Apricot Computers: An underrated British brand

 (dfarq.homeip.net)

53 points | by giuliomagnifico 5 days ago

11 comments

  • axisofdenial 26 minutes ago
    One of my first roles in the early 90s was on a UK government project.

    They used Apricot desktops, talking to IBM mainframes running COBOL. The desktops ran OS2.

    The project also had Unix machines made by British Telecom and Apple Macs for word processing.

    Looking back, it’s amazing how diverse the computing environment was.

  • awesomeusername 3 days ago
    The first company I worked for was 'Orchard Computers', because they sold Apple, Acorn and Apricot.

    Around 1993-4

  • mixmastamyk 1 minute ago
    Today I recommend Star Labs, another underrated brand that ships machines with coreboot.
  • pixelesque 25 minutes ago
    Elonex were another UK-based PC brand that manufactured their own 386/486 boards for their systems in the early 90s.
  • qingcharles 3 days ago
    The ACT Sirius 1 (Victor 9000) was amazing for its time.

    The other Apricot PCs were great, but so many of their machines were sidelined because they were only DOS-compatible and not generally IBM PC-compatible, and so could only run certain software.

  • spiffx 3 days ago
    Used them at my Dad's PCB manufacturing business in South Wales for standard accounts and payroll, then went on to develop production control software for the company with my cousin: still have a pile of 3.5" floppies with Pascal code on them somewhere. Happy days!

    At one time we actually ended up manufacturing PCBs to go into various Apricot machines: I vaguely recall the odd little LCD display ("microscreen") on some of the keyboards: did it have printed carbon pads for the membrane keyboard?

    As far as we were concerned, they were great machines.

  • Perenti 3 days ago
    I recall announcements in 1984 that Apricot were building a m68k machine. I was very excited at the time. I never heard if it ever really happened though.
  • jnaina 3 days ago
    used to sell the Apricots back in the days. The PCs from Apricot and Grid stood out in terms of design, from the rest of beige uglies.
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    • Scramblejams 3 days ago
      The Grid Compass series (especially the II models with the big screen) looked like it came from the future. Stunning in its era. Wouldn't mind seeing a reboot.
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      • jnaina 3 days ago
        Yes, they were stunning. looked like a prop from bladerunner.
    • spants 3 days ago
      me too! In the pc business from 1981!, Apricots were great bits of kit. The GRIDs were good but very expensive at the time.
    • le-mark 3 days ago
      Were they actually available to purchase? Seems like supply of these and others was usually a bit spotty.
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      • jnaina 3 days ago
        Yes, I had the Apricot Xen in the shop. If I remember correctly, they were not 100% PC compatible, and did not exactly sell well. Neither did the Grids. But both were great conversation starters.
  • jaggs 5 days ago
    No not really. They were pants. :)
  • sebarb 3 days ago
    [flagged]
  • nonamesleft 5 days ago
    Erm, that page just gives me activitystream json?
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