The Master Compact was launched in September 1986. It is quite different from the rest of the Master series having a 2 box design (3 if you count the monitor) like a modern PC. But what appears to be the system unit is, in reality, only the disc drive/monitor stand, while the motherboard is under the keyboard! The disc unit only contains a 3.5" drive and power supply
Like the Acorn Electron Plus 3, the Master Compact has a 3.5" disc drive and ADFS as standard, with room for a second 3.5" drive in the disc unit. Unlike the rest of the Master series, the Master Compact does not have cartridge slots. Only the operating system, BASIC IV and ADFS are in ROM. Instead software like View was on the Welcome Disc disc. The Master Compact cost £451.25 (inc VAT).
This model separated the keyboard from another unit which could be placed under the monitor. Only the ADFS file system could be used, preventing backward compatibility with DFS disks (though it was possible to load a 1770 DFS ROM into sideways RAM, or to insert a ROM or EPROM containing it). The Master Compact also utilised a limited re-burn EEPROM, instead of the battery backed CMOS memory found in the other models. Download high resolution version (909x969, 172 KB)A BBC Master Compact microcomputer, part of the BBC Master series. ... Download high resolution version (909x969, 172 KB)A BBC Master Compact microcomputer, part of the BBC Master series. ... A 3,5 inch diskette, removed from its casing A floppy disk is a data storage device that is composed of a disk of thin, flexible (floppy) magnetic storage medium encased in a square or rectangular plastic shell. ... Nineteen inch (48 cm) CRT computer monitor A computer display, monitor or screen is a computer peripheral device capable of showing characters and/or still or moving images generated by a computer and processed by a graphics card. ... The Advanced Disc Filing System (ADFS) is a computing file system particular to the Acorn computer range, although the Linux kernel does have support for this format. ... The Disc Filing System (DFS) is a computer filing system developed by Acorn Computers Ltd. ...
The unit under the monitor housed a 3.5 inch floppy disk drive and the system power supply. The remainder of the system was housed in the same unit as the keyboard, much like a conventional Master 128. The cartridge and cassette ports were removed as a space saving measure. The loss of the latter was a move Acorn later came to regret. Software for the Compact became very expensive (typically £20 for a game) due to the small user base. A 3,5 inch diskette, removed from its casing A floppy disk is a data storage device that is composed of a disk of thin, flexible (floppy) magnetic storage medium encased in a square or rectangular plastic shell. ...
The Compact included a copy of Acorn's first public GUI interface. No commercial software or utilities, others than those included on the Welcome disk were ever made available for the system.
Our unit was kindly donated By Philp Murray-Pearce
