Acorn Codenames Exposed and Explained

Now there's an impressive title and with the expectations created by such a
title I am left with little choice but to dive straight into this daring
exposé without further ado.

Avon

The A3000

Either Acorn where following the age old tradition of
using rivers as codenames or they where some serious Blake's
Seven fans.

Perth

The A4

Obviously Acorn where in an Australian city name mood
when they codenamed the A4 and it's child, the A5000. Could
this have anything to do with the fact that Microsoft
codenamed Windows 93 (as it was to be) and the NT version to
be released in parallel after cities in the US? (This is a
genuine question, does anyone know?)

Brisbane

The A5000

Fox

A540

Adelaide

The A3010 with mezzanine board

Again, Australian cities. It's possible that Adelaide
refered the the mezzanine board only.

Heron 'C'

The A3010 with ARM250

Heron 'E'

The A3020

Medusa

The Risc PC

So called as originally it was to be a multiple-processor
system. Madusa was the ancient Greek Gorgon with snakes
instad of hair. The multiple-processors beeing analegous to
the many snakes growing out of Madusa's bonce.

The other thing Madusa was capable of was turning
people to stone with a glance. There have been no reports
of actual petrification but try telling that to the friends
and families of enthusiastic programmers.

Roadrunner

The A4000

Beep-Beep!

Aquarius

The C/C++ programming environment

Aquarious carries the can as does C/C++ whenever people
want want to bitch about the state of the market. Just an
unfortunate coincidence I think.

Project Black

Risc OS 3.60

The major improvement in this release was the improved
filecore which allowed partitions of greater than 512MB.

Phileas

The first generation of the Acorn web browser

Named after the famous Victorian adventurer Philias Fogg
who circumnavigated the Earth in 80 days.

Phoenix

The second genration of the Acorn web browser

One of many development versions. This one is used
largely to test out new interface ideas and the more unusual
configuration options.

Phoebe

The Risc PC Mk II

Named after Phoebe Buffet from the US sit-com
Friends. Phoebies main characteristic is to be
slightly off the wall in everything she does. Unfortunately
we never did find out what bearing this had on the final
machine as Acorn killed the workstations devision before it
was completed.

Ursula

Risc OS 3.8

The version of Risc OS developed for the Risc PC Mk II.
In Friends Phoebe has a sister called Ursula.

Rachel

StrongARM processor card

Would you credit it, another part of the Phoebe project.

Chandler

IOMD2

Again part of the Phoebe project.

Monica

PCI bridge

The system which was to bridge PCI onto the podule bus
for Phoebe.

Galileo

The next generation operating system

Supporting all the things a modern operating system
should have plus a few new things too.

One of the most interesting posts I have read in a long time Thanks!

So, today you've had two great experiences:
1) the most cynical post in a long time
2) the most interesting post in a long time

hmm.. what's next

[Edited by mfrissen at 16:32, 14/5/2002]

hmm.. what's next

Cuddlebunny?

One of the most interesting posts I have read in a long time Thanks!

Visit Rich's website, it's all there And HTML3 too...

Sexiest post?

/returns to playpen

One of the most interesting posts I have read in a long time Thanks!

Visit Rich's website, it's all there And HTML3 too...

I like the big letters.