A History of ARM

Nice article on Ars Technica about the history of the ARM processor (with a guest appearance by the Apple Newton):

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I remember using an Archimedes at School, also a relative worked at a school and brought one home for the summer holidays, so I got to use it a bit.

I remember the buzz about the Risc architecture, but at 11, it meant little to me.

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Which goes to show that your exercise routine ā€œrun 20 times (around the block)ā€ will always be done in shorter times and with less sweat than ā€œrun (20 times around the block)ā€. Primarily because, in the former case, you can stop after 19 times, claim that you lost count, and no one might be the wiser.

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JJW

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I bought an Archimedes - as Iā€™d already been working for a couple of years. Lovely machine. Super fast for the late 1980ā€™s.

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I spent years listening to Apple nerds pontificating on the eventual rise of ARM into the Mac lineup, running the gamut from ā€œit canā€™t be doneā€ to ā€œof course itā€™s inevitableā€ (and that range from just one person) and all the while ā€˜group thinkingā€™ that ARM chips were wimpy chips designed for mobile.

Well I, like others here, had an ARM-powered desktop computer (with an operating system that still hasnā€™t been bested on the basics) long before the web made an appearance. I specifically remember the dramas of setting up a UUCP over SLIP connection using a 1200 baud modem to collect my email and newsgroup content, and the euphoria of discovering and implementing PPP instead. The Acorn Archimedes launched only 3 years after the Macintosh. And it was on par with the Intel PCs of the time way back then.

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