On 17 July 2016 at 16:09, Liam Proven <lpro...@gmail.com> wrote: > In 1987 or so, the early Archimedes like the A305 and A310 came with > ST-506 controllers and 20-40MB Conner drives. The expensive > workstation-class models -- Dick mentions having an A500, but that was > a series, not a model.
The A500 was the development prototype which pre-dated the A310 (originally with pre-multiply ARM1 CPUs). Only a 100 or so made. I think they used pretty much the same Hitachi HD63463 as the (optional podule for the) A300 series which I think was DMA capable. > There was, later (1990), the A540: > > http://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org.uk/Computers/A540.html > > This was the Unix R260, but shipping with RISC OS instead of RISC iX. > > The A540 came with a snazzy SCSI HD: > > http://www.apdl.org.uk/riscworld/volumes/volume9/issue2/blast20/index.htm The A540/R260 was a completely different class of machine, with an ARM3 and the ability to take multiple memory (each with memory controller) cards. > ... but then it was the thick end of three thousand quid. > > Back in '87, I suspect Dick had an A310 or something, with an ST-506 > drive & Arthur (i.e. RISC OS 1 -- an ARM port of the BBC Micro's MOS > with a desktop written in BBC BASIC). > > So I suspect no DMA... but I don't know. Think of it as an A310 with integrated disk controller, in a big metal box with a lot more soldered wires internally :-p Acorn kept them in internal service for white a while, including for development versions of RISC OS 3 with the multitasking filer.
