Acorn Atom

The Acorn Atom was a home computer made by Acorn Computers Ltd from 1981 to 1983 when it was replaced by the Acorn Electron.

The Atom was a progession of the 6502-based machines that the company had been making from 1978. The Atom was a cut-down Acorn System 3 without a disk drive but with an integral keyboard and cassette tape interface, sold in either kit or complete form. It was priced at around £175175.

It had a MC6847 VDU video chip, allowing for text or two-colour graphics modes. It could be connected to a TV or modified to output to a video monitor. Basic video memory was 1 kbyte but could be expanded to 6 kbyte. A PAL colour card was also available.

It had built-in BASIC, although in an idiosyncratic version.

The Acorn LAN, Econet, was first configured on the Atom.

Specifications

• CPU: MOS Technologies 6502
• Speed: 1 MHz
• RAM: 2 kB, expandable to 12 kB
• ROM: 8 kB
• Sound: 1 channel, integral loudspeaker
• Size: 381 x 241 x 64 mm
• I/O Ports: Computer Users Tape Standard (CUTS) interface, TV connector, Centronics parallel printer
• Storage: Kansas City standard audio cassette interface
• Power: 8 volts DC, providing 5 volts stabilised

External link

http://www.xs4all.nl/~fjkraan/comp/atom/index.html http://www.howell1964.freeserve.co.uk/Acorn/Atom/Atom.htm