The Apricot PC

The Apricot PC was launched at the 6th PCW show in September 1983 - Initially in two models : One with a single, 315Kb,  3.5" floppy disk drive at £1495, and the far more popular dual disk drive version.     Subsequent models with double-sided (768Kb) drives were released in the following year.

ACT's past success and strong relationship with Victor meant that one of the key design goals was to ensure that the new product would be software compatible with the Sirius 1.  This did mean that the PC was not 100% IBM Compatible, but this was seen as less important given IBM's lower profile in the UK business microcomputer market.  The relationship with Victor also led to an agreement that ACT would manufacture the Sirius in Scotland while Victor would return the favour with potential for Apricot being manufactured in California for the US market.

The unique design of the Apricot PC was outsourced to a British design agency (QED - later known as 'Sector Group') and then finalised by ACT's own 'Advanced Technology Division' near Birmingham.  Manufacturing was established in a new factory in Glenrothes, Scotland - A location that would gain the nickname 'Silicon Glen' for it's preponderance of high technology residents.

The 'Apricot' name started as the internal code name for the project - probably derived from ACT's full company name 'APplied COmputer Techniques'.   It was subsequently adopted as the official product name - taking a lead from the other fruit-based brands in the market (Apple, Tangerine and Acorn were all established names).

The line up of models:

• Single 315Kb floppy disk - £1,595
• Dual 315Kb floppy disks - £1,795
• Dual 720Kb floppy disk - £1,995
• Xi5 - 5Mb Hard disk plus 720Kb floppy disk - £2,695
• Xi10 - 10Mb Hard disk plus 720Kb floppy - £2,995

Note that these were all offered to dealers at margins of at least 25% - Those were the days!

A version of the Apricot PC with a 5Mb hard disk was released, but did not sell well compared to the 10Mb PC Xi.

CPU : Intel 8086 @ 4.77MHz

RAM : 256Kb (Expandable to 768Kb via expansion cards)

Graphics : 700x400 (80x25 text)

Storage: Single or twin Sony 3.5" floppy disk with 315Kb or 720Kb capacity

Optional 8087 Maths Co-processor

2 x proprietary expansion slots

External Ports

Parallel printer port - Centronics

RS-232 serial port - DB-25

Apricot Monitor connector - proprietary design

Apricot Keyboard connector- proprietary design

Mouse port (on keyboard)

Expansion Cards

128Kb RAM expansion

256Kb RAM expansion

512Kb RAM expansion

Internal modem

16 Colour display card (very rare)

Network Interface Card (10BASE-T Ethernet or Corvus Omninet)

When the hard-disk enabled XI arrived, one of the slots was occupied by the disk controller.

The Apricot was designed to be semi-portable.  A carrying handle slides out from the front of the case, the keyboard can be clipped to the underside, and a 'dustcover' can be closed over the floppy disk drives.  The screens had an integrated carrying handle.

Dimensions : 42cm x 32cm x 10cm

System Unit Weight : 6.4Kg

The Apricot PC had an on-board Hitachi 46505 CRT controller chip capable of delivering 80x25 or 132x50 text modes.  It could also display graphics at 800x400.  This was identical to the graphics capabilities of the Sirius, to ensure software compatibility.

The computer was initially offered with just one display - A 9" monochrome green phosphor CRT styled to match the computer and fit into a recess on top of the computer casing.  The Apricot 9" display used a flexible nylon mesh stretched over the screen as an anti-glare coating.  This design feature was inherited from the Sirius, which used the same design.

A similarly styled 12" screen was released as an alternative - without the anti-glare mesh.

The screen has a single coiled cable that carries both power and video signal, making the setup process extremely quick and easy.  The cable and connector design is proprietary, so 3rd-party screens could not be used.

The Apricot keyboard has a compact 96-key design with numeric keypad.  The spiral connector cable is again a proprietary design, so 3rd-party keyboards cannot be used.   A set of eight function keys are present.

The Apricot keyboard introduced another of ACT's signature design features - an integrated two-line, 40-character LCD display called the 'Microscreen'.   The Microscreen has a row of programmable membrane function keys, which can be assigned labels that appear on the lower row of the screen.

By default, the Microscreen displays the date and time, and can be used in conjunction with the numeric keypad as a basic desk calculator.  The results of calculations can be sent from the keyboard to the computer.  The keyboard uses a 9v battery to provide this function even when the PC itself is powered off.  The battery also powers the Real Time Clock for the computer.

The Microscreen could be accessed by application software, so that common features would be assigned to the membrane buttons, with the function being displayed on the LCD panel.    Many mainstream DOS applications, such as WordStar, were re-compiled for Apricot, and had Microscreen support added at the same time.

The keyboard included a connector on the rear for addition of a mouse.  Apricot offered their own trackball mouse as an extra-cost (£95) peripheral.

The PC was offered with MS-DOS 2.11 included, but users could choose to purchase CP/M-86 or Concurrent DOS as alternatives.

Apricot also included SuperCalc, SuperWriter and SuperPlanner, and a suite of utilities that included the  'ACT Manager' application that offered a basic 'graphical' menu to help users launch applications from an on-screen grid and adjust some of the computer's configuration settings.

Most major desktop applications were released in modified versions for the Sirius/Apricot, including Muiltiplan, dBase II, and Wordstar.

The 9" screen is fitted with a nylon mesh across the screen, acting as an anti-glare coating.  This worked very effectively, but made the screen vulnerable to dust and to users who attempted to apply cleaning products to the surface, resulting in the mesh becoming clogged with dried detergent.   When this happens, the mesh can be removed for cleaning or replacement by unscrewing the screen bezel.

The drives and PSU were mounted on a metal frame that straddled the motherboard. The rear panel of the computer then screwed into the frame to hold the whole machine together.  When you unscrewed the rear panel, the frame would drop a few millimetres under its own weight.   When re-assembling the computer, this meant the screw holes in the rear panel no longer aligned with the frame.   The trick every engineer knew was to flip the computer upside down, causing the frame to align properly.