Date   : Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:04:47 -0600
From   : jules.richardson99@... (Jules Richardson)
Subject: 'BASIC 512K'

Jonathan Graham Harston wrote:
> Jules Richardson wrote:
>> What puzzles me is why they didn't go m68k - everyone else was around that
>  
> The m68k wasn't available enough at the time Acorn were looking
> around. This was at least a year before things like the Amiga and
> Atari ST were being designed.

Hmm, were there distribution problems? I didn't think the m68k was 
significantly later than the ns32k, and both were certainly late 70s. Both 
should have been readily available by the time the Acorn 32016 was thought up 
(1983-ish?)

The Torch Neptune m68k boards that I have photos of here with me seem to 
actually be a year earlier than my 32016 "small" copros (both 1984 parts). I 
suspect that the Neptune boards existed in similar quantities to "small" Acorn 
32016 copros.

Maybe there was something funny went on - Motorola not able to make a promise 
to Acorn regarding supply (at a fixed cost), or something, and so they were 
forced to go with the Natsemi part?

cheers

Jules