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Apricot Computers

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Apricot Computers Ltd.
FormerlyApplied Computer Techniques Ltd. (1965–1985)
IndustryComputer hardware
Founded1965; 60 years ago (1965)
DefunctJune 2005; 19 years ago (2005-06)
HeadquartersUK
Products
Parent

Apricot Computers Ltd., originally Applied Computer Techniques Ltd. (ACT), was a British electronic company active from 1965 to 2005. The company had its greatest success during the 1980s as a manufacturer of personal computers for businesses, including the highly popular ACT Sirius 1, which for a time was the most popular 16-bit business computer in Europe. The company later released a number of MS-DOS–compatible computer systems, to varying degrees of commercial success.

Apricot was an innovative computer hardware company with a research and development center in Birmingham capable of manufacturing nearly every component of a personal computer, except for the integrated circuits (chips) themselves. This included custom BIOS development, system-level programming, silk-screening of motherboards, metal fabrication for internal chassis, and radio-frequency testing of the completed systems. The company pioneered several technical innovations, including the first commercial shipment of an all-in-one system with a 3.5-inch floppy drive (ahead of Apple).[1] In the early 1990s, they also manufactured one of the world's most secure x86-based PCs, sold exclusively to the UK government.[1] While Apricot were known for their culture of innovation, this resulted in some developments which were technically advanced but proved to be highly disadvantageous in the marketplace.

Apricot remained a UK-owned company until its acquisition by the Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (MELCO) in the early 1990s. Mitsubishi believed that this acquisition would help them compete against Japanese PC manufacturers, particularly, NEC, which commanded over 50% of the Japanese market at the time. Apricot began to outsource manufacturing, but it was still unable to compete. MELCO closed the company down, selling off the final assets in 1999. A management buyout resulted in a new company, Network Si UK Ltd being formed. In 2008, a second, independent Apricot company was launched in the UK.

History

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1965–1980

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Apricot Computers was founded in 1965 as Applied Computer Techniques Ltd. (ACT).[2][3][4] ACT was founded in the United Kingdom as a time-sharing service bureau for businesses in the Great Britain region. In the 1970s, it expanded into reselling office equipment such as copiers, leasing turn-key minicomputers, and providing telecommunications services such as electronic mail.[5][6]

1980–1985

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In 1982 ACT released their first microcomputer, the ACT-800, built by another company but marketed under the ACT brand.[7] In America it was a moderate success. Later in 1982 ACT signed a deal with Victor to distribute the Victor 9000 as the ACT Sirius 1 in the UK and Europe. The £2,754 "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,[8] especially in Britain and Germany, while IBM delayed the release of the PC there. Its success led to the Apricot PC or ACT Apricot[9] in September 1983, based on an Intel 8086 microprocessor running at 4.77 MHz. It ran MS-DOS or CP/M-86 but was not compatible at a hardware level with the IBM PC. 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 a 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. Microsoft Word and Multiplan were supplied with the Apricot PC. Lotus 1-2-3 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.[10]

A model with a built-in 10 MB hard disk (known as the Apricot PC Xi) was made available later in 1984. Amongst various enhancements was the inclusion of the SN76489 sound generator chip, also used in computers such as the BBC Micro, providing three sound channels, although support for these capabilities was absent from the BASIC implementation.[11]

Apricot Portable

In 1984, ACT released the Apricot F1, aimed at the budget business computer market,[12] fitted with 256 KB of RAM, running MS-DOS together with a GUI front end called Activity, this being a successor ACT's earlier Manager program. The system was bundled with software for graphics, communication, word processing, a spreadsheet, some games, and system tools, this accessible using the single, double-sided 3.5" floppy disk drive fitted within the main system unit. The supplied keyboard communicated with the main unit over an infrared data connection, offering some resilience against erroneous transmissions, although the link between any given keyboard and system was not specific to that pair of units, meaning that a keyboard could inadvertently send keystrokes to other systems. Apricot offered a fibre optic cable, effectively tethering the keyboard, as a remedy in environments with multiple units. A hybrid mouse/trackball, also employing infrared communication, was also included. Colour and monochrome monitors were offered as options, but purchasers could elect to use a composite monitor instead, with a modulator option available permitting connection to a television set. Unlike earlier models, the F1 provided a maximum display resolution of 640×256 featuring four colours from a choice of sixteen, as well as a 640×200 display mode for compatibility with IBM PC applications,[9] but to mitigate potential software portability issues across its own range, Apricot supplied Digital Research's GSX software. A price of £995.00 for the base system, with monochrome and colour monitors costing £200.00 and £395.00 respectively.[13] Like the Apricot PC, it was not IBM PC compatible. The machine was only successful in the UK.

Also in 1984, the Apricot Portable was released with an infrared keyboard and mouse/trackball, a voice system, 4.77 MHz CPU, 640×200 LCD display for £1,695.[14]

In December 1984, ACT established an American subsidiary in Santa Ana, California. Called Apricot, Inc., it was responsible for marketing Apricot computers in the country and was founded with $20 million in capital, $4 million of which from ACT itself and the rest from other investors.[15]: 141 

1985–1990

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Logo of Apricot Computers used from 1985 to the early 1990s

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), 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). With the F10, the Activity GUI was replaced by GEM.[16]

In contrast to the F1 with its 256 KB of RAM and double-sided floppy drive, the F1e was initially fitted with 128 KB of RAM and provided a 360 KB single-sided floppy drive, permitting its introduction at a lower price of £795.00.[9][17] In mid-1985, Apricot cut the price of the model to £685.00 and increased the built-in RAM to 256 KB, putting it in more direct competition with the BBC Model B+ and Amstrad CPC 664 in the small business and hobbyist market.[18] Apricot also sought to acquire market share in the education sector at Acorn's expense, with the price of £595.00 excluding VAT being particularly competitive with the £499.00 price of the 64 KB BBC Model B+.[19]

Some F1e computers shipped with an expansion card 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 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 1.03, little-known and little-used at the time, would not run in this environment.

Apricot XEN-xi

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 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.[20] 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 multi-processor 80386 Symmetry Unix system in the UK.[21]

In 1989, a cover story in Byte magazine announced the Apricot VX FT Server as the world's first machine to incorporate the Intel 80486 microprocessor.[22] 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.

1990–2000

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Logo of Apricot under ownership of Mitsubishi Electric

In January 1990 Apricot acquired Information Technology Limited, a UK-based developer of UNIX systems. Apricot took the opportunity to change its name back to the original, ACT.

Apricot continued to experiment with alternative 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 (UPS), low-profile 'LANStation', PCs specifically designed for use on office networks, and diskless workstations booted over the network.

Apricot's long-running pattern of 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 global 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 Manufacturers (ODMs) based in Taiwan, and were moving at least some of their manufacturing to cheaper locations overseas. Apricot was comparatively slow in adopting this method of manufacturing, even though a motherboard designed and manufactured in Asia cost as little as a third of the cost of design and testing in Birmingham and manufacture in Scotland.

In April 1990 ACT's Apricot computer manufacturing business was bought by Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (MELCO),[23] with ACT retaining only the software side.[24] 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 system (LASCAD) for the London Ambulance Service. 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,[25] and is often used a case study in the failure of IT project management.

Mitsubishi Electric Apricot models during the 1990s included workstations, LAN terminals and notebooks.[26][27]

In June 1999 the Glenrothes factory stopped production and in October 1999, Apricot-Mitsubishi European operations were closed.[28][29] Apricot's assets were sold.[30] A management buyout resulted in a new company, Network Si UK Ltd.[31] It lasted from 2001 to 2014.[31] Established in 1992, ACT Network Si was originally a "network-based systems integration" division of the software and services business, ACT Group Plc, which remained independent of the Mitsubishi-acquired business.[32]

2008–2012

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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 VIA NanoBook-based netbook. However, this suffered from poor reviews[33][34] and the new Apricot Computers Limited was dissolved in May 2012.[2]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b "Apricot Computers Ltd: Apricot Computers Makes its Comeback with Entry into the Ultra-Mobile PC Market; Apricot Returns to UKwith a Sub-Laptop for Mobile Business Professionals and Home Users". tmcnet.com. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
  2. ^ a b APRICOT COMPUTERS LTD, Companies House, retrieved 3 November 2013
  3. ^ Rodgers, Paul (20 July 1996). "The initial development was done in a garage". Independent. Retrieved 28 June 2017.
  4. ^ "Computer pioneer's remarkable career". www.shropshirebiz.com. Shropshire Business. Retrieved 28 June 2017.
  5. ^ Chin, Kathy (19 December 1983). "ACT unveils new Apricot computer". InfoWorld. 5 (51). IDG Publications: 17 – via Google Books.
  6. ^ Ward, Adele (October 1983). "Solving a communications problem". Accountancy. 94 (10). Financial Times Limited: 33 – via Google Books.
  7. ^ Tebbutt, David (February 1980). "The ACT System 800". Personal Computer World. pp. 39–41. Retrieved 24 November 2024.
  8. ^ Gillies, James; R. Cailliau (2000). How the Web was Born: The Story of the World Wide Web. Oxford University Press. p. 125. ISBN 9780192862075 – via Google Books.
  9. ^ a b c Pountain, Dick (November 1984). "A Plethora of Portables". BYTE. p. 413. Retrieved 23 October 2013.
  10. ^ Rodwell, Peter (October 1983). "ACT Apricot". Personal Computer World. pp. 150–157. Retrieved 17 October 2020.
  11. ^ Barden, Jr., William S. (January 1985). "Apricot Xi". Computers & Electronics. pp. 30–31, 91. Retrieved 23 January 2025.
  12. ^ Moody, Glyn (May 1985). "Wise buys". Practical Computing. pp. 105–107. Retrieved 23 January 2025.
  13. ^ Bright, Peter (October 1984). "Apricot F1". Personal Computer World. pp. 152–156, 158. Retrieved 23 January 2025.
  14. ^ Bright, Peter (November 1984). "ACT Apricot Portable". Personal Computer World. pp. 136–137, 139. Retrieved 23 January 2025.
  15. ^ Staff writer (10 December 1984). "Supershorts". Computerworld. XVIII (50). IDG Publications: 140–142 – via Google Books.
  16. ^ Bright, Peter (September 1985). "Apricot F10". Personal Computer World. pp. 136–138, 140, 142. Retrieved 23 January 2025.
  17. ^ Skinner, Bryan (9 February 1985). "F1e The Ripe Apricot". Personal Computer News. pp. 24–25, 27. Retrieved 23 January 2025.
  18. ^ Pennell, Andrew (11 July 1985). "Getting in on the ACT". Popular Computing. pp. 17–20. Retrieved 23 January 2025.
  19. ^ Nairn, Geoff (July 1985). "Apricot slice poses threat". Acorn User. p. 7. Retrieved 23 January 2025.
  20. ^ Malone, Steve (September 1986). "Apricot Xen-i Rallying to the Standard". Practical Computing. pp. 48–49, 51. Retrieved 16 July 2024.
  21. ^ "Apricot buys rights to assemble Sequent's 80386-based Symmetry in the UK". Computer Business Review. 15 December 1987.
  22. ^ Paul Lavin and Michael E. Nadeau: The 486s Are Here!, BYTE September 1989, page 95
  23. ^ Grossman, Wendy. "For Pete's Sake". Personal Computer World. No. January 1993. Retrieved 28 June 2017.
  24. ^ Cope, Nigel (14 February 1995). "Mr Apricot waves goodbye to his baby". Independent. Retrieved 28 June 2017.
  25. ^ Page, Don; William, Paul; Boyd, Dennis (1993). "Report of the Inquiry into the London Ambulance Service" (PDF). South West Thames Regional Health Authority. pp. 19–20. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
  26. ^ "Apricot Qi Workstations and LAN Terminals-Computer Museum". museum.ipsj.or.jp. Retrieved 29 February 2020.
  27. ^ "apricot NT386SL-Computer Museum". museum.ipsj.or.jp. Retrieved 29 February 2020.
  28. ^ "1999: a frosty end". Apricot Computers. 28 February 2020. Archived from the original on 5 April 2019. Retrieved 28 February 2020.
  29. ^ "Apricot history". ACT/Apricot. 28 February 2020. Archived from the original on 5 July 2019. Retrieved 28 February 2020.
  30. ^ "2008: global temperatures are warming up". Apricot Computers. 28 February 2020. Archived from the original on 31 July 2019. Retrieved 28 February 2020.
  31. ^ a b "NETWORK SI (UK) LIMITED – Overview (free company information from Companies House)". beta.companieshouse.gov.uk.
  32. ^ "ACT Formally Launches its Promised New ACT Network Si Integration Unit". Unigram/X. 27 January 1992. p. 6. Retrieved 12 December 2024.
  33. ^ "Apricot Picobook Pro review".
  34. ^ "First Look: Apricot PicoBook Pro". 20 October 2008.

Further reading

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