website/content/museum/act-apricot-xi.md

---
title: ACT Apricot Xi
categories:
- Computers
types:
- Professional Computer
origins:
- United Kingdom
years:
- '1984'
cpus:
- Intel 8086
params:
  name: Apricot Xi
  company: /companies/act
  company_name: ACT
  specs:
  - label: NAME
    value: Apricot Xi
  - label: MANUFACTURER
    value: ACT
  - label: TYPE
    value: Professional Computer
  - label: ORIGIN
    value: United Kingdom
  - label: YEAR
    value: '1984'
  - label: KEYBOARD
    value: |-
      Full-stroke keyboard, 101 keys, 8 function keys, 6 dynamic function keys (membrane keys)\
      Built-in 40 characters x 2 lines LCD screen
  - label: CPU
    value: Intel 8086
  - label: SPEED
    value: 4,77 Mhz
  - label: CO-PROCESSOR
    value: Intel 8089 (for in/out tasks), 8087 optional arithmetic co-processor
  - label: RAM
    value: 256k, up to 768k
  - label: TEXT MODES
    value: 80 x 25, 132 x 50 (character matrix 10 x 16)
  - label: GRAPHIC MODES
    value: 800 x 400
  - label: SOUND
    value: 1 tone channel
  - label: SIZE / WEIGHT
    value: |-
      Main unit : 42 x 32 x 10 cm\
      Main unit : 6,4 kg / Monitor : 4,1 kg / keyboard : 1,5 kg
  - label: I/O PORTS
    value: RS232c, Centronics, 2 x Apricot expansion slots
  - label: BUILT IN MEDIA
    value: 1 or 2 x 3''1/2 disk-drives (315k or 720k), 5Mb, 10Mb & 20Mb hard-disks
  - label: OS
    value: |-
      MS-DOS 2.0, CP/M 86, Concurrent CP/M\
      UCSD p-system in option
  - label: POWER SUPPLY
    value: Built-in PSU
  - label: PERIPHERALS
    value: 1 additional 3''1/2 disk-drives, trackball, printer, plotter
  - label: PRICE
    value: 'Xi10 : 6090 (France, september 85)'
  tabs:
  - emulators
  - links
  - docs
  emulators:
  - title: 'APE Plus : Apricot Emulator'
    url: http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/ai/ape.html
    platform: MS DOS
    text: Commercial emulator that emulates PC/Xi/Xen, the \`F' Series, and the Apricot FP Portable
  - title: QDAE
    url: http://www.seasip.info/Unix/QDAE/
    platform: Multiplatform
    text: QDAE is a Quick and Dirty Apricot Emulator for Linux, Windows and MacOS X. This version emulates the Apricot F1; it may support other F-series Apricots as well.
  links:
  - title: ACT Apricot computers support page
    url: http://www.actapricot.org/home/
    text: Useful infos. Some links might be outdated
  - title: ACT Apricot Computers Yahoo Group
    url: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/actapricot/
    text: Discussion list for the ACT Apricot computers.
  docs:
  - title: USER PROMPT APRICOT GUIDE ISSUE 1
    url: http://www.actapricot.org/support/
    cover: null
    text: |-
      [**USER PROMPT APRICOT GUIDE ISSUE 1**](http://www.actapricot.org/support/)written by UserPrompt Guides

       compiled/archived by Jonathan Marsters\
       type of document : PDF\
       source : [www.actapricot.org](http://www.actapricot.org)
  - title: USER PROMPT APRICOT GUIDE ISSUE 2
    url: http://www.actapricot.org/support/
    cover: null
    text: |-
      [**USER PROMPT APRICOT GUIDE ISSUE 2**](http://www.actapricot.org/support/)written by UserPrompt Guides

       compiled/archived by Jonathan Marsters\
       type of document : PDF\
       source : [www.actapricot.org](http://www.actapricot.org)
  comments:
  - author: Sven W. (Germany)
    date: Monday 2nd August 2021
    text: I just got one of this rare grey Apricot Xi today. Ive experienced almost as exactly the same problem as Bill mentioned below. The computer startet no problems. But after a few seconds the PSU of the Monitor got up in smoke. Fortunately it came with another small monitor and i was able to do a bit of tinkering with this lovely machine. Some of the keys of the keyboard seem to be dead. Anyone here that knows if these rare keyboards are fixable? Greetings
  - author: rfka01 (Germany)
    date: Monday 12th February 2018
    text: |-
      I have one that is missing the keyboard ... contact me if you have one for sale for a reasonable price.\
      rfka01 (at) freenet (dot) de
  - author: Gary (United Kingdom)
    date: Thursday 28th December 2017
    text: 'I''''m currently (attempting) to rebuild a rather neglected Apricot Xi10, that was upgraded to a 80286 by Apricot in 1987. There appears to be plenty of technical information available for the original Xi, but not so much for the 286. If anyone has a service manual, then I''''d love to hear from you (address: garyspamfull, domain: gmail.com).'
  - author: Steve Mills (United Kingdom)
    date: Friday 8th December 2017
    text: I would like to recover a system that I built in the 1980s on an Apricot XI10 machine - I have it all backed up on floppy disks. If anyone knows of an XI10 for sale in full working order, or alternatively if someone would be willing to lend me a working XI10 for a few weeks then I''d be interested to hear from you.
  - author: Marty (Czech Republic)
    date: Thursday 8th June 2017
    text: Hi guys, I have one of these but in very poor state. Additionally, I have no keyboard nor screen. Do you anyone have idea about video and keyboard pinouts? I am ready to build any converter to bring it to life.
  - author: Bill Appleton (UK South West)
    date: Monday 27th October 2014
    text: |-
      I havea rare grey Xi and decided to power it up after a few years of standing idle.\
      Hard drive powered up, monitor burst into life, Loaded operating system from hard drive, Keyboard keys not working,.\
      After a few moments a crackle and smoke. Power supply died.\
      Will fix this so as once again working.\
      What modern pentium or I3 will still be working after 26 years or more let alone the hard drive.\
      Excellent technology for the time and well built.
  - author: Jenny W. (Teddington, UK)
    date: Friday 26th November 2010
    text: |-
      I bought this machine in 1984 and had an ambitious advertising sales data base with integrated sales ledger written for it. I was working from home at the time and occasionally carried my "portable" Apricot on the train to the London office. Everything went remarkably well until the little hard disc started to fill up.\
      I still have the computer stored under my desk, in good condition although I haven''t tried firing it up for years.
  - author: Peter F. (Suffolk, UK)
    date: Wednesday 23rd January 2008
    text: |-
      I remember this machine having a fantastic keyboard! The best touch was the programmable LCD with soft function keys.\
      When they were updated from CPM(?) to IBM DOS, Apricot UK used to come out and 'modify' the computer... In reality they just swapped over the motherboard and added a strange dongle on the back to convert the CRT connector.
  - author: Don Swatman (Hearth)
    date: Friday 9th June 2006
    text: It used to have a very slow character/text redraw. Rumour has it that this was intentional because it could be so much faster than the Sirrius it would destroy the Sirrius market. However someone developed a bit of code that bypassed the slow redraw and once installed it used to fly (well relatively speaking).
  related:
  - /museum/act-apricot-f1
  - /museum/act-apricot-f2-f10
  - /museum/act-apricot-pc
  - /museum/act-apricot-portable
  - /museum/act-apricot-xen
  oc_id: 500
  source:
    url: https://web.archive.org/web/20221203215321/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=500
    date: '2022-12-03'
---

The Xi was the hard-disk version of the cream-coloured [Apricot PC](/museum/act-apricot-pc/).

The keyboard could be clipped to the underside of the machine, and a little cover would slide over the front panel to conceal the floppy drive. A handle then slid out of the front (just under the ridge) that allowed it to be carried very easily.

A colour screen was available - a re-packaged 10" Sony Trinitron screen that almost nobody bought because it was so expensive.

The mono screens had an anti-glare coating consisting of a very fine nylon mesh stretched over the screen and held in place by the bezel. Anybody who made the mistake of spraying glass cleaner on it would regret it, as the cleaner just clogged up in the pores of the mesh and left a nasty stain on the screen, which could only be removed by dismantling the monitor in order to rinse the mesh in water.

Model Xi5 : 256 KB RAM + 5 MB hard-disk + 315k disk-drive\
Model Xi10 : 256 KB RAM + 10 MB hard-disk + 720k disk-drive\
Model Xi20 : 512 KB RAM + 20 MB hard-disk + 720k disk-drive\
Model Xi20s : 1 MB RAM + 20 MB hard-disk + 720k disk-drive

There was also a very rare model - coloured pale grey, which had a hard drive of 50 MB or thereabouts.

**Dave Ridley** reports:\
Used to fix these machines, one very common problem on Apricot Xi was "wobbly screen" reported by user. The answer was to make a "bacofoil sandwich" as we called it! Take one aluminum foil strip, cover with packing tape to insulate, solder an earth wire onto one corner and stuff inside case, under where the screen sat. Hey presto, no wobble induced by PSU in main unit! Also the disk drives were prone to clogging up and getting generally dirty.

Technical tip from **Charles Verrier**:\
Taking any Apricot PC to bits required a bit of care...\
The rear panel had 3 or 4 screws, one of which fitted into the metal 'bridge' that ran the width of the machine, and held the PSU and disk drives above the motherboard, which filled the base of the case.\
The bridge was partially supported by this real-panel screw, and would drop about half a centimetere when it was removed.\
The only way to reassemble the thing was to turn the unit upside down so that the bridge screw hole would re-align with the real panel.\
Happy days!