SPEED 1 Mhz, RAM 1 kb, ROM 512 bytes, TEXT MODES 8 x 1 (8 digits seven-segment LED display). I/O PORTS Eurocard bus (100 x 160 mm cards), Tape interface (300 baud), RAM I/O (16 lines I/O). PERIPHERALS Memory expansion boards (4k / 8k), Video card, 4k Basic card, Assembler/desassembler card

Pictures of a U.S. Issue 1 BBC converted back to UK. Hover over the thumbnail for a minute for brief info

Acorn's Cambridge Workstation is the only model from the ABC (Acorn Business Computer) line first shown/marketed in 1984 to have actually been produced. Essentially the ABC 210 with 4Mb (+64K) RAM and a 20Mb HD in the colour monitor case, it arguably had less marketing than the ABCs. Nearly all that were sold (and it's hard to know how many were produced) went to Universities, mine originally came from Edinburgh University.
The ACW is really nothing more than a well-equipped BBC B+ with 32016 (or 'Cambridge', or 'Acorn Scientific') co-processor all in one box. Opening the case (two over centre catches on rear and an evil clipped on front panel that has snapped on mine) reveals very little, the monitor electronics (Microvitec CUB, of course) dominate. However, industrial design wins through, and the electronics are revealed in three very short stages:

• Undo each side panel clip - 2 per side - and lift the sides up. They should hinge over and support themselves, though they detached on mine. It may be that some additional screws are missing.
• Undo the two rear clips.
• Lift the monitor cage, being careful to not catch any of the cables.

And there you have it - the Acorn Cambridge Workstation - a rarely seen beast - crudely explained! If anyone reading has parts, manuals or software for this (or the 32016), or more solid information on options, numbers produced etc, please email me at abc210@dmc12.demon.co.uk

Electron (Turbo) with Slogger Board fitted. Note the switch on the side to switch from 32K to 64K. Thanks to Bri Thackeray for providing the Electron for the photos.

Thanks to Paras Sidapara for this info: The turbo design originated from Acorn themselves; Slogger just made it reality!Normal programs will see overlayed "turbo" RAM running at 2MHz, but a custom sub-OS ROM permits the electron OS to access the real (original) RAM for the screen display. Apparently Acorn struck some deal with slogger to dispose of their last electron stocks (slogger then bumped them up with these boards)

An Electron as produced by British Telecom.

Photos and info supplied by Jason Daniels & Steve Fisher of jayedan Ltd. (ebay user id = jayedan) and are Copyright 2002 jayedan Ltd

Information on the system is a little thin on the ground but, as far as I can tell, this computer was manufactured by Acorn for BT Merlin as a smart telecoms terminal for small businesses. Strictly speaking it seems to be a stock (I think) Electron with a rather large expansion module attached to its rear expansion port. However, the unit was supplied complete (computer and expansion) and not just as an Electron upgrade (the box proves this beyond a doubt). So the whole thing can be legitimately considered as an Electron variant rather than just an upgraded Electron. Also, the Electron computer has some additional graphics on the case - there is a BT Merlin address sticker on the underside and, as can be seen in the picture, this particular system was used by Interflora as it has a stuck-on function guide for the function keys that make up the top row of the keyboard.

The Expansion unit is a large flat box made from identical cream-coloured plastic as the computer. It contains a large circuit board (which fills the entire box area). There is a speaker inside the box that connects to the circuit board. Presumably this is the output for the hardware speech-synthesizer. The speech synthesizer looks like it uses a couple of Texas Instrument chips. There are a series of ROM chips down one side of the board which I assume contain the operating system, application and control firmware for the modem, speech synth and interfaces. There is also a battery on the board (for a real-time clock maybe?) which will need to be replaced. There is a cable with a standard BT phone connector that emerges from the rear of the box. Also at the rear of the unit (as can be seen in the photo) are two ports - I am not 100% sure what they are but I am pretty certain that the left one is some sort of disk-drive interface and the right one is a printer interface.

Thanks to Dethmer Kupers mail dkupers nospam at dds.nl for these photos of an Electron with expansion. Info by Dethmer:

Picture 1: Electron from the front. The switches are used for en/disabling the speedup and writeprotecting the Sideways RAM.
Picture 2: Top right the powersupply (wow, just cables lying around, did i do that?). Bottom left a piece of the Electron, blue (under the discdrive-housing) the speedup. Green PCB on top (under the drive-cable) is the expansion.
Picture 3: The expansion. From left to right, bottom: the disc-logic. The first 28p is the WD1770, then the DFS/ADFS in 1 EPROM (32K) appearing as ROM 0/1. Two empty EPROM slots (2/3 and 4/5). The Pres +1 replacement rom. 2x8K Ram (6264). Decoding logic and fuse. Middle row: the ADC (gameport, ADC0844), some logic for the printerport and the serial port (8533), jumpers for the baudrate selection. Top row: ADC-connector, printerconnection, a 'general' expansion port (replication of the Electron Expansion port) and the serial port.
Picture 4: Closeup of a piece of the speedup (developed by Elektuur, a Dutch electronics magazine). It maps a piece of memory to a 6264 instead of the 'slow' default Electron RAM chips. For the 6264 the Electron doesn't have to slow down.
Pictures 5 and 6: Closeups of the speedup

Thanks to Richard Hall for this info. Dotted lines where I cut bits out:

......Its a Master 128 ET (Econet Terminal).......... they really are terminals ie all the non essential insides have been left out, even the CMOS battery I presume because it uses the Econet clock. ........... So the Master ET is a cutdown 128 with Econet board, The Master Turbo has the 65c102 pre installed and is basically a "full" master. But what about the Master Scientific? how big was that 32016 board? the only ones Ive seen are fitted into an old BBC-b Style co-pro box, did the master 128 version fit inside?

Thanks to Andy Coulthard for these photographs of an Arbiter Jukebox. He write this:

'I have an Arbiter Jukebox that uses the Master to control the loader and store cd titles. This is done using a cartridge. Is it possible to copy the info from the cartridge to a floppy in case the battery in the cartridge goes flat? Thanks in advance for your time.'

You can pass your help on (or ask Andy a question) to Andy through me using the form on this page

Info here thanks to Andy:
This machine Uses the BBC Master to control the Sony CD loader, store the CD titles and track list. CD Info and price of play are stored on a 32kb ram cartridge. On shut down power is supplied to the cartridge by an internal battery. The CD contents are viewed on the internal monitor. Selections are made by scrolling and selecting. Sound is provided by an A.M.S Amplifier which will provide stereo sound to 3 separate zones each with independent volume and cancel controls