics-Parallelport. Die analoge Schnittstelle wurde normalerweise f\u00fcr Joysticks verwendet, die Parallele f\u00fcr einen Drucker. Die ROM-Slots konnten \u00fcber die Tastenkombination „Shift + BREAK“ gestartet werden. (Der Steckplatz an der Vorderseite der Schnittstelle hatte Vorrang, wenn beide belegt waren).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Acorn Plus 2<\/em>
Laut einem News-Artikel auf Seite 9 der Oktober-Ausgabe von Acorn User vom Oktober 1984 sollte die Acorn-Schnittstelle „Plus 2“ die Econet-F\u00e4higkeit bereitstellen. Diese Schnittstelle hat es nicht auf den Markt gebracht.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Acorn Plus 3<\/em>
The Acorn Plus 3<\/em> was a hardware module that connected independently of the Plus 1 and incorporated a 3\u00bd-inch double-density floppy disk drive via a WD1770 drive controller and an ADFS ROM. Two versions of the Plus 3 were produced:
a single-sided and a double-sided drive version. As the WD1770 operates in single-density mode and uses the same IBM 360-derived floppy disk format as the Intel 8271 from BBC Micro, it was also possible to run a DFS file system with an alternative ROM, such as the PRES AP4 interface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GoSDC<\/em>
With GoSDC, you can store all your software on an SDHC, SD or MMC memory card. Move all your floppy disks, hard drives and tapes to the flash card, give them names and use them as before (via the same file systems).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Load programme<\/strong>
If it is not yet possible to load programmes from an SD card at the start, there is another way to do this. In any case, you\u2019ll need the right cable. This has a DIN plug on one end and three 3.5mm mono plugs on the other for EAR, MIC and CONTROL. The EAR plug can be connected to the appropriate output on a cassette recorder (!), the audio output of a PC and even a mobile phone. You then simply need to play the relevant files on that device. This website is ideal for this purpose: http:\/\/www.8bitkick.cc\/playuef.html \u2013 there, you can select a game, play it and load it once the cables are connected correctly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well-known games<\/strong>
Starship Command (Acornsoft, 1983)
Chuckie Egg (A\u2019n\u2019F, 1984)
Elite (Acornsoft, 1984)
the Repton series (Superior Software, 1985\u20131989)
Thrust (Superior Software, 1986)
Exile (Superior Software, 1988)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Acorn<\/em> effectively discontinued the Electron <\/em> in 1985, games continued to be developed and published by professional software companies until 1991. Around 1,400 games were developed for the Acorn Electron <\/em>, and several thousand additional public domain titles were released on DVDs via public domain libraries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tip: Power supply<\/strong>
An Acorn without a power supply? No problem: any power supply that outputs AC\/DC from 12V to 20V at a current of 0.75 A (or more) will work. It should have a 2.1 mm plug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tips on RGB\/Composite Connections<\/strong>
The Electron<\/em> has a socket for an RF cable (antenna socket), a composite socket and an RGB socket. Unfortunately, only the antenna and composite sockets work for me. The computer is easy to open and has just four screws on the underside \u2013 then carefully lift off the cover so as not to damage the keyboard\u2019s ribbon cable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently, to use the RGB connector, pins 2 and 3 on jumper LK3 need to be shorted. I\u2019ve no idea why the jumper wasn\u2019t even present on my board.
Unfortunately, the Electron<\/em> only outputs a black-and-white picture via the composite output, but this can be fixed by shorting LK4.
The location of this jumper depends on the mainboard version:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Mainboard
Mainboard Issue 4 – LK3 und LK4<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
\n
\"Mainboard
Mainboard Issue 6 – LK3 und LK4<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Emulator<\/strong>
Elkulator<\/a>
Electrem<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Links<\/strong>
http:\/\/www.acornelectron.co.uk\/
http:\/\/www.stardot.org.uk
https:\/\/www.stairwaytohell.com\/roms\/index.html?page=homepage
http:\/\/www.zeridajh.org\/hardware\/gosdc\/index.htm<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Der Electron wurde als kleiner Bruder des BBC Micro entworfen, um dem Sinclair ZX Spectrum Konkurrenz zu machen. Ver\u00f6ffentlicht wurde der Rechner im August 1983. \u2026<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1244],"tags":[1258,4843,4737,4750],"class_list":["post-20341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acorn-electron","tag-acorn","tag-englisch-verfuegbar","tag-hardware","tag-heimcomputer"],"wp-worthy-pixel":{"ignored":false,"public":"4f5b6e4f170d47408069f5a1f8d10aae","server":"","url":"https:\/\/vg07.met.vgwort.de\/na\/4f5b6e4f170d47408069f5a1f8d10aae"},"wp-worthy-type":"normal","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jungsi.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Acorn-Electron-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jungsi.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jungsi.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jungsi.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jungsi.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jungsi.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20341"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.jungsi.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42797,"href":"https:\/\/www.jungsi.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20341\/revisions\/42797"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jungsi.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jungsi.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jungsi.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jungsi.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}