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

title, categories, types, origins, years, cpus, params

title	categories	types	origins	years	cpus	params
ACT Apricot Xi	Computers	Professional Computer	United Kingdom	1984	Intel 8086	name image company company_name specs tabs emulators links docs comments related oc_id source Apricot Xi /media/museum/photos/act_apricot-xi_1.jpg /companies/act ACT label value NAME Apricot Xi label value MANUFACTURER ACT label value TYPE Professional Computer label value ORIGIN United Kingdom label value YEAR 1984 label value KEYBOARD Full-stroke keyboard, 101 keys, 8 function keys, 6 dynamic function keys (membrane keys)\ Built-in 40 characters x 2 lines LCD screen label value CPU Intel 8086 label value SPEED 4,77 Mhz label value CO-PROCESSOR Intel 8089 (for in/out tasks), 8087 optional arithmetic co-processor label value RAM 256k, up to 768k label value TEXT MODES 80 x 25, 132 x 50 (character matrix 10 x 16) label value GRAPHIC MODES 800 x 400 label value SOUND 1 tone channel label value SIZE / WEIGHT Main unit : 42 x 32 x 10 cm\ Main unit : 6,4 kg / Monitor : 4,1 kg / keyboard : 1,5 kg label value I/O PORTS RS232c, Centronics, 2 x Apricot expansion slots label value BUILT IN MEDIA 1 or 2 x 3''1/2 disk-drives (315k or 720k), 5Mb, 10Mb & 20Mb hard-disks label value OS MS-DOS 2.0, CP/M 86, Concurrent CP/M\ UCSD p-system in option label value POWER SUPPLY Built-in PSU label value PERIPHERALS 1 additional 3''1/2 disk-drives, trackball, printer, plotter label value PRICE Xi10 : 6090 (France, september 85) emulators links docs title url platform text APE Plus : Apricot Emulator http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/ai/ape.html MS DOS Commercial emulator that emulates PC/Xi/Xen, the `F' Series, and the Apricot FP Portable title url platform text QDAE http://www.seasip.info/Unix/QDAE/ Multiplatform 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. title url text ACT Apricot computers support page http://www.actapricot.org/home/ Useful infos. Some links might be outdated title url text ACT Apricot Computers Yahoo Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/actapricot/ Discussion list for the ACT Apricot computers. title url cover text USER PROMPT APRICOT GUIDE ISSUE 1 http://www.actapricot.org/support/ /media/museum/docs/couvs/act_apricot-user-prompt_1.jpg [**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 url cover text USER PROMPT APRICOT GUIDE ISSUE 2 http://www.actapricot.org/support/ /media/museum/docs/couvs/act_apricot-user-prompt_2.jpg [**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) author date text Sven W. (Germany) Monday 2nd August 2021 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 date text rfka01 (Germany) Monday 12th February 2018 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 date text Gary (United Kingdom) Thursday 28th December 2017 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 date text Steve Mills (United Kingdom) Friday 8th December 2017 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 date text Marty (Czech Republic) Thursday 8th June 2017 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 date text Bill Appleton (UK South West) Monday 27th October 2014 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 date text Jenny W. (Teddington, UK) Friday 26th November 2010 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 date text Peter F. (Suffolk, UK) Wednesday 23rd January 2008 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 date text Don Swatman (Hearth) Friday 9th June 2006 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). /museum/act-apricot-f1 /museum/act-apricot-f2-f10 /museum/act-apricot-pc /museum/act-apricot-portable /museum/act-apricot-xen 500 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20221203215321/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=500 2022-12-03

The Xi was the hard-disk version of the cream-coloured 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!