June 1992 Acorn launched their only portable computer. Reportedly based on the A5000 (or may be vice versa) the A4 has the footprint of a sheet of A4 paper (hence the name) and weighs about 3 kg. The A4 came with a rather fetching carry case with space for the external power supply, manuals and a mouse. The A4 has an ARM3 CPU clocked at 24MHz, 4MB RAM and a 640x480 16 greyscale screen.

The operating system (RISC OS 3.10) was located in the 2 MB ROM. The 9'' LCD screen could only display 14 shades of grey, but used a clever dithering system to make more shades apparent. 

K/Board 84 keys with arrow keys
CPU ARM 3 (with 4 KB of internal RAM cache)
24 mHz (internal CPU) and 12 mHz (bus)
RAM   4MB
ROM   2 MB
Text: Max : 132 x 30
Graphics: 47 graphic modes, maximum 640 x 480 with LCD screen and up to 1152 x 896 with VGA screen
Screen 14 shades of grey (LCD screen)
Sound: 8 voices (stereo 8 bit)
I/O Ports: VGA, Centronics, RS232 C, stereo sound, Mouse, Keyboard
Drive: 3.5'' disk-drive
OS: RISC OS
Cost: £1395 (2Mb floppy version) up to £1895 (4Mb HD120 version)

Manufacturer: Acorn
Date: 1992

This exhibit has a reference ID of CH22807. Please quote this reference ID in any communication with the Centre for Computing History.

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