Apricot Computers
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Apricot Computers was a British company that produced desktop
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 te ...
s in the mid-1980s.


Outline

Apricot Computers was a British manufacturer of business
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 te ...
s, founded in 1965 as "Applied Computer Techniques" (ACT), later changing its name to Apricot Computers, Ltd. It was a wholly owned UK company until it was acquired in the early 1990s by the Mitsubishi Electric Corporation. It was hoped that this acquisition would help them compete against Japanese PC manufacturers, in particular
NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...
which commanded over 50% of the Japanese market at the time. Mitsubishi eventually shut down the Apricot brand; a management buyout resulted in new company Network Si UK Ltd being formed. In 2008 a new, independent Apricot company was launched in the UK. Apricot was an innovative computer hardware company, whose Birmingham R&D centre could build every aspect of a personal computer except for the
integrated circuit An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...
s (chips) themselves; from custom BIOS and system-level programming to the silk-screen of motherboards and metal-bending for internal chassis all the way to radio-frequency testing of a finished system. This coupled with a smart and aggressive engineering team allowed Apricot to be the first company in the world with several technical innovations including the first commercial shipment of an all-in-one system with a 3.5-inch floppy drive (ahead of Apple). In the early 1990s they also manufactured one of the world's most secure x86-based PCs, which was sold exclusively to the UK government. Their technical innovation led them down some paths which were technically advanced but proved to be highly disadvantageous in the marketplace. For example, when IBM abandoned their ill-fated but technically superior
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(MCA), Apricot was the only other OEM using it, in their Apricot ''Qi'' and ''VX FT'' ranges of PCs. This left the company at a technical dead-end without the financial or market power which helped IBM survive the failure of MCA. Apricot continued to experiment with unusual form-factors in a market dominated by standardised 'beige boxes'. They produced a range of high-availability servers (the VX and Shogun ranges) with integrated
uninterruptible power supply An uninterruptible power supply or uninterruptible power source (UPS) is an electrical apparatus that provides emergency power to a load when the input power source or mains power fails. A UPS differs from an auxiliary or emergency power syste ...
(UPS), low-profile 'LANStation' PCs specifically designed for use on office networks, and diskless workstations booted over the network. This long-running pattern of tenaciously investing in technical innovation and complete end-to-end system design and manufacture created technically excellent computers, but meant that Apricot was slow to adapt as the worldwide market grew and changed. By the mid-1990s major PC OEMs such as Compaq and Hewlett-Packard were outsourcing their own complete end-to-end system design and manufacture to
Original Design Manufacturer An original design manufacturer is a company that designs and manufactures a product that is eventually rebranded by another firm for sale. Such companies allow the firm that owns or licenses the brand to produce products while having to engage i ...
s (ODMs) based in Taiwan, and were moving at least some of their manufacturing to cheaper locations overseas. Apricot was very late in adopting this method of manufacturing, even though a motherboard designed and manufactured in Asia cost Apricot as little as a third of the cost of design and testing in Birmingham and manufacture in Scotland. Apricot eventually tried to move to outsourcing but the market outpaced them, and MELCO closed the company down, selling off the final assets in 1999. A management buyout resulted in new company Network Si UK Ltd being formed.


History


1980s

In 1982 ACT released their first
microcomputer A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having a central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor. The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (PC ...
, built by another company but marketed under the ACT brand. In
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it was a moderate success. Later in 1982 ACT signed a deal with Victor to distribute 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 ...
" as the ACT "
Sirius 1 Sirius Systems Technology was a personal computer manufacturer in Scotts Valley, California. It was founded in 1980 by Chuck Peddle and Chris Fish, formerly of MOS Technology and capitalized by Walter Kidde Inc. In late 1982 Sirius acquired Vict ...
" in the UK and
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. The £2754 "Sirius 1" ran MS-DOS but was not hardware-compatible with the IBM PC. The Sirius 1 became the most popular 16-bit business computer in Europe, especially in Britain and Germany, while IBM delayed the release of the PC there. Its success led to the
Apricot PC The Apricot PC (originally called the ''ACT Apricot'') is a personal computer produced by Apricot Computers, then still known as Applied Computer Techniques or ACT. Released in late 1983, it was ACT's first independently developed microcomputer, ...
or ACT Apricot in September 1983, based on 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 (allo ...
microprocessor running at 4.77 MHz. 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 o ...
or
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but was not compatible at a hardware level with the
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. It had two floppy disks, and was one of the first systems to use 3.5" disks, rather than the 5.25" disks which were the norm at the time. The graphics quality was critically acclaimed, with an 800×400 resolution and a keyboard with eight "normal" function keys and six flat programmable ones, associated with a built-in LCD screen (40 characters / 2 lines) which displayed the current function of the keys, or could be configured to echo the current command line in MS-DOS. The keyboard contained an integrated calculator; the result of a calculation could be sent to the computer where it would appear on the command line, or in the current application.
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and
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 C compiler as part of ...
were supplied with the Apricot PC.
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was also available, and took advantage of the machine's high-resolution graphics. A flap covered the floppy drives when not in use. The industrial design of the machine was well conceived. The keyboard could be clipped to the base of the machine, and an integrated handle used for transporting it. The supplied green phosphor monitor had a nylon mesh glare filter. A model with a built-in 10 MB hard disk (known as the Apricot PC Xi) was made available later in 1984. In 1984 ACT released a home computer, the "Apricot F1". It ran MS-DOS with "Activity", 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 ...
front end; like the Apricot PC, 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 ...
. The machine was only successful in the UK. It was bundled with software for graphics, communication, word processing, a spreadsheet, some games, and system tools. It had one 3.5" floppy disk drive. The same
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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 o ...
pointing device used with the Apricot Portable was also available for the F1. Also in 1984, the
Apricot Portable The Apricot Portable was a personal computer manufactured by ACT Ltd., and was released to the public in November 1984. It was ACT's first attempt at manufacturing a portable computer, which were gaining popularity at the time. Compared to other ...
was released, with an infrared keyboard, a voice system, 4.77 MHz CPU, 640×200 LCD display for £1965. In 1985 ACT was renamed "Apricot Computers". By this time, the F1 had become one model in the F Series; other machines in the series were the F1e (a cheaper F1 with less RAM standing at 256 KB); the F2 (with two floppy drives) and the F10 (with a 10 MB Rodime hard drive, 512 KB RAM and a more conventional-looking infrared keyboard). The Activity GUI was replaced by
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. The F1e contained a 360 KB single sided floppy drive, and the F10 contained a 720 KB double sided drive. Some F1e computers shipped with an expansion card that could also be used in the F10, that would modulate the RGB video signal to RF enabling the computer to be used with a domestic television set. This card also contained a composite video output. The machine was unusual in that it contained the same 36-way
Centronics Centronics Data Computer Corporation was an American manufacturer of computer printers, now remembered primarily for the parallel interface that bears its name, the Centronics connector. History Foundations Centronics began as a division ...
parallel port that appeared on many contemporary printers (and continued to do so until virtually replaced with USB and ethernet). This means that a standard 36-way centronics male to centronics male cable needs to be used to connect a printer - and these were hard to find since IBM had introduced the DB25F connector. The F-series infrared keyboards contained a real-time clock; during the machine's boot sequence, the BIOS would graphically prompt the user to press the 'DATE/TIME' key. This would transmit the date and time settings from the keyboard to the computer via IR, setting the RTC in the computer. The Infra-Red trackball could also be used as a mouse by tilting the unit forward - the ball protrudes from the top and bottom of the unit and can roll on a surface. The units also shipped with fibre-optic 'Light Pipes' that can channel the IR signals, designed to prevent multiple keyboards and trackballs from interfering with adjacent machines in office environments where multiple F-series computers were (predicted to be) in use. The F10 shipped with a 'PC Emulator' which provided very limited text-mode support for IBM PC compatible applications, but was unable to run applications that used graphics modes.
Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...
1.03, little-known and little-used at the time, would not run in this environment. The last Apricot computer not to be IBM compatible was the XEN (October 1985), a 286-based system intended to compete with the
IBM AT The IBM Personal Computer/AT (model 5170, abbreviated as IBM AT or PC/AT) was released in 1984 as the fourth model in the IBM Personal Computer line, following the IBM PC/XT and its IBM Portable PC variant. It was designed around the Intel 802 ...
and running Microsoft Windows (now known as Windows 1.0). It was superseded in 1986 by the XEN-i, the first in a line of IBM-compatible systems. The Xen-i initially shipped with a 5.25" floppy drive to further improve its IBM-compatibility. The 3.5" drive made a reappearance when IBM themselves switched formats with the release of the PS/2 range. In 1987, Apricot bought the rights to assemble the
Sequent Computer Systems Sequent Computer Systems was a computer company that designed and manufactured multiprocessing computer systems. They were among the pioneers in high-performance symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) open systems, innovating in both hardware (e.g., ca ...
multi-processor 80386 Symmetry Unix system in the UK. In 1989, a cover story in
Byte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable uni ...
magazine announced the Apricot VX FT Server as the world's first machine to incorporate the Intel 80486 microprocessor. This machine, designed by Bob Cross, was a fault-tolerant file server based on Micro Channel Architecture, incorporating an external RAM cache and its own UPS. The VX FT line consisted of Series 400 and Series 800, with four different models each. These (and their other systems) were manufactured in their state-of-the-art factory in Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland. British magazines dedicated to the early Apricots were '' Apricot User'', which had the official approval of Apricot Computers, and the more technically oriented '' Apricot File''.


1990s

In January 1990 Apricot acquired
Information Technology Limited Computer Technology Limited (CTL) was a British computer company founded in 1965. In 1984 it merged into its holding company and was called Information Technology Limited (ITL). Founder Iann Barron had worked for Elliott Automation but left to ...
, a UK-based developer of
UNIX Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, ...
systems. Apricot took the opportunity to change its name back to the original, ACT. In April 1990 ACT's Apricot computer manufacturing business was bought by Mitsubishi, with ACT retaining only the software side. This essentially marked the end of their unique design style. Subsequent products were far more conventional designs. In 1991, Apricot were the largest partner in a consortium developing a completely new
computer-aided dispatch Computer-aided dispatch (CAD), also called computer-assisted dispatch, is a method of dispatching taxicabs, couriers, field service technicians, mass transit vehicles or emergency services assisted by computer. It can either be used to send messag ...
system (
LASCAD On 26 October 1992 the London Ambulance Service started to use a new computer-assisted dispatch (CAD) system, known as LASCAD. Poorly designed and implemented, its introduction led to significant delays in the assigning of ambulances, with anecdo ...
) for the
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. The IT firm won the contract by significantly underbidding other proposals. Though a later inquiry's examination of the Apricot computer hardware aspect revealed no major problems, the end-to-end solution by the consortium of providers failed disastrously on its first day in full operation, and is often used a case study in the failure of IT project management.
Mitsubishi Electric , established on 15 January 1921, is a Japanese multinational electronics and electrical equipment manufacturing company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the core companies of Mitsubishi. The products from MELCO include elevators an ...
Apricot models during the 1990s included workstations, LAN terminals and notebooks. In June 1999 the Glenrothes factory stopped production and in October 1999, Apricot-Mitsubishi European operations were closed. Apricot's assets were sold. A management buyout resulted in a new company, Network Si UK Ltd. It lasted from 2001 to 2014.


Apricot return (2008)

In 2008 a new, independent company was launched in the UK, with its first product coming out in October 2008 - the Apricot Picobook Pro, a
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NanoBook-based
netbook Netbook was a commonly used term that identified a product class of small and inexpensive laptops which were sold from 2007 to around 2013. These machines were designed primarily as cost-effective tools for consumers to access the Inte ...
. However, this suffered from poor reviews and the new Apricot Computers Limited was dissolved in May 2012.


See also

* Digital Microsystems Ltd. (DML)


References


Further reading

*Stephen Morris: ''Getting to Know Your Apricot'', Duckworth, 1984, *Mario de Pace: ''The Apricot Personal Computer'', Collins, 1985, *Peter Gosling: ''The Apricot'', Pitman, 1985, *Peter Rodwell: ''Advanced User's Guide to the Apricot Business Computer'', Heinemann, London, 1986, *Peter Rodwell: ''Introducing the Apricot business computer'', Heinemann, London, 1986, *Peter Rodwell: ''Introducing the Apricot'', Heinemann, London, 1986, *Peter Rodwell: ''Business Computing with the Apricot'', Heinemann, London, 1986, *Stephen Morris: ''Introducing Psion Xchange Software on the Act Apricot'', Duckworth, 1985,


External links

*
ACT/Apricot.orgApricot PC at old-computers.comThe new Apricot Computers Ltd (2008)FT server brochure (1992) IFT server brochure (1992) IIFT server brochure (1992) III
* {{Authority control Computer companies established in 1965 Defunct computer hardware companies Defunct computer companies of the United Kingdom Mitsubishi Electric Computers designed in the United Kingdom