Acorn Network Computer

The Acorn Network Computer was a network computer designed and manufactured by Acorn Computers Ltd. It was the implementation of the Network Computer Reference Profile that Oracle Corporation commissioned Acorn to specify for network computers (for more detail on the history, see Acorn_Computers_Ltd#Network_Computers). Sophie Wilson of Acorn led the effort. It was launched in August 1996.

The NCOS operating system used in this first implementation was based on RISC OS and ran on ARM hardware. Manufacturing obligations were achieved through a contract with Fujitsu subsidiary D2D.

In 1997, Acorn offered its designs at no cost to licensees of RISC OS.

Read more about Acorn Network Computer:  Usage

Famous quotes containing the words network and/or computer:

    Of what use, however, is a general certainty that an insect will not walk with his head hindmost, when what you need to know is the play of inward stimulus that sends him hither and thither in a network of possible paths?
    George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)

    What, then, is the basic difference between today’s computer and an intelligent being? It is that the computer can be made to see but not to perceive. What matters here is not that the computer is without consciousness but that thus far it is incapable of the spontaneous grasp of pattern—a capacity essential to perception and intelligence.
    Rudolf Arnheim (b. 1904)