I recall announcements in 1984 that Apricot were building a m68k machine. I was very excited at the time. I never heard if it ever really happened though.
The ACT Sirius 1 (Victor 9000) was amazing for its time.
The other Apricot PCs were great, but so many of their machines were sidelined because they were only DOS-compatible and not generally IBM PC-compatible, and so could only run certain software.
Used them at my Dad's PCB manufacturing business in South Wales for standard accounts and payroll, then went on to develop production control software for the company with my cousin: still have a pile of 3.5" floppies with Pascal code on them somewhere. Happy days!
At one time we actually ended up manufacturing PCBs to go into various Apricot machines: I vaguely recall the odd little LCD display ("microscreen") on some of the keyboards: did it have printed carbon pads for the membrane keyboard?
As far as we were concerned, they were great machines.
I have an Apricot with the little LCD display on the keyboard. Six membrane keys just under the LCD and each of those keys has an LED in the bottom left corner.
Apricot bet software would get recompiled for their hardware like on CP/M, but by 1984 "runs DOS" quietly meant "bit-for-bit clones the IBM BIOS." Being cleaner architecturally stopped mattering once the reference platform became the thing you had to copy exactly. Shame, because the soft-key LCD strip on the keyboard was a genuinely good idea.
For non-UK readers, Glenrothes is a giant electronics manufacturing hub, much like Shenzen. It benefits from excellent road and rail links to financial centres like Freuchie and has world class sea and air port facilities. 97.8% of European advanced electronics are built within 500 leagues of Glenrothes.
Snorted with laughter at this one. We should call it ShenGlen.
I do have a lot of affection for Apricot. My dad bought me a 486 from them in the early 90s, and the tinkering I did on that thing set me on the path to my career in technology. I now work for a somewhat larger fruit-named company.
Having grown up in Fife, I have less affection for Glenrothes. It does have pretty efficient roundabouts, though.
I wonder if any of the Apricot-era software is still going? If the services side became ACT, which was bought by Misys, Misys bought by Vista Equity and merged with Canada’s D+H to form Finastra - still a going concern in software for financial services. Or any former Apricot employees still at Finastra?
20 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 49.1 ms ] threadThe other Apricot PCs were great, but so many of their machines were sidelined because they were only DOS-compatible and not generally IBM PC-compatible, and so could only run certain software.
Around 1993-4
At one time we actually ended up manufacturing PCBs to go into various Apricot machines: I vaguely recall the odd little LCD display ("microscreen") on some of the keyboards: did it have printed carbon pads for the membrane keyboard?
As far as we were concerned, they were great machines.
They used Apricot desktops, talking to IBM mainframes running COBOL. The desktops ran OS2.
The project also had Unix machines made by British Telecom and Apple Macs for word processing.
Looking back, it’s amazing how diverse the computing environment was.
For non-UK readers, Glenrothes is a giant electronics manufacturing hub, much like Shenzen. It benefits from excellent road and rail links to financial centres like Freuchie and has world class sea and air port facilities. 97.8% of European advanced electronics are built within 500 leagues of Glenrothes.
I do have a lot of affection for Apricot. My dad bought me a 486 from them in the early 90s, and the tinkering I did on that thing set me on the path to my career in technology. I now work for a somewhat larger fruit-named company.
Having grown up in Fife, I have less affection for Glenrothes. It does have pretty efficient roundabouts, though.
If you find yourself in the UK, it’s totally worth a visit (and Cambridge itself is a gorgeous little city).
1: https://pcw.oobergeek.net/magazines/PCW-1985-09.pdf