Acorn’s “Phoebe” RISC PC
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 In 1998, Acorn were about to launch their latest RISC PC, it was due to be a huge advance from the previous RISC PC, and was anticipated that it would compete with the latest Intel Pentium based PC’s.  However, just weeks before the launch Acorn pulled the plug, on what would have been an exciting development in home computing.  But why did they cancel the project so close to its launch?  Was the technology not working, or was there no market for the product?  As we shall see there are various circumstances that led to the Phoebe being a failed technology.

  The technical specifications for the Phoebe were impressive, it was to be a vast improvement on Acorn’s original RISC PC.  A 233MHz Strong ARM processor, with 66MHz SDRAM on a 128-bit bus, compared with a 16MHz RAM on a 32-bit bus in the original RISC PC.  It was also due to be massively more compatible with modern widely available hardware.  It was to have a PCI bus making it compatible with many peripherals such as ethernet cards, SCSI cards and video cards.  Aleph One was also in the process of developing a PCI card that had its own RAM and a Pentium II processor for running MS Windows.  It was suggested that this card would be able to access the other PCI devices directly giving a very fast system and good PC compatibility - something that the previous RISC PC failed to do.

  Phoebe was going to be more than just a new piece of hardware.  Acorn was working on the latest version of their operating system, RISC OS 4, to be distribute with the new machine.  Anyone who has used Acorn’s operating systems knows how good they are - I myself used it in school.  To start with, it was stored on ROM chips, making it extremely fast to load compared with Windows.  The WIMP interface had many advantages over Windows systems, and was much easier to use.  It was effective at multi-tasking and the drag-and-drop capabilities were a delight to use.  The advances from the previous version of the operating system included long file names, more efficient use of large hard disks and built in documentation supplied in HTML format.

  Although this machine was never fully completed there were signs in performance that it was going to live up to its expectations.  Early benchmarks of the prototype put the machine at 2 to 6 times faster than the original RISC PC with the same Strong Arm processor.  At the RISC OS 2001 show in Berkshire there was a working Phoebe prototype on display.  It was seen to be running four movie windows and rendering an Artworks document all at the same time, apparently without appearing to slow down  - which would be impressive by today’s standards.  

  It seems very clear that Phoebe would have been technically impressive, but what went wrong?

  One major flaw with Acorn machines was compatibility.  Virtually everything that could be done on a Windows based PC could be done on equivalent software on Acorn computers, but what was missing was file compatibility.  It seems the only Windows compatible file type is a text file that is very rarely used these days.  This shouldn’t have been a problem for Phoebe though with its Pentium based PCI card that was supposed to be able to run Windows.  However, at the time Phoebe was due to be launched, Aleph One hadn’t developed the card, so potential customers couldn’t have been certain that such compatibility was possible.

  There were also reports of glitches with the prototypes, but as with any engineering project, there will always be glitches that need to be overcome.  Technically, Phoebe would have been good enough to compete in the modern computing market, and as with most things in life, the decision to scrap the project was a decision made in the boardroom.

  It has been suggested that Acorn announced Phoebe far too early - there are even rumours that it was accidentally leaked.  There was a significant fall in sales of its RISC PC, probably caused by customers waiting for Phoebe before buying a RISC PC.  In the six months to June 1998 they made an operating loss of £5.6M compared with just £1M the previous year.  Advanced orders were also disappointing, but again, this was probably due to the fact that people were waiting to read the reviews first; after all, why would you pay a £100 deposit for a machine that hadn’t been fully developed and that no one had yet tested.  There was also harsh competition from the Microsft Windows based PC’s.  Phoebe was priced at over £1700 including VAT without a monitor, at a time when Windows PC’s could be bought for under £1000.  People also faced difficulties in placing orders from outside the UK, as Acorn couldn’t confirm that the machines could be supplied outside the UK.

  But perhaps Phoebe could have been a success.  Acorn has for a long time had a very loyal, enthusiastic, even fanatical customer base.  Despite disappointing pre-orders, if Phoebe had been completed and lived up to its expectations there certainly would have been a market for them.  After all, in 1999, after the collapse of Acorn, the new company RISC OS Ltd released RISC OS 4.00, the operating system that was being developed by Acorn to be supplied on Phoebe, so clearly there was still a demand for Acorn machines.

  Acorn spent £2M on the project, and scrapped it just months before completion.  Scrapping the project meant that the £2M they had spent was a complete waste of money.  If they had given it more time and money they could have had a high quality product that could have made a profit.  It is unlikely that it would have cost much more to complete the project as prototypes existed and were being tested.  Even if it had failed in the market, surely it would have been worth the risk rather than just flushing the £2M down the toilet.  Furthermore, Acorn still owned 33% of Arm Ltd, a company that is now the largest producer of microprocessors in the world, and a share that was actually worth more than Acorn itself, so it had strong assets behind it.

  Since the collapse of Acorn there have been various proposals by different companies to carry on and complete the Phoebe project, but these soon evaporated.  Phoebe could probably have been a success but due to poor management no one will ever know; it is such a shame that the project was scrapped without even being given a chance.