Acorn Atom
The Acorn Atom was a home computer made by Acorn Computers Ltd from 1981 to 1983 when it was replaced by the BBC Micro (originally Proton) and later the Acorn Electron.
The Atom was a progression of the MOS Technology 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 £175.
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, which included poke and peek operators for bytes and double bytes. It also included an assembler allowing you to produce machine code as output of a program.
The Acorn LAN, Econet, was first configured on the Atom.
Specifications
- CPU: MOS Technology 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
