There was once a computer company which needed a microprocessor. It asked Intel for a licence to the 286 and Intel said 'No'. National's and Motorola's microprocessors were adjudged too slow.
So the company decided to build its own microprocessor despite the fact that it could put only two people on the job, neither of whom had designed a microprocessor before, and despite the fact that National had put 200 man years into designing its microprocessor.
Six month later the dynamic duo had the processor in silicon and working. Twenty years later it was the best selling microprocessor on the planet.
MORAL: Needs Must When the Devil Drives
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Comments (10)
I wonder if any one at the BBC is looking at this as a sequel to Micromen? It is just as unbelievable as the original plot, and this one has a happy ending. Kind of "What Sophie (& Steve) did next..."
Posted by Stooriefit | November 19, 2009 3:31 PM
Posted on November 19, 2009 15:31
What an excellent idea, Stooriefit, someone should definitely pitch this to the BBC
Posted by David Manners
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November 19, 2009 3:53 PM
Posted on November 19, 2009 15:53
is National Processors are "best selling microprocessor on the planet"
i thought ARM Processors are .
Posted by Salem80 | November 25, 2009 9:20 PM
Posted on November 25, 2009 21:20
Salem80, you are right, ARMprocessors are the best selling processors on the planet. The story is about Acorn Computer which built the first ARM processor
Posted by David Manners
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November 25, 2009 11:30 PM
Posted on November 25, 2009 23:30
The computer was the Acorn Archimedes, which came onto the market in 1987 - and in terms of architecture evolved from the BBC computer. Indeed the ROM-based Basic was largely backwards compatible with the BBC computer. The graphics capabilities (and probably number-crunching power) of the machine were way ahead of any PC on the market at the time. The OS was ROM-based, so ready to go a second or two after power-up.
Back then, it was just known as the RISC processor (Reduced Instruction Set Computer), over the years we then had "Acorn Risc Machine", the origins of the "ARM" moniker - but I don't think the letters stand for anything now.
Posted by Andrew Steer | November 26, 2009 11:35 AM
Posted on November 26, 2009 11:35
Yes, Andrew, it was ahead of its time and it had Econet too. The world should have gone Acorn-compatible.
Posted by David Manners
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November 26, 2009 11:38 AM
Posted on November 26, 2009 11:38
Aaah, back in the day.. I remember my friend who worked for Acorn bringing home his acorn atom. We had hours of fun.. kids these days, if you show them what we were up to with it would laugh all the way back to their Xbox 360s.
Posted by Mark Overall | November 26, 2009 12:39 PM
Posted on November 26, 2009 12:39
I bought an Archimedes in 1989 and came home the first day to find that my 6 year-old son had turned it on and done a drawing with it. My first encounter with a PC (running DOS) came some months later and it felt like going back to the stone age after the Archie.
Posted by Ian Braithwaite | November 26, 2009 3:44 PM
Posted on November 26, 2009 15:44
Why Acron did not take over the world?
Posted by Basem Soufi | November 29, 2009 9:15 PM
Posted on November 29, 2009 21:15
Technically it should have done, Basem, but if you look at the utter domination IBM had in the computing world, especially in the corporate computing world, in the early 1980s, it is no surprise that the world became IBM PC-compatible rather than Acorn-compatible.
Posted by David Manners
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November 30, 2009 11:13 AM
Posted on November 30, 2009 11:13