Acorn A4 Notebook

Finally, I managed to get an Acorn A4 notebook computer from 1992. Actually, I got a working one and pieces of a second one. The only one(s) I saw on any Ebay since more than one year. As I do not know how many of these were made, I have to try to find serial numbers again. Here are the ones of my A4s:

• AKB64-1015464 (no inner number)
• no outer one (inner: 005220)

The A4 is a A5000 with a 24MHz ARM3 CPU, 2-4 MB RAM and 0-80 MB HDD. The case is shared with some machines of the other brands and OEM machines of Olivetti, namely:

• Olivetti S20
• Triumph-Adler Walkstation SX20(?)
• DECpc 320sx(?)

i.e. the case, screen, battery, floppy drive, and DC/DC converter boards were the same and can be taken from these (cheaper and easier to get) machines.

The A4 weighs 3 kg… It is meant to be used with (Acorn) mouses, but you can simulate the mouse using (keyboard) keys. The interesting thing now is, that the mouse pointer also accelerates faster if you keep pressing the key, in contrast to e.g. a Atari ST where the mouse-over-keyboard behaviour was quite linear and therefore not fast enough.