The Apricot PC (originally called the ''ACT Apricot'') is a

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

produced by

Apricot Computers Apricot Computers was a British company that produced desktop personal computers in the mid-1980s. Outline Apricot Computers was a British manufacturer of business personal computers, founded in 1965 as "Applied Computer Techniques" (ACT), late ...

, then still known as Applied Computer Techniques or ACT. Released in late 1983, it was ACT's first independently developed microcomputer, following on from the company's role of marketing and selling the ACT Sirius 1, and was described as "the first 16-bit system to be Sirius-compatible, rather than IBM-compatible", indicating the influence that the Sirius 1 had in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

at the time. It achieved success in the United Kingdom, with reviewers noting the system's high resolution display (for its time) and its

trackball A trackball is a pointing device consisting of a ball held by a socket containing sensors to detect a rotation of the ball about two axes—like an upside-down ball mouse with an exposed protruding ball. Users roll the ball to position the on-s ...

cable (later models used IR). It used an

Intel 8086 The 8086 (also called iAPX 86) is a 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and June 8, 1978, when it was released. The Intel 8088, released July 1, 1979, is a slightly modified chip with an external 8-bit data bus (allowi ...

processor running at . A 8087 math co-processor was optional. The amount of memory was , expandable to . It came with a CRT green-screen 9" with text mode or graphics and was equipped with two floppy discs and a keyboard with an integrated

LCD A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directly but in ...

display. The ''Apricot Xi'' was a similar computer released in 1984, with a

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magnet ...

instead of a second floppy-drive.

Software

Due to an IBM PC incompatible BIOS, trying to run a software package like dBase III would result in a system crash. The system was delivered with

SuperCalc SuperCalc is a CP/M-80 spreadsheet application published by Sorcim in 1980. History VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet program but its release for the CP/M operating system ran only on the HP-125, Sharp MZ80, and the Sony SMC-70. SuperCalc was ...

, and several system utilities, asynchronous communication, an emulator for , Microsoft Basic-86, Basic Personal and ACT Manager (a

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

for MS-DOS). Optionally available were Microsoft Word,

Multiplan Multiplan is spreadsheet program developed by Microsoft and introduced in 1982 as a competitor to VisiCalc. Multiplan was released first for computers running CP/M; it was developed using a Microsoft proprietary p-code machine, p-code C compil ...

WordStar WordStar is a word processor application for microcomputers. It was published by MicroPro International and originally written for the CP/M-80 operating system, and later written also for MS-DOS and other 16-bit PC OSes. Rob Barnaby was the sol ...

dBase II dBase (also stylized dBASE) was one of the first database management systems for microcomputers and the most successful in its day. The dBase system includes the core database engine, a query system, a forms engine, and a programming language ...

, C-Pascal,

UCSD Pascal UCSD Pascal is a Pascal programming language system that runs on the UCSD p-System, a portable, highly machine-independent operating system. UCSD Pascal was first released in 1977. It was developed at the University of California, San Diego (UCS ...

, C, Fortran,

COBOL COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily us ...

and .

IBM PC compatibility

The manufacturer did not completely clone the

IBM BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the b ...

, so although it ran

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

and

CP/M-86 CP/M-86 was a version of the CP/M operating system that Digital Research (DR) made for the Intel 8086 and Intel 8088. The system commands are the same as in CP/M-80. Executable files used the relocatable .CMD file format. Digital Research als ...

, it was not

IBM PC compatible IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones. ...

as the underlying system BIOS and hardware was very different. An

Intel 8089 The Intel 8089 input/output coprocessor was available for use with the 8086/8088 central processor. It was announced in May 1979, but the price was not available at that time. It used the same programming technique as 8087 for input/output operat ...

I/O controller was used, instead of the Intel 8237 DMA chip used in IBM computers; the ROM was only a simple boot loader rather than a full

BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the ...

; and there was no 640k barrier. The floppy disk format was "not quite compatible"; attempting to read an ordinary PC

FAT In nutrition science, nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such chemical compound, compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food. The term often refers spec ...

floppy in an Apricot, or vice versa, would result in a scrambled directory listing with some files missing. Apricot later offered the possibility of converting the computer into an IBM compatible PC by replacing the

motherboard A motherboard (also called mainboard, main circuit board, mb, mboard, backplane board, base board, system board, logic board (only in Apple computers) or mobo) is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in general-purpose computers and other expand ...

with one equipped with an

Intel 80286 The Intel 80286 (also marketed as the iAPX 286 and often called Intel 286) is a 16-bit microprocessor that was introduced on February 1, 1982. It was the first 8086-based CPU with separate, non-multiplexed address and data buses and also the fi ...

processor.

Technical data

* Processor:

. Socket for optional

Intel 8087 The Intel 8087, announced in 1980, was the first x87 floating-point coprocessor for the 8086 line of microprocessors. The purpose of the 8087 was to speed up computations for floating-point arithmetic, such as addition, subtraction, multiplicati ...

co-processor. * BIOS: 2 ×

EPROM An EPROM (rarely EROM), or erasable programmable read-only memory, is a type of programmable read-only memory (PROM) chip that retains its data when its power supply is switched off. Computer memory that can retrieve stored data after a power s ...

containing the BIOS * Memory: RAM expandable to on board. * Storage: 2 × 3.5"

floppy drive A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...

s with or capacityold-computers.com - Museum, ACT Apricot PC
/ref> * DMA chip:

* Graphics: Comes with a green phosphor screen 9" that weights . Can display one of these modes: ** Text 80 × 25 (Characters of 10 × 16 pixels) ** Text 132 × 50 (Characters of 6 × 8 pixels) ** Graphics at 800 × 400 ( Hitachi 46505 CRT controller chip - equivalent to a

Motorola 6845 The Motorola 6845, or MC6845, is a display controller that was widely used in 8-bit computers during the 1980s. Originally intended for designs based on the Motorola 6800 CPU and given a related part number, it was more widely used alongside v ...

, also used on the

Victor 9000 The name Victor or Viktor may refer to: * Victor (name), including a list of people with the given name, mononym, or surname Arts and entertainment Film * ''Victor'' (1951 film), a French drama film * ''Victor'' (1993 film), a French shor ...

computer) * Mechanical Keyboard 101-key QWERTY, 8 function keys and 6 keys standard dynamic membrane with an LED to the left of each one to indicate they are active. An LCD with 40 × 2 characters is included, which can display the key assignment. Weighs and can be attached to the frame underneath for easy transport. * Housing: plastic cream weighing about 6.4 kg The front half of the top shows a depression to bring the monitor. In the front two 3.5" floppy drives that can be protected with a shutter for transport. Under these, a carrying handle. At the rear two proprietary Apricot connector slots for expansion, parallel printer port of Centronics micro ribbon 36 pin connector type, serial port DB-25 connector, monitor connector and power supply with a switch. * Support for two internal 3,5" Sony floppy disk drives * Input / Output: ** External monitor connector. ** Parallel printer port, Centronics micro ribbon 36-pin connector ** RS-232 serial port ** Two expansion connectors or internal Apricot * Operating system came with standard MS-DOS 2.11 and CP/M-86.

References

{{Reflist

External links

ACT Apricot PC
at old-computers.com

ACT Apricot Technical Reference Manual (

), retrieved 18 July 2006
ACT Apricot PC Brochure
at classic.technology Apricot Computers