The Acorn A5000 was an all new model of the Archimedes family replacing the A440/1, which was officially phased out at the same time as the 5000 was introduced. The other 400/1 series models continued to be sold, positioned below the A5000, as did the A540, still positioned above it. This arrangement continued until at least the release of the A4000 (and A3010 + A3020) a year later. It had 4 slots like previous models but a larger wider case making it look like a workstation computer.Thanks to Joel Grounds who kindly corrected our previous comments.
In 1991, the A5000 was launched. It featured the new 25 MHz ARM3 processor, 2 or 4 MB of RAM, either a 40 MB or an 80 MB hard drive and a more conventional two-part case. Its enhanced video capabilities allowed the A5000 to comfortably display VGA resolutions of up to 800×600 pixels. It was the first Archimedes to feature a High Density capable floppy disc drive as standard. This supported various formats including DOS and Atari discs. A later version of the A5000 featured a 33 MHz ARM3, 4 or 8 MB of RAM, an 80 or 120 MB hard drive and a revised OS (RISC OS 3.10).
The A5000 ran the new 3.0 version of RISC OS 3.0. As previously, earlier machines were capable of being upgraded to the new RISC OS 3, though some needed help, as well as the ARM3 CPU. Earlier models could also benefit from the video performance of the A5000 via a third party upgrade.
