Acorn Electron

Summary

The Electron is the inexpensive smaller sibling of the BBC Micro. Acorn introduced it on 25 August 1983 for £199. A custom Ferranti ULA handles graphics, memory, cassette operations and sound, making the low price possible: around a dozen chips replace the BBC Micro’s more than a hundred. The Electron has 32 KB RAM, BBC BASIC and the BBC Micro’s operating system, allowing many programs to run on both.

The savings came at a cost. The 6502A runs at 2 MHz only when accessing ROM, at 1 MHz when accessing RAM, and is subject to further delays. Teletext Mode 7 is absent and sound has only one channel. Problems with the ULA delayed production for Christmas 1983: more than 150,000 orders faced an available supply of only around 60,000 machines. Expansions followed, including Plus 1 (cartridge slots, joystick and printer connections) and Plus 3 (floppy drive). Total sales were around 200,000 to 250,000 Electrons.