The ACORN ELECTRON is a computer measuring 34cm x 16cm x 5cm. It was originally supplied with either a standard cassette recorder or the official ACORN DATA RECORDER. It was produced in the United Kingdom, although several production lines operated in Malaysia, and exported to Germany and the Netherlands. It was popular in the United Kingdom and came supplied with an aereal lead, computer to cassette recorder lead, a PSU (Power Supply Unit), five Acornsoft tapes and the INTRODUCTORY CASSETTE.

The ACORN ELECTRON was produced as a down-market, and half the price, BBC BASIC computer. It had connections for a monitor, a tv, a video output, its PSU and a cassette recorder. Thankfully, it also had the long edge connector on its rear which offered opportunities for further expansion.

The ACORN ELECTRON was originally available in high street stores or by mail order from Acornsoft for £199.95. Several million were sold and they are not at all rare. A second hand, unboxed, ACORN ELECTRON will therefore usually sell on eBay for £5-£10. However, boxed examples are becoming harder and harder to come by and well-preserved versions have sold for as much as £80-£100 on eBay.

The original, standard ACORN ELECTRON from front and rear. ElectrEm (a PC Acorn Electron emulator) can be made to emulate a standard ACORN ELECTRON by disabling some of the ROM options.

If you are missing any of the components originally bundled with the computer then you can download them by clicking on the links below:

This eight page leaflet was for display near ACORN ELECTRON machines on display in the high street. Click on the image to open it in a larger window.

Can anyone offer any information regarding this enigmatic Acorn Electron 'variant' picked up on eBay? Originally this was sold by a seller in the Netherlands with a pile of Acornsoft games in German, lending it an immediate aura of mystery. We thought at first that the different-coloured CTRL, DELETE and BREAK keys had simply been swiped from a different machine, but further inspection of the underside of the keyboard revealed this mysterious logo...and now we're not so sure!