|
|
|
| Beta! | About us | Contact | RSS | Webspace | Tech docs | Downloads | BBC Micro | Gallery | Wallpaper |
|
Stork portable up for grabs By Chris Williams. Published: 12th Jun 2003, 22:18:54.Acorn's wasn't-to-be laptop resurfaces [Updated 20:30 13/6/2003]  As it's practically Acorn era week on drobe.co.uk, it seems fitting to cover the news of an Acorn Stork portable appearing for sale on ebay. As only a few of the devices were built, "rare" is prehaps a mild way of describing Acorn's failed attempt to launch a sucessor to the venerable A4 laptop. The seller wooyay rescued it from the skip following the changes at Pace.
Initially presented in mid-1996, it's basically a portable A7000 with a 32MHz ARM7500 processor, 8MB of RAM and other goodies and it's all up for grabs with the bidding price already over 100 quid. Acorn's plan, (according to various sources like Richard Atterer's Acorn history page), was to design the Stork laptop and have a third party license the design and do the expensive manufacturing side. Which sadly didn't happen. "The Stork never was the world's most reliable laptop, requiring lots of love and attention to get working", wooyay told us. "With that in mind, years of neglect at the back of a store cupboard at the [Pace] Cambridge offices haven't helped it so I've not been able to power it up. "I believe, however, it's a derivative of RISC OS 3.6, and I also believe it's a colour screen, but I've not been able to test any of these." The fact that to get it working will require relevant hardware knowledge and "enthuisam" sounds like a tempting challenge. At least someone might be able to revive the laptop and be the envy of all other RISC OS users pining for a native portable. More prototypes Finally, reader Iain Waugh has spotted another rare A500 prototype on ebay and this one looks like it's being sold off by ex-Arthur (pre-RISC OS) development team leader, Paul Fellows. Paul, who also developed the ABC BASIC compiler, used the prototype A500 to develop the foundations of RISC OS at Acorn. Hence it being that little bit more special. "This machine is the one I used for development of the Operating system at Acorn", Paul explains on the auction page. "Originally these machines were hooked up to BBC micros via an umbilical into the tube port and all the I/O was done by the Beeb. Over time we gradually got the various sub-systems alive, and moved them over to the A500 native. First the video and graphics, then the keyboard, then the file systems and so on." And congratulations, you're right. This is another shameless article about some dusty Acorn kit on online auction house, eBay - we suck and it won't happen again. Update William Turner has kindly emailed us further information on the Stork prototype portable. William was an Acorn employee and later a Pace employee, until recently of course. "The OS is pretty much bog-standard 3.6, but with minor kernel hacks to support the dual-scan 16 greyscale display, an updated PS/2 driver, changes to the IO controller (as the floppy drive uses a combination parallel/floppy port on the SMC chip), and new power control software (which, if I recall correctly, was never completed)", William duly corrected us earlier today. "The Stork case/display was not of Acorn's doing - it was from Olivetti (surprise), and was the same as they used for their Echos PC laptops. They had greyscale and dual-scan colour. However the VIDC20 can't support dstn colour, and it was horribly expensive at the time anyway, so greyscale it was. "Shame really, as if we'd had the time to address the power management/consumption issues, and not been tied to Olivetti, it would've made a lovely machine." Links Acorn Stork prototype on ebay Discussion Viewing threaded comments | View comments unthreaded, listed by date
Please login before posting a comment. Use the form on the right to do so or create a free account. |
Login
Create a new account Forgot your password? Search this website
Featured articles  Star Fighter 3000: The Next Generation reviewStar Fighter 3000: The Next Generation was born from the 3D0 version of the original SF3K that was ported back to RISC OS and this year freed from programmers' hard discs for the platform to enjoy, writes Andrew Weston. In this review Andrew weighs up much-improved graphics and sound against playability and stability.  16 comments, latest by AW on 2/12/08 8:29PM. Published: 17 Nov 2008 RISC OS artist wows public with digital artworkA RISC OS-using artist has described exhibiting his digitally-created work in a public gallery as a "rewarding experience". Richard Ashbery, who used ArtWorks and Photodesk to create his images, showed off patterns and colourful illustrations to punters, who told him his work made a change from the oils and watercolour masterpieces usually exhibited. 1 comment, latest by socris on 18/11/08 4:23PM. Published: 17 Nov 2008If a picture tells a thousand words, here's a short story 8 comments, latest by hzn on 22/10/08 10:03AM. Published: 20 Oct 2008Useful links News and media:Iconbar • MyRISCOS • ArcSite • RISCOScode • ANS • C.S.A.Announce • Archive • Qercus • RiscWorld • GAG-News Top developers: RISC OS Open • RISC OS Ltd • MW Software • R-Comp • Advantage Six • VirtualAcorn Dealers: CJE Micros • APDL • Castle • a4 • X-Ample • Liquid Silicon • Webmonster Usergroups: WROCC • RONE • NKACC • IRUG • SASAUG • ROUGOL • RONWUG • MUG Useful: RISCOS.org • RISCOS.info • Filebase • NetSurf Non-RISC OS: The Register • The Inquirer • Apple Insider • BBC News • Sky News • Google News • xkcd • diodesign |
Recently logged in: 
rjek • 
bluenose • 
andypoole • 
druck • 
jess • 
tel • 
frog • Trippy • 
AW • chriswhy • Stats
© 1999-2008 The Drobe Team. Some rights reserved, click here for more information | Powered by MiniDrobeCMS, based on J4U
"At least some RISC OS news sites get their facts right before posting articles"
Page generated in 0.1559 seconds.
--
philipnet
