--- title: Acorn Computer Archimedes A7000 categories: - Computers types: - Professional Computer origins: - United Kingdom years: - '1995' cpus: - ARM 7500 32 bit RISC params: name: Archimedes A7000 image: /media/museum/photos/acorn_a7000_system_s1.jpg company: /companies/acorn-computer company_name: Acorn Computer specs: - label: NAME value: Archimedes A7000 - label: MANUFACTURER value: Acorn Computer - label: TYPE value: Professional Computer - label: ORIGIN value: United Kingdom - label: YEAR value: '1995' - label: BUILT IN LANGUAGE value: RISC OS - label: KEYBOARD value: Full-stroke 102 keys PC-style - label: CPU value: ARM 7500 32 bit RISC - label: SPEED value: 32 MHz - label: CO-PROCESSOR value: \- - label: RAM value: 4 MB - label: ROM value: 1MB - label: TEXT MODES value: 80 columns x 25 rows up to 132 x 32 - label: GRAPHIC MODES value: VGA video output. Numerous graphic modes. Up to 16M colours at 480x352, 32K colours at 800x600 - label: COLORS value: |- 4 greys or 16 greys or 16 colours or 256 greys or 256 colours or 32K colours or 16M colours.\ The cursor always retains the same blue colour no matter what mode is used. - label: SOUND value: 8 voices synthesizer - label: I/O PORTS value: Centronics, Serial, VGA, PS/2, 1 expansion slot - label: BUILT IN MEDIA value: 3.5'' floppy disc, 420 MB or more hard disk, CD-ROM option - label: OS value: RISC OS 3.6 or 3.7 (in ROM) - label: POWER SUPPLY value: Built-in 35W switching power supply unit - label: PRICE value: From £799 tabs: - photos - hardware - emulators - links - docs photos: - title: RUNNING subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/photos/acorn_a7000_running_s1.jpg - title: FRONT VIEW subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/photos/acorn_a7000_frontview_s1.jpg - title: REAR PANEL subtitle: '' text: |- From left to right: • Power switch + connectors,\ • Reset switch,\ • Audio output jack (for speakers / headphones),\ • Display port,\ • Keyboard port,\ • Mouse port,\ • Optional network port,\ • Parallel port,\ • Serial port.\ Top blanking plate is for optional expansion cards, e.g. Podule cards. Thanks to **Rob Watts** image: /media/museum/photos/acorn_a7000_rearside_s1.jpg - title: A7000 OPENED subtitle: '' text: The hard disk drive is located under the floppy disk drive. image: /media/museum/photos/acorn_a7000_opened_s1.jpg - title: A7000 MOTHERBOARD EXPLAINED subtitle: '' text: |- **(1)** 48-pin Network Interface connector\ **(2)** 16-pin Genlock connector (for video editing hardware and LCDs)\ **(3)** Loudspeaker connector\ **(4)** CD-ROM audio connector\ **(5)** Cirrus Logic PS7500FE "system on a chip", comprised of the following components:\ • 32-bit ARM710 processor with FPU\ • 4kb of unified cache memory\ • Memory Management Unit (MMU)\ • EDO/Fast Page DRAM controller\ • CRT/LCD compatible graphics controller\ • CD-quality audio controller\ • PS/2 keyboard & mouse ports\ • 16-bit, PC-style I/O bus with 8 general-purpose I/O lines\ **(6)** Motherboard DC power connector\ **(7)** LED power connector (supplies the Power and Hard disk activity LEDs)\ **(8)** Fan connector\ **(9)** Backplane interface connector (for Podule cards and similar devices)\ **(10)** 6-pin POST connector (what is this used for?)\ **(11)** 32 MHz crystal oscillator. The 7000+ has 48 MHz + 64 MHz oscillators - produce the clock speeds for the CPU and memory respectively in the PS7500FE.\ • Reference: A7000 and A7000+ specification tables on [this page](http://homepage.ntlworld.com/christopher.whytehead/RiscPC.html):\ • [Fig. 1](http://homepage.ntlworld.com/christopher.whytehead/Pics/A7000E.html): Bottom crystal is not soldered in, so both CPU and memory clocks are delivered by the 64MHz crystal (left of PS7500FE). For the CPU, it is 64MHz divided by 2 = 32MHz. For the memory, it is 64MHz divided by 4 = 16MHz.\ • [Fig. 2](http://homepage.ntlworld.com/christopher.whytehead/Pics/A7000+5.html): 48MHz crystal (below PS7500FE) now soldered in, delivers 48MHz to CPU clock. So now the 64MHz crystal only supplies the memory clock, but at a higher speed - 64MHz divided by 2 = 32MHz.\ **(12)** 2x 16 Mb (Megabit) ROM chips holding RISC OS 3.71\ **(13)** EDO/Fast Page DRAM slot (shown installed: 32MB EDO module)\ **(14)** 2x 2MB onboard RAM chips (the EDO module hides the second one). The 7000+ has 4x 2MB chips\ **(15)** Jumper for clearing the NVRAM (a.k.a CMOS/RTC RAM) contents\ **(16)** Floppy disk drive & IDE interface connectors\ **(17)** CMOS / RTC battery.\ **(18)** SMC FDC37C665GT - controls the floppy disk, IDE, parallel & serial interfaces. Thanks to **Rob Watts** image: /media/museum/photos/acorn_a7000_mainboard_s2.jpg hardware: - title: 486 CARD subtitle: '' text: Allowed Archimedes series computers to run 32-bit PC-DOS software. It was delivered with a manual, a driver disk and PC-DOS 6.3 image: /media/museum/hardware/acorn_a39000_486card_1.jpg - title: GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR subtitle: '' text: |- Graphics accelerator card (called "ColourCard") for A3000, Archimedes and A5000.\ Company : Computer Concepts\ Enhanced potential for Archimedes series including 15-bit desktop modes (i.e. 800\*600 @ 256 colours). Thanks to **Chris Syntichakis** image: /media/museum/hardware/acorn_a5000_colorcard_1.jpg - title: CUMANA SCSI CARD subtitle: '' text: |- 16-bit SCSI-1 card\ Company: Cumana.\ There are an external port for scanners/CD-ROM etc. and 2 internal ports for SCSI and Floptical drives. Thanks to **Chris Syntichakis** image: /media/museum/hardware/acorn_a5000_scsicard_1.jpg - title: SERIAL CARD subtitle: '' text: |- From Atomwide's site:\ High speed serial card featuring three ports, each in the shape of a standard 9-pin ‘D’ plug. Each port on the card is capable of running at up to 460,800 bits per second, and employs a 16-byte FIFO buffer to reduce loading on the host computer’s processor, so improving communications reliability. All serial cards are standard single-width podules, and are fully compatible with Atomwide 6 and 8-slot RiscPC backplanes. image: /media/museum/hardware/acorn_a5000_serialcard_1.jpg - title: MIDI CARD subtitle: '' text: Allowed Archimedes systems to interact with any midi sound device. image: /media/museum/hardware/acorn_a4000_midicard_s1.jpg emulators: - title: Arculator url: http://b-em.bbcmicro.com/arculator/ platform: Windows text: An excellent Windows-based Archimedes emulator, plays many games and has simple usage. - title: Red Squirrel url: http://www.red-squirrel.org/ platform: Windows text: An Emulator of Arm based Acorn machines for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP - title: Virtual Acorn url: http://www.virtualacorn.co.uk/ platform: Windows text: Excellent but commercial software - £30 - title: ARCHIE url: http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/campus/5427/ platform: Multiplatform text: Archie is an emulation of the Acorn Archimedes hardware (A3xx/A4xx/A3xxx) for DOS/Windows links: - title: Web Wiz CAPTCHA url: http://www.webwizcaptcha.com text: '' docs: - title: TOM'S ARCHIMEDES DOCS (INTERNAL HARDWARE) url: http://b-em.bbcmicro.com/arculator/index.html cover: /media/museum/docs/couvs/vide.gif text: |- [**TOM'S ARCHIMEDES DOCS (INTERNAL HARDWARE)**](http://b-em.bbcmicro.com/arculator/index.html)written by Tom Mowalker  compiled/archived by Tom Mowalker\  type of document : HTML\  source : [Arculator](http://b-em.bbcmicro.com/arculator/index.html) comments: - author: TECH GUY (herefs uk) date: Saturday 4th September 2010 text: My acorn A7000+ has 64Mb of ram and a 20Gb sata hard disk and I adapted dos box to run on it!!! - author: Harris Khairuddin (Bath) date: Monday 27th February 2006 text: I own an A3000 but recently bought an A7000. The games from my A3000 dont seem to work on the A7000 - they just crash or dont run at all. Is there any workaround? - author: Malcolm (Frome England) date: Saturday 25th September 2004 text: |- I am trying to get an A7000 working on a Tandberg TFT moniter which works on most operating sys and\ which will display VGA 640 X 480. I have tried a Delete power on as described in the A7000 Welcome Guide, but the display shows a message "Input not support" message.I would be grateful for any suggestions. Many thanks, Malc. - author: Julian O'Connor (UK) date: Friday 18th June 2004 text: The Archimedes and A???? range use standard SCSI, IDE disks later on. Once I borrowed an IDE disk from an Acorn A7000 to get an PC working. I formatted it and installed Windows ,etc and all was well. Later I put the disk back in the A7000, hoping to boot from ROM and format the disk back for use in the Acorn again. I was somewhat surprised to find that all the data previously on the disk from the Acorn was still there despite having been formatted and used on a PC! related: - /museum/acorn-computer-a4 - /museum/acorn-computer-archimedes - /museum/acorn-computer-archimedes-a3000 - /museum/acorn-computer-archimedes-a3010 - /museum/acorn-computer-archimedes-a3020 - /museum/acorn-computer-archimedes-a4000 - /museum/acorn-computer-archimedes-a5000 oc_id: 931 source: url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230405101427/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=931 date: '2023-04-05' --- This machine replaced the [A4000](/museum/acorn-computer-archimedes-a4000/)/[A5000](/museum/acorn-computer-archimedes-a5000/) series and was a lower-cost alternative to the RISC PC. The styling was similar, featuring a very strong but lightweight ABS case with the floppy and CD drive in different places and without the clever stackable case design. Acorn made the A7000 a very neat system, reducing cost by using far fewer components on the motherboard. 4MB is built into the mainboard with a single 72-pin slot for standard off-the-shelf PC RAM. Gone is the non-standard Acorn 3-button mouse used since the first [Archimedes](/museum/acorn-computer-archimedes/) model, which was expensive and difficult to find if broken or lost, instead a standard PS2 unit is supplied. The only slightly annoying quirk is that you can’t use the optional expansion slot backplane and optional CD drive at the same time as they occupy the same physical area of the small case. One surprise with this machine is the connector on the motherboard marked "Genlock", designed for video editing/combining/overlaying hardware, such as the [Millipede](http://www.millipede.co.uk/alphas.htm) AlphaLock Studio. One person has even found a way to wire an Acorn [A4 LCD](http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~theom/riscos/a4/lcd7500.html) into it. Like the RISC PC, it was usually supplied with a Microvitec multisync SVGA monitor (sometimes with an Acorn badge) which allowed for all the slightly weird screen resolutions that Acorns were capable of, which some PC monitors didn’t like. When the British supermarket Tesco launched its successful ‘computers for schools’ charity fundraising scheme, it had the A7000 proudly displayed on its campaign posters. Unfortunately due to the increasing march of PC clones into schools this turned out to be the last all-new design Acorn computer released apart from the Phoebe/RISC PC II computer which was never released. A improved A7000+ was released around 96/97. There was double the amount of onboard DRAM (now 8MB), and a 1.2GB Seagate hard drive. Submitted by **Asteroid** --- Some extra information from **Paul Hadfield**:\ Motherboard was only Archimedes range computer to also have a 72pin SIMM (EDO) RAM slot to take standard PC memory at that time. It could take up to a 128MB SIMM, as well as it's own on board 4MB memory giving it a limit of 132MB RAM. There is also a network slot on the motherboard to allow you to purchase a network interface card. There are Econet and Ethernet cards available for this slot and, unlike previous versions of RISC OS, TCP/IP is built into the OS ROMs that come with the A7000.