The Archimedes A3000 The A3000 was an update of the original Archimedes - also known in at least some parts of the press as the ARM[source: "Archimedes plus software at Acorn show", POCW, 17th July 1987, p. 6], or more simply the Arc - which had been launched in 1987 and which first started shipping to dealers in early Autumn. The A3000 shipped with an 8MHz ARM2 with 1MB of RAM and ran new operating system - RISC OS - which replaced the previous "Arthur" OS of the original Archimedes. It also shipped with a PC Emulator that was capable of running around 90% of the main MS-DOS software of the day, including MS Word, the legendary Word Perfect, Lotus 1-2-3 and Ashton Tate's dBase III. It was built more in the style of the original BBC Micro, or in particular the earlier Commodore Amiga and Atari ST, as an all-in-one, rather than the stand-alone box style of the other Archimedes models. It retailed for £1,000 - about [[1000|1989]] in [[now]]. Although the advert suggests that the A3000 was ideal in the home, Acorn had mostly abandoned the domestic market in favour of education - its previous stronghold thanks to the BBC's Computer Literacy Project and various Micros into Schools schemes in the early 1980s. Unfortunately for Acorn, education - like business - was very much moving towards the IBM PC, or rather clones of it, as budgets wouldn't really stretch to the real thing when it was often twice the price. [extra: opus_skegness_1989-03-02.jpg|Martin Breffit of Opus (right) shakes hands with Andy Roberts of Skegness Grammar, the first school to opt out of Local Authority control. © POCW 2nd March 1989|300|left]One of the clone companies that was challenging Acorn in its education market was Opus, a fellow British firm which was at the time one of the country's leading PC suppliers. Opus was very much taking advantage of the Education Act of 1988, which introduced "market capitalism", competition for funding and, crucially for micro companies, the chance for schools to opt out of local authority control and its restrictive purchasing guidelines. Opus considered itself "well ingrained in the higher education and university market", and made the most of it when it signed a sponsorship deal with Skegness Grammar School - the first to opt out - which gave the school a new computer centre equipped with a total of twelve of its 286-based PC IV's. Worryingly for Acorn, whilst its Archimedes could run BBC Basic software, which was still clearly widely used in schools, so too could Opus's machines, thanks to software supplied by M-Tec Ltd[source: "Opus aids in Thatcher's opt-out", POCW, 2nd March 1989, p. 6]. Other companies were also adding to the pressure as they piled in to the education market with renewed vigor, such as Commodore, which was punting its PC20 plus some DTP software for £800, or around [[800|1989]] in [[now]], to NUS members who were using the Midland Bank's "Futures Loan" financing scheme, which meant they would get favourable interest rates on computer-equipment purchases whilst still at college[source: "Student bonanza", POCW, 2nd March 1989, p. 6]. \We knew that the computer would be well-received, particularly by schools Despite the competition, and even though the A3000 was initially perceived as "not setting the world on fire", Acorn was bullish about its new model after a spate of 3,000 orders, including a large one from Durham Local Education Authority, in the first week of unofficial launch. Acorn's managing director of the week, Harvey Coleman, said ~"We knew that the computer would be well-received, particularly by schools. The influx of orders so soon after launch is very encouraging"[source: "News Beat: Orders pour in", The Micro User, August 1989, p. 7]. [extra: magthatch_percw_1998-06.jpg|Margaret Thatcher with the UK general manager of IBM, © PCW June 1988]This was no-doubt helped by the huge legacy that Acorn had built up in schools since the days of the BBC Micro, launched in 1981. Acorn was also ensuring that developers would remain interested in the machine, by releasing of a range of Archimedes programming languages, including two versions of ANSI C, Fortran 77 and Pascal compilers, and an Archimedes assembler, which offered direct access to the ARM instruction set, for £228[source: "Tools for Archimedes programs", The Micro User, August 1989, p. 13] (about [[228|1989]] in [[now]]). At around the same time, it was announced that Acorn's performance for 1988 was significantly better than the previous year, with turnover up from £36 million to £39.2 million - a "respectable, if not remarkable, 8.5% increase", according to Acorn User. As Acorn's Custom Systems Division, which included Torch and its Communicator, had been shut down in 1987, the mainstream computer division had shown an even better improvement of 16% in its turnover. This had been helped by the relative success of the Master series - the replacement for the BBC Micro - which celebrated its 200,000th shipment in early 1989. The figures also showed that over 50% of Acorn's business was still in education, with a recent Times Educational Supplement report showing that 62% of all computers sold into education were from Acorn. Profits were also up, from a loss of nearly £2.25 million in 1987 to around £7.1 million (about [[7|1989]] million in [[now]]) "net cash inflow". This allowed the company to pay of its £3 million overdraft, stash £2.5 million away and still have £1.6 million left as actual profit[source: Acorn's future now looks rosy, BBC Acorn User, June 1989, p. 9].
Approval will further impact adversely on computer education in both curriculum planning and long-term relevance to national and industrial need Worlock concluded that computers, unless they could be offered as one per desk, should only belong in Computer Science class or in Business Studies running spreadsheets, and not in English, history or geography: ~"If the BBC wants to take its literacy project [in the direction of high technology], fine. But it could spare us the blather about standards in BBC Basic"[source: "Micros in schools: a misguided policy?", Peter Worlock, POCW, 24th July 1987, p. 13]. Whilst RML had been calling the BBC's endorsment of the Archimedes "unfair and inappropriate", the BMF was announcing an active campaign against the endorsment, with Fraser suggesting that ~"Approval will further impact adversely on computer education in both curriculum planning and long-term relevance to national and industrial needs. The result is poorly-prepared students and expensive time-consuming re-learning. To perpetuate this situation, in an industry already suffering from serious skills shortages, is very damaging". Acorn retorted with a counter-attack on Fraser, as Michael Page, Acorn's PR director, suggested that "It's an indication of his lack of knowledge of what computers are used for in schools". As it happened, the whole thing was under review anyway, as a spokesman for the Department of Education and Science revealed that talks were already under way with the DES, education minister Kenneth Baker - who had launched many of the micros-into-schools schemes previously - and local education authorities, to determine the future prospects for computers in schools. Despite the numerous schemes, like MIS or various manufacturer "incentives", schools had actually been free to purchase whatever equipment - including micros - they wanted, which they often did, leading to a wide variety of micros in schools. In an attempt to tame this chaos, the current discussions focused on whether the government should actually issue specific purchasing guidelines, as a new £19 million Educational Support Grant, to be spent on computers, was on the table[source: "BBC's Archimedes approval attacked by BMF and RML", POCW, 10th July 1987, p. 10]. The BMF seemed to be having its own issues when Fraser appeared to dismiss half of its members - those in the games industry - as "too volatile", suggsting that games companies were failing to contribute towards "establishing credibility" for the software industry". Fraser said ~"All companies want credibility to be achieved through people who can put in hard work, and the entertainment end of the market has too few people with a long enough perspective". Paula Byrne, general manager of Telecomsoft responded by saying "I'd dispute the fact that we're a scummy bunch of people who can't see beyond tomorrow". She didn't seemed too impressed with the mechanics of the BMF, suggesting that "There [are] all these committees which never achieve anything unless you've got someone working at it full time"[source: "BMF criticised over business bias", POCW, 14th August 1987, p. 11]. Meanwhile, despite RML's protestations, Acorn was still number on in the UK market at least up to the end of 1988, when it was reported that it had shifted 60,000 computers by November of that year and that it had sold 200,000 of its BBC Master micros. Managing director of the week Harvey Coleman said that "while we predicted level demand for this year, the real demand currently outstrips our ability to supply" - a reference to the 10,000-order backlog Acorn was running at the time. Coleman also had a beef with RM when the latter company claimed that its Nimbus system was market leader, despite having shifted only 33,000 machines, of which only 19,000 had gone to schools. Whilst considering whether or not to shop RM to the Advertising Standards Authority, Coleman drily pointed out that "these figures hardly justify RM's present misleading claims"[source: "News in brief", PRAC, January 1989, p. 28, 30]. Away from the politics, the A3000 reviewed well, with Mike Redbridge of The Micro User writing about his explorations of RISC OS and concluding that: ~"I doubt I covered even one-hundredth of the options available to me. However, I'd seen enough to be convinced that this new BBC Micro is a superb product. Incredibly sophisticated but utterly simple to use, it's a brilliant successor to the old BBC B. Well done Acorn[source: "Acorn's bouncing baby", The Micro User, August 1989, p. 46]".
The machine's secret weapon was its Pixar card-based graphics accelerator Jobs's NeXT machine, based on the Motorla 68030, had been delayed somewhat from its originally-scheduled release date of February 1988, and ongoing problems with both the hardware and the software meant that it wasn't going to appear until the summer. The machine's secret weapon was its Pixar card-based graphics accelerator, which was said to have given it graphical power previously only found on machines that cost $55,000 and up - all for less than $10,000. Jobs was intending to position the NeXT in the educational market, however NeXT board member and billionaire investor H Ross Perot - who would go on to become a two-time US presidential candidate[source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Perot#1992_presidential_campaign], and who had once turned down an opportunity to invest in Microsoft - reckoned he could use his influence to lobby for military and government contracts. There was also the prospect that the NeXT might become the next power-user machine in the business market, going up against Sun and Apollo, both of which were building low-cost versions of their Unix workstations[source: "NeXT in line for business power", West Coast Connextion, PCW, June 1988, p. 101]. NeXT, the company, came over to the UK on the machine's launch in August, for what Guy Kewney of PCW dubbed the "Steve Jobs Media Hype" event. The company was being tight-lipped about exactly how many of its machines were being sold, with the only significant examples being Robert Maxell and Queen's University, Belfast. However, it did admit to selling "hundreds" of machines throughout Europe each month. Meanwhile, there was some new software available, and the UK branch, based in Windsor to be near the Queen, probably, had a new managing director in the shape of Richard Strong, formerly of Adobe UK[source: "NeXT keeps mum on machine sales", Newsprint, PCW, September 1990, p. 101].
the split in the Unix world remains unresolved and grows increasingly complex However, these were both split even further by the provision of different interfaces, like Open Look or PMX, and added to this were other variations like NeXT's NextStep. The latter was interesting as IBM had approached NeXT, run by Steve Jobs, to develop the windowing system for its own AIX. What was not known at the time though was whether or not IBM would give the OSF - which had already chosen X-Windows - access to this front end, or keep it proprietary[source: "Unix running into complications", PCW, September 1988, p. 102]. As Tim Bajarin wrote in March 1989's PCW, it was a real Tower Of Babel in operating systems[source: "Toppling the tower of Babel", PCW, March 1989, p. 117]. The Archer Group had re-branded itself as Unix International a few months before at the end of 1988, whilst it was revealed that earlier talks between it and the OSF had "broken down". OSF for its part branded the same talks "unproductive". As PRAC summarised the situation: "the split in the Unix world remains unresolved and grows increasingly complex"[source: "News in brief", PRAC, January 1989, p. 28]. X11, which had evolved out of MIT's 1984 Project Athena [source: "Through the X Window", PCW, March 1989, p. 154], looked like it might become the unifying saviour of Unix, and help machines like the Archimedes and R140 become the next standard, instead of Microsoft's OS/2 with its Presentation Manager.
Bill and I talked about it and we agreed that we should not let this complaint escalate to the point that it affects our other relationships The irony of it all was not lost on Derek Cohen of PCW, who pointed out that all of these desktop systems were copied from Xerox PARC's Smalltalk ideas. However, Xerox wasn't sueing Apple because it wasn't a threat, whilst HP and the IBM/Microsoft alliance was definitely a threat to Apple. Apple had to tread a fine line with its legal actions, as one of its major hooks to get business users onto Macs was Microsoft's Mac version of Excel, and so Apple's John Sculley couldn't risk severing his relationship with Bill Gates. Sculley was reported to have said "Bill and I talked about it and we agreed that we should not let this complaint escalate to the point that it affects our other relationships", whilst Gates on the other hand had said that the lawsuit had come "as a complete shock"[source: "Apple tries to break Windows", Derek Cohen, PCW, May 1988, p. 71].
many previous US and European manufacturers, armed with what were "ergonomically superior" machines, had already failed to conquer a market where businesses were quite happy to buy Amstrad instead of Compaq NeXT reseller Businessland reckoned that this like the situation with the original Apple Mac, which was also exceedingly slow but where the productivity of the user interface was said to compensate for the machine's lack of performance. Apparently users agreed that whilst the DTP package Frame ran more slowly on the NeXT, projects were still being completed faster because of the ease in which the software worked. That trade off might have worked in the US, but the UK market though was said to be the most demanding anywhere in terms of value for money, and many previous US and European manufacturers, armed with what were "ergonomically superior" machines, had already failed to conquer a market where businesses were quite happy to buy Amstrad instead of Compaq. Jobs however dismissed the price/performance issue and made it clear that an upgrade to the 68040 CPU for his expensive machine would be sufficient to provide all the processing power required, and that there were no plans to move to RISC for at least five years[source: "Sounding off", Merlyn Skye, PCW, June 1990, p. 116]. Market analysts International Data Corporation was forecasting sale of only 15,000 for the year 1990, which was less than it was predicting for IBM's rival RS/6000 workstation. The figure seemed about right, as around 50,000 machines in total had been sold by the time NeXT exited the hardware business in 1993. After NeXT was bought by Apple, its operating and windowing system - NeXTSTEP and OpenStep - were rolled in to macOS[source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT], which would eventually be based on the Unix-like BSD.
January's Uniforum conference in Washington DC was now populated by more suits than propellor-heads It had also been noticed that January's Uniforum conference in Washington DC was now populated by more suits than propellor-heads, a sure sign, according to Guy Kewney of PCW, that the "argument about technicalities is no longer what counts" and that the marketing and finance types, after a slice of a potentially big new market, were now running the show. However, there were still some unresolved issues in the Unix world, including basics like which version of Unix to settle on or which windowing system to use. The OSF was still trying to sell the idea of its open system, but continuing delays meant that OSF-1, previously expected to be available by December 1989, was still not out. Apparently, the OSF actually meant December 1990. The OSF had offered to provide snapshots of the current version, so that developers had something to target, but this didn't look promising as it had already tried this strategy with its windowing system Motif, and that had required eight snapshots before the thing even worked enough to look at. As Tom Yager of BIX put it "Motif is complex in itself but doesn't hold a candle to the intricacy of the operating system".