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The Acorn Electron is a budget version of the BBC Micro educational/home computer made by Acorn Computers Ltd. It has 32 kilobytes of RAM, and its ROM includes BBC BASIC v2 along with its operating system. The Electron was able to save and load programs onto audio cassette via a supplied converter cable that connected it to any standard tape recorder that had the correct sockets. It was capable of basic graphics, and could display onto either a television set, a colour (RGB) monitor or a "green screen" monitor. For a short period, the Electron was reportedly the best selling micro in the United Kingdom, and total lifetime game sales for the Electron exceeded those of the BBC Micro. ==History== After Acorn Computer released the BBC Micro, executives believed that the company needed a less-expensive computer for the mass market. In June 1982, cofounder Hermann Hauser was asked about the recently announced £175 Sinclair ZX Spectrum's potential to hurt sales of the BBC Micro. Hauser responded that in the third quarter of that year Acorn would release a new £120-150 computer which "will probably be called the Electron", with graphics superior to the Spectrum's and compatibility with BBC Micro software. Acorn's Chris Curry stated that "the Electron is designed to compete with the Spectrum. The idea is to get the starting price very low, but not preclude expansion in the long term." The company reduced the number of chips in the Electron by 90% from the BBC Micro's about 100, with most functionality on a single Uncommitted Logic Array (ULA). Problems with the ULA delayed the Electron, however, and Acorn repeatedly missed deadlines to ship the computer. Acorn formally announced the Electron at the ''Acorn User'' Exhibition in August 1983, one year after Hauser mentioned the computer, by which time its price had risen to £175 while the Spectrum cost £130. The company expected to ship the Electron before Christmas, and sell 100,000 by February 1984. Reviews were generally favorable, noting its excellent graphics compared to the Commodore 64. While its speed was acceptable compared to the Commodore and competing computers the Electron was, however, much slower than the BBC Micro; ''Popular Computing Weekly'' reported, for example, that BBC Micro games ran "at less than half the speed, with very significant effects on their appeal". The ULA continued to cause problems, delaying large-scale manufacturing. By October 1983 Acorn had received orders for more than 150,000 units, and expected to produce 25,000 a month before Christmas; the existing backlog would take more than six months to fulfill. Demand for the Electron was high but only two of WH Smith's London branches had inventory. As the company increased production during 1984, however, the British home-computer market greatly weakened; one Acorn executive later said, "after Christmas () they were just delivering and the company ended up with £43 million of unsaleable stock". Acorn's Christmas 1984 sales were greatly below expectations and in January 1985 the company reduced the Electron's price to £129. In conjunction with an unsuccessful expansion into the United States, by February Acorn's market capitalization declined 85% from the previous year. Olivetti acquired the company later that year and Dixons Retail acquired the remaining Electron inventory for less than manufacturing cost, ending Acorn's home-computer business. With hindsight, the machine lacked the RAM (a typical program would need to fit in only around 20 kB once display memory is subtracted) and processing power to take on the prevailing Spectrum and Commodore 64. Despite this, several features that would later be associated with BBC Master and Archimedes were first features of Electron expansion units, including ROM cartridge slots and the Advanced Disc Filing System, a hierarchical improvement to the BBC's original Disc Filing System. While it may not have been as popular as the Spectrum, Commodore 64 or Amstrad CPC, it did sell in sufficient numbers to ensure that new software was being produced right up until the early 1990s. This meant the Electron had a lifespan not much shorter than those more popular micros and much longer than competitors such as the Oric-1 and Dragon 32. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Acorn Electron」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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