Reason for ARM (Acorn Archimedes at 30) - Computerphile

Another home computer hits the big 3 0 ! But even if you've never heard of it, the Acorn Archimedes is the reason the ARM chip exists...

This video was filmed and edited by Sean Riley.

[JobvanderZwan]

"We should have done an Amiga video but we didn't"

I'm more upset by this than I thought I would be

[endofthelinejoel]

That game must have opened a LOT of eyes in 1987.

[TristanBailey]

so many computer lessons with these and the joy of them being so much more powerful than BBC micro. The main joy in our school was when it was found you could right click (mouse had 3 buttons so one of them) and edit the sprites of any software so many a kid that made humorous images in the paint program and then swapped them out to animate in the games.

[vitalijskulagins]

Searching for working floppy is so lovely. Amazing work you guys are doing. Cant forget transferring Warcraft on 3.5 floppy disks to friends 386 machine with colored SVGA display. Being there at that time made me on top of IT industry today.

[jedijeremy]

Um... at 8:30 you relay some folklore that the Windows 95 start menu was inspired by the Arch, and I'm wondering if you have a reference or link to that, because I'm actually the author of an early RiscOS app called !Launch which was a application menu utility (With a little white and red TinTin-style rocket for the icon. I also wrote !Boot, which had a brown boot.) so these revelations mean it's entirely possible that I'm partly responsible for the Start button. So thanks for that.

I really would like to know the rest of that story. While I'm atoning for my sins I think it's important to know what they are.

[cr]

I loved the Arc. (I had A3000 / A5000). Basic V was the most elegant, powerful, best-structured version of Basic I ever encountered. And the Acorn Assembler language for the RISC chip was, also, so perfectly logical and consistent. And having an assembler built into Basic V made it so easy to use - write the program in Basic, then just convert the most intensive bit-twiddling parts to Assembler. It all made programming (almost) a pleasure.

[rikuown]

THAT'S WHAT THE DUDE BEHIND THE CAMERA LOOKS LIKE!?

[MrGridStrom]

Yes I remember the Acorn Archimedes around 1992, at school, It was the first computer I had ever seen and interacted with. It truly blew my mind, it was the first computer that really got me interested in computing. I also remember the game lander, it was next level at the time.

[LikelyToBeEatenByAGrue]

oh god. The nostalgia. That game absolutely blew my mind as a kid. When I saw that, I knew anything was possible in computer games.

[nytrex]

It was a chap from Colton Software who specialized in writing Acorn Applications, that joined Microsoft to help develop Windows 95 that showed them the Acorn RISC OS iconbar. The rest as they say is history.

Acorn had so much cool technology, but unfortunately for them they were based in England, and not Silicon Valley in the USA, so did not get the huge following they deserved.

Fortunately, the RISC OS is still being actively developed and is showing great promise for the future.

[originalveghead]

There's a sound you don't hear very often these days: the raspy clicky noise of someone flicking through a pile of 3.5 inch floppies.

[cdl]

Excellent video: the Archimedes was amazing. The lift at Computerphile's home base is made by Kone Oyj, which is a Finnish company, so all letters in its name are spoken, including the 'e'. The word 'kone' means machine in the Finnish language. You can hear how it sounds using Google Translate. The Finnish word for computer is tietokone, literally meaning 'thinking machine'.

[davidcagle]

I am in the USA and my first thirty-two bit computer was an Acorn Archimedes A310. My current primary computer is a Raspberry Pi B+ running RISC OS 5.24. I know others that used Acorn Archimedes through RiscPC systems here in the USA, there was a small but well together movement of Acorn RISC OS based Computer users over here, with many softwares that I think were only in the USA (I wish I could find the original authors to attempt to get permission to share there works).

[gojohnniegogo]

Yep, my secondary school was full of Acorn Archimedes machines. Used to enjoy playing games like Fervour, Moonquake (Bomberman Clone) and a demo of horizontal scroller Technodream!

[xabi]

Great machines. Long time ago I worked porting Amiga Scala MM into one of those amazing RiscPCs, all in StrongARM assembler. Greetings from Spain. StrongED FTW!

[stephenelliott]

My Archimedes 310 was my favourite of all the computers I've ever owned.

[DuncanEllis]

I loved my Archimedes. I wrote a quick demo of an Asteroids physics engine in about 150 lines of BASIC using graphics string primitives to draw all the objects. Amazingly efficient interpreter.

[ZT]

Sirius Cybernetics? I wonder if that lift had Genuine People Personalities installed...

[golach]

Feeling all nostalgic from my college days. Had one of the few Archimedes I've ever encountered.

[talideon]

Allegedly, Arthur meant 'A Risc operating system by THURsday'.