A history of ARM, part 1: Building the first chip

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It was 1983, and Acorn Computers was on top of the world. Unfortunately, trouble was just around the corner.

The small UK company was famous for winning a contract with the British Broadcasting Corporation to produce a computer for a national television show. Sales of its BBC Micro were skyrocketing and on pace to exceed 1.2 million units.

A magazine ad for the BBC Micro. The tagline was "The Shape of Things to Come."

But the world of personal computers was changing. The market for cheap 8-bit micros that parents would buy to help kids with their homework was becoming saturated. And new machines from across the pond, like the IBM PC and the upcoming Apple Macintosh, promised significantly more power and ease of use. Acorn needed a way to compete, but it didn’t have much money for research and development.

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