Apricot Computers
1984- Apricot F1
1984- Apricot XI
1984- Apricot F1
After the launch of the Apricot PC, largely inspired by the Victor S1 which sold well in the UK, ACT developed another computer, the Apricot F1. This new system was marketed equally as a business system and as a home-computer (with its TV video output for example).
The design of the F1 is quite innovative with its original shape and infrared keyboard. The main unit is much more deep than large, and the straight line of the whole system was quite stylish for the time.
There was no lead or cord between the keyboard and the main unit. All the communication was made through infrared signals. This is quite useful if you want to work from your sofa, four meters away from the main unit but you also must be sure that there is no obstacle between the keyboard and the infrared receivers located on the front of the main unit.
The Apricot F1 was however originally shipped with a plastic light-pipe that could be connected between the keyboard and CPU so that obstacles would not block the signal. Another drawback was that the keyboard had to be constantly powered with batteries!
This infrared feature is quite rare and the F1 is one of the only computers to be equiped with it, alongside the ACT Apricot Portable and Exelvision EXL-100 and a few others...
Just above the quite comprehensive membrane keyboard are four small round buttons used to set the date and time of the internal clock, to change the rate of the keys auto-repeat feature, to lock the keyboard and to reset the computer.
Even if the F1 used an 8086 it wasn’t really IBM PC compatible (though minor changes could make it BIOS compatible). The MS-DOS 2.11 used by the system is an Apricot modified version of the "real" MS-DOS.
The Apricot F1 was delivered with a nice icon-based graphical interface called "Activity" along with quality bundled sotfware for graphics, communication, wordprocessing and system tools. The same infra-red mouseball pointing device used with the Apricot Portable was available for the F1.
As the F1 was not IBM PC compatible and not particularly cheap, it didn't have great success outside its native country (UK). A slightly less expensive version was also released, labelled F1e. It was the same machine but the 720 KB floppy drive was replaced by a single sided 320 KB version. This version was about 300 Euros cheaper than the normal version
1984- Apricot XI
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.