How Amateurs created the world’s most popular Processor (History of ARM Part 1)

Get Nebula with a discount: go.nebula.tv/lowspecgamer
SideQuest, how the BBC Micro failed in the US: nebula.tv/videos/lowspecgamer...
As a brand new UK computer company goes on the hunt for talent, they find themselves on the road to creating one of the most popular microprocessors ever made.
Sources:
archive.computerhistory.org/re...
archive.computerhistory.org/r...
archive.computerhistory.org/r...
Credits:
Research and Writing: LowSpecAlex
Voice over: LowSpecAlex
Editing: LowSpecAlex
3D animation: Windy, Divye
Art: Maiku no Koe
Spanish Translation, Audio editing and QA: Henrique von Buren
Thumbnail design: Maiku no Koe
VA director and sourcing: Jesús Hernández/Dubbing Home
Special VA guest: / @philosophytube
Social media:
/ lowspec_gamer
Music by Epidemic Sound: epidemicsound.com/creator
Stock Footage from Getty

[@sharif47]

Processor back then: so efficient that it runs on leaked current Processors now: FIRE POWER!!!

[@Kalvinjj]

Reminds me of the Prescott Pentium 4s and Ds, there was a freaking 180w one if my memory isn't messed up, and that 220w "5GHz" AMD FX.

[@volo870]

I have Pentium laptops from the 90s that run on passive cooling.

[@goekhanbag]

@@Kalvinjj The Intel 13900KS has a power limit of 320 W! Way higher than anything before! That’s how it hits 6 GHz on two cores and 5.6 on the remaining ones. Many other current Intel CPUs have a power limit of 250 W!

[@JayOhm]

To be fair, there are modern processors that are much more powerful and consume even less power. They just aren't meant for "general purpose" computers in the modern sense. ARM1 consumed around 100mW at its 6MHz / 3MIPS, and that's just the CPU, while e.g. STM32L0 chips are more like 20mW at 32MHz / 30MIPS, which includes RAM, flash and some built-in peripherals, and can go as low as 0.2mW/MHz, over 100 times more energy-efficient than ARM1.

[@Kalvinjj]

@@goekhanbag Holy meme 320W! That and the RTX 4090 melting plugs, care has been thrown out the window.

[@FR4M3Sharma]

I really can't believe we had chips that could execute code without needing plugged in power. Also the fact that it was a mistake is insane.

[@garymartin9777]

Amazing how many breakthroughs and discoveries are result of accidents and mistakes.

[@Felix-ve9hs]

"Have you tried plugging it out and in again?" "It's not even plugged in" "Then how did it work in the first place?"

[@Vysair]

@@Felix-ve9hs It was truly one of the scariest moment!

[@NathanHedglin]

@@Felix-ve9hs like the Senators asking Mark Zuckerberg "if Facebook is free, how does it make money?"

[@Blox117]

@@NathanHedglin zuckerberg: bee boo boo bop

[@EpicTyphlosionTV]

Fun fact: The 3DO console used a custom ARM processor. It was actually very powerful, but unfortunately it was never fully utilized by any games released for the system.

[@LowSpecGamer]

Fun fact, this is a plot point for part 2 of this story!

[@ITX635]

epic

[@trrrmac]

typhlosion

[@mfmr200]

@@LowSpecGamer lmao

[@WaltuhBlackjr]

@@LowSpecGamer that’s pretty cool 😎

[@EthnicCleanser]

love how you went from tearing games down to its bare minimum to run on anything possible to out right journalism. Brilliantly wild.

[@Rudxain]

Character Development

[@keithou4389]

I didn't even realize I was on LowSpecGamer's Channel! That's WILD!

[@johndavis29209]

That is a very interesting way to say he built his audience on one premise and then abandoned that so he can shill out his Nebula channel.

[@tachobrenner]

@@johndavis29209Don't be so negative man, this content is amazing and certainly not lazy. Not to mention that you can't strip games down like you used to. They don't make em like before.

[@der.Schtefan]

As an Austrian, I can confirm: All of us are wearing at least ONE pin of the Austrian flag on our body at all times.

[@LowSpecGamer]

As is tradition

[@IanZamojc]

And every pin contains at least 15 poisonous spiders.

[@khalvarius]

@@IanZamojc Here comes the dude who doesn't know that Austria and Australia are different countries

[@IanZamojc]

@@khalvarius I _did_ originally misread it as "Australia" as I was writing it. I noticed at the last second, but decided to keep it since it's still funny for exactly the reason you mentioned.

[@TheDemocrab]

@@IanZamojc as an australian it's also not poisonous spiders you have to worry about here, it's the venomous snakes but mainly the dropbears.

[@methanoid]

My best mate at the time got his Atom direct from Chris Curry who was a close friend of his Dad. We killed it by melting the PSU running a program for hours and he got a BBC (probably also from Chris Curry. Fast forward 30+ years and Hermann Hauser comes to my office for a meeting. Still find memories of Acorn on the Cambridge Science Park.

[@LowSpecGamer]

Oh man you almost met the whole Character roster!

[@Network126]

I know a gal who's really into BBC..

[@robinhodson9890]

Ironically, the science park was founded by Sinclair.

[@raymoreton3184]

What a delivery company that must have been everyone else gets a white van man or has to go pick it up personally from the shop and he gets it delivered by one of the boss men. We used to have a bbc at my last year of junior and it had the little robot drawing plug in thing that used to draw lines and other stuff but we weren't really allowed to use the bbc that often. A friend used to have an electron, maybe they got it because it was a little cheaper the bbc.

[@MrVaskor]

My father was asked to get a computer for a family member overseas around 1985 or 1986. I recall an Acorn computer (not sure what model, although it seemed really advanced for the time, compared to our own 1979 TI-99/4A computer) arriving our home, and our family (mainly my father and I) testing it out before it was taken/sent to our relative. I recall using a drawing/painting software to create a colour image of a house (which was quite simple compared to something you might create these days, although pretty good for an 8-year-old child at the time, I think), working diligently on it for a few hours into the late evening/night, before going to bed. I had fully expected my picture to be lost to our family before the computer was despatched to our relative, but the next day, I found that my parents had found a way of recording the image I had spent so long on on to a VHS video tape, which I was very grateful for!

[@kyle8952]

They weren't Amateurs. At the time the ARM was created it's designers were professional electronics engineers for 10 years already.

[@talideon]

The were amateur microprocessor designers. Mind you, if anything, this might've been an advantage, as they went in without some of the existing preconceptions that other more established designers were using. It didn't hurt that they also took a leaf out of Chuck Peddle's book, as the internal design of the 6502 and its ISA were major influences on those of the ARM.

[@catriona_drummond]

@@talideon Still, amateurs strikes me as rarther clickbaity. I wonder if he said "amateur" to Furber's face in the interview.

[@kyle8952]

@@talideon "Amateur microprocessor designers" is a false concept. They were all qualified to design microprocessors as much as anyone else in the world. They had cut their teeth before microprocessors were even widely available. When they decided to make ARM they had designed several computer architectures, their own sophisticated operating system, their own programming languages. Not only were they qualified to build ARM but they also chose to build custom hardware and software for the purpose of then designing ARM, because they correctly appraised everything available to be worse than their own prior work. They didn't go into the ARM project without preconceptions. They had very strong preconceptions. Firstly they had evaluated every microprocessor on the market using their tube system. Secondly, they were academics, and closely followed the latest computer science developments. They knew from watching the Berkley RISC project that a team of their size, budget and experience was more than enough to design such a CPU. It was already a settled question for years.

[@johndoh5182]

Clickbait? The people involved in moving to the development of ARM were engineers. Calling engineers "amateurs" is pretty out there. They had been studying different computer architectures for years before they developed ARM. MAYBE there was a new guy on the team?

[@Underestimated37]

One of the things that is really interesting is that the BBC ran Acorn ARM based systems to generate on screen TV graphics right up until the cutover to Digital TV. The systems were highly efficient and fault tolerant and if in a failure state could be rapidly reset, all highly important for something that operates in real-time.

[@akulkis]

Custom applications can keep all the code and invariant data in ROM, and often have no need for an operating system, so it's not surprising that when reset, the application in the appliance is fully operational before your finger even leaves the reset button.

[@acmenipponair]

Well, the Acorn Archimedes Computers were expensive for a PC - but really good as a cheap unix station.

[@Mechness]

@@akulkisIt has an OS. It's just that the OS is in ROM.

[@akulkis]

@@Mechness You would be surprised how much can be done without an operating system

[@NidonocuPoisonBunny]

I thought I recognised that voice! Awesome performance by Abigail! Loved to the story about the first ever execution of code on the chip, developed so tightly it ran on nothing at all. Utterly amazing.

[@user9267]

I haven't watched the video but as another Abigail, you're welcome!!

[@MasterChiefFloyd]

@@user9267 Yeah, but you were most likely born as an Abigail

[@just-mees]

​@@MasterChiefFloydAbigail P. Tube was born to be an Abigail, which is just as good if you ask me

[@jsteezus]

I love these mini documentaries you make! Extremely well researched and high quality content!

[@sirfer6969]

The fact you get to interview some of the stars of your videos makes your content so much better. Well done.

[@andrewstones2921]

I was privileged to meet Sophie, soon after she became Sophie because prior to that she was a he. I worked with Acorn computers and we were sent on training days to Acorn in Cambridge. As well as being absolute genius, Sophie and the team were totally great people who just loved what they did. Being trained by the people who designed at built the BBC computer was incredible. I attended other manufacturers hardware courses and none were as great as Acorn.

[@awoovement]

Thank you for your comment. I made a comment on this as a transfeminine with a background in IT about a month after Pride, and someone tried to dismiss her as "tomboys aren't transgender" I don't think I've ever facepalmed harder at such ignorance. Thank you for your contributions to the industry, I know Acorn's influence has been felt even on down to me as a humble repair technician.

[@henryfleischer404]

So that's why the name felt different!

[@adaddinsane]

I met Sophie before she was Sophie. Ha! (True but meant humorously.)

[@dawnfire82]

@@awoovement 'Anything I don't like is ignorance.' 🙄 What's *actually* ignorant is the intentional ignorance of the facts of biology and mental illness that have inexplicably become trendy. XY != XX.

[@coderamen666]

​@@awoovementI'm a transfem, and I love arm assembly. When I learned that ARM was made by a trans woman, it made sense

[@Brighton24601]

The bit at the end about the chip being so efficient that it works even when it’s pulling 0 watts? Incredible. I love little moments like that. And I loved all the 3d models of the chips, circuits, and the BBC micro, there’s really a lot of work and love put into your videos!

[@ytdlgandalf]

The more I hear/learn from the 70's 80's and 90's the more ashamed I am, that I can't even program a simple algorithm without stackoverflow, yet I had the same education asa they did. Now our days are spent fighting package managers and absurd deep tech stacks.

[@mortvald]

obfuscation is both an asset and a great mistake

[@rumble1925]

You can find solace in the fact that most programmers back then were just as average as you. We live with the ideas and solutions that survived the test of time.

[@acmenipponair]

​@@rumble1925 Also, what the OP misses: The systems at that time worked because they hadn't to consider much, only to not blow up the 32KB of RAM they had with garbage and to not have too heavy calculations running. And even if a program like Elite would fill up the whole memory of the computer - it would still be just some 40k lines of code overall - and that's for all the stuff happening. They say you get a bug every 1k lines of code and only 1% of them slip through. When you only have to look up 40k lines of code - you will find the bugs before delivery. When you have to look up 40m of code, you will not!

[@KillaBitz]

Was reading a comment under a LTT video a while ago and the person was wondering when we would ever see an ARM desktop..... I replied with "The 1980's mate" lol I miss my A3010 Glad to see Steve is still looking well The film Micro Men is another good patrial of this time

[@aboveaveragebayleaf9216]

I think what they meant in that context is a windows/Linux machine compatible with gaming and such.

[@MotoCat91]

@@aboveaveragebayleaf9216 So like the Apple M1/M2 type stuff?

[@aboveaveragebayleaf9216]

@motocat5685 yeah, but with backwards compatability for titles made for x86 architecture.

[@glo0115]

My Archie died to battery leakage, now happily it sports a Pi3b+ inside running riscOS. Lovingly named the ArchiPi

[@Underestimated37]

@@aboveaveragebayleaf9216 so like the Apple M series? They wrote an x86 translation layer, so apps written for x86 can run on the ARM architecture. (They did the same thing for power pc to x86 back in the day too) and most apps ran as fast if not faster than on x86 too.

[@igotes]

Very well produced documentary. I'm very familiar with the story, but it's pretty impressive to get an interview with someone "who was there" recorded properly in HD rather than a video call or email. Plus the animations with decent voice acting. 6502 based micros were my first experience with computing, I had an Oric Atmos at home but spent a lot of time on the BBCs at school. Thanks!

[@dylon4906]

man, i still dont know how youre so criminally underrated. these videos deserve millions of views. seriously good stuff

[@tomhekker]

Getting both Federico Faggin and Steve Furber in your vids, both complete tech legends.. awesome work dude!

[@helgakrobo]

oh my god you got PHILOSOPHY TUBE to voice Sophie Wilson?? goddamn mad respect

[@grewdpastor]

@helgakrobo : yep certainly to respect. Roger's/Sophie's voice is an octave lower in reality🙂 But a nice modest person.

[@highlyillegalpigeon]

Gotta have the mentally ill dude voiced by another mentally ill dude.

[@highlyillegalpigeon]

@@grewdpastor That makes sense, because it's a man.

[@nikhil_kaushik]

This is a uniquely entertaining video. All the elements work and blend together perfectly: the pacy yet relaxed narrative, the manga-style exaggerated emotive animations, the accompanying sound effects and voice modulation, the jiggly arcade background music, the graphical renders, and then you get Steve Furber himself to elevate the video to another level. It shows that you put a lot of effort into perfecting the little things, and the little things gelled together into a truly compelling package. Awesome stuff!

[@MarkHyde]

Amazing animation in these - so glad you're killing it with the tight short mini-docos - more power to you and those helping you :)

[@klausstock8020]

4:49 "Next week? Yeah, yeah, sure!" -- with the extremely fitting poster of the Tardis on the wall. Awesome work with such such details!

[@sophv]

absolutely love that you got Abigail to voice Sophie! I had to check the description right away because I knew her voice sounded similar. Great video as always!

[@DavidtheBard1]

Another excellent video! Every time I see one of your videos in my feed it's an instant watch, thanks for all the hard work you're doing.

[@NemouseJurado]

Outstandig, simply amazing. Pretty pasionate, kudos to everyone who is SUPPORTING the channel, kudos to the artist and the script. Beautifull piece.

[@alvinrahmanwafi]

I found your channel when I tried to play GTA IV on my potato laptop and followed your low spec guide. I forgot about your channel and just found it and recognized your voice. I love how much you've evolved your content and I truly enjoyed how you present all the information in your videos. It's channel like these that keep the nerd like me excited about learning more about tech. Great work!

[@annebokma4637]

Acorn had a nice following in the Netherlands. My second machine was an atom. First was a zx81 the "keyboard" lasted 1 day. I also had some apricot machines. Great designs

[@jclosed2516]

Especially ECD in the town of Delft was my "home shop" for a long time. I spend loads of time there, and bought a lot of utility ROMS. I still can remember I bought my first mouse I ever used in my life there. That was the AMX-mouse for the BBC-B. I also bought my Acorn Archimedes over there. Sadly that shop was closed down in the center and moved to outskirts of the town, to be shut down a few years later... Man - That where good times.

[@Fernando-ek8jp]

Already watched in on nebula (you're basically the reason I got nebula, the side content is great), just dropping by to watch it again because: 1. Your videos are just that entertaining 2. To feed the KZbin algorithm

[@LowSpecGamer]

Thank you!

[@LillyP-xs5qe]

Same

[@GoldenAppleGuy]

Small correction at 11:06: The lab in Arizona was called the 'Western Design Center', not the 'Western Digital Center'.

[@LowSpecGamer]

Woops. How did that slip in the script? Thank you

[@jnharton]

@@LowSpecGamer Probably a simple mix-up considering that you have (A) Western Design Center and (B) Western Digital Corporation, which can both be abbreviated as /WDC/. UsuallY, though, the former is called WDC and the latter simply WD.

[@s-phere]

always totally baffled by the quality of your research and historical storytelling. great work as always~!

[@parthkachhadiya4720]

The animations works great. I mean this is arguably one of the most captivating documentaries I’ve enjoyed so far. Hat’s off to the brilliant minds coming up with this method of fun learning!!

[@hjf3022]

I remember in the early 90s in Australia, my primary school had BBC Micros in the computer lab, I would have been maybe 8 years old when they switched to Windows computers. For years after I wondered what those Computers were, I could remember much about them except a few programs, and the distinctive red top keyboard row. it wasn't until Eben Upton of Raspberry Pi fame talked about them that I finally realised what they had been.

[@MrJeppeholt]

The production quality of these are incredible

[@nscian2]

This is such a good video. Well researched and constantly interesting. I'm always surprised by your work. It always gets better.

[@jimtekkit]

Last year I wrote a Basic program that calculated prime numbers and I ran it on both an 8MHz Zilog Z80 and a Raspberry Pi Pico. The ARM chip on the Pico only took a few seconds to do what the Z80 did in minutes. If I recall correctly the Pico was easily 100x faster, and it wasn't even using the second processor core. It's incredible how fast low-spec computers actually are these days.

[@low-key-gamer6117]

You compared and 8bit processor that has no modern facilities to modern dual core processor and are claiming that the latter was superior? Are you dumb?

[@acmenipponair]

To be frank, you compare a CPU with 133 Mhz (Raspberry Pico) with one that was running on 4 Mhz. And even if that's Pico not 100 times faster, you should remember that the OS will take around 1-2Mhz of your Z80, while it will only take around 10 Mhz of your Pico, so you have then 2 Mhz vs. 120 Mhz. It would be ashaming, if your Pico wouldn't perform 100 times faster than the Zilog Z80, especially as it's a 32 Bit controller = so it has to start shifting around bits for still being able to calculate the numbers much later than an 8 bit processor.

[@robby091000]

You have an amazing production quality and even go one step above for your research by contacting the people of the story and even more going personally to interview them. It's a crime your video views are not in the millions.

[@dstyKchp]

You're great at telling stories. I love hearing about tech history but some channels make me feel like I'm back in school. You got me hooked all the way. I love the video, subbed

[@GyroCannon]

The disbelief that Furber had at how much more efficient ARM's first processor was compared to others reminds me of how Apple engineers were surprised by the M1 laptop's insane battery life during their development Truly baffles me why we continue to keep x86 these days

[@dan_loup]

The main advantage of x86 is it's an insanely popular platform that is also relatively open. The mandatory IBM PC compatibility guarantees that every system will be able to boot any sort of OS you want and have some basic features like VGA/Vesa graphics and keyboard/mouse support etc.. To see a x86less world, all you have to do is take a peek on how things work on android. It's pretty dire.

[@GyroCannon]

@@dan_loup That's something that is rapidly changing because of Apple's push with ARM. As software (particularly device drivers) get ports for ARM, we'll see less and less issues with compatibility as time goes on. That said, you did remind me that we have a crap ton of legacy systems that companies and governments are unable to / too cheap to replace, and no one is going to start modernizing those. That alone is the only argument for keeping x86 around in the long run.

[@luluthecat1570]

@@GyroCannon i mean, giving the control of the whole processing industry to a single company is probably a really bad idea...

[@dan_loup]

@@GyroCannon The problem i'm pointing out is not compatibility, but control over your device. While the macs are actually quite open in terms of bootload etc at a point you can install linux on em, they only do it because they're having to compete with PC Compatibles. On the phone space where there's no PC, everyone does the bootstrapping and memory addressing etc the way they want, making basically impossible to make for example a linux distro that works on all phones.

[@LaczPro]

I'm so excited about what it could come for ARM and what'll happen to x86 in the next years. I'm happy with my Ryzen, but still, having a Mac with a processor that looks like the one from a phone is as powerful (or even more) than my Ryzen 7 is insane. The next Mac Pro is a big question mark though. We'll see

[@ekids.bassment]

I grew up in the Netherlands with an Acorn Electron, BBC Micro B, and my father had an Archimedes. Everybody I knew had a Commodore 64. So I learned programming on the electron and BBC, because I couldn't share stuff with friends. Thnx you for the great video and the memories it brought up :)

[@foxxy46213]

Fond memories of my electron

[@lazymandoplayer]

I built my Acorn Atom from the kit (fully expanded 12k RAM and 12k ROM), later bought the BBC B which I modified in a number of ways and finally an Archimedes 310M which I also modified. Finally moved to IBM compatibles in the early 90's as it fitted with my work by then. Love the Acorns though.

[@LowSpecGamer]

Wow!

[@sergeysmirnov1062]

Just.. man, mad respect to you for both the well researched - and highly entertainingly narrated - video and those animation/drawing skills, always a pleasure to watch your videos

[@garfythecat]

The Acorn Electron was a great home computer. I have some great memories of gaming on that back in the 80s. Excellent video!

[@jclosed2516]

It's always great to see this story told. My first "real keyboard" computer was that Acorn Atom (Before that I had a Cosmac Super Elf single board computer). I have really learned programming on that thing (The BASIC on it was a dream to use, because you could mix assembly and BASIC in one program). I still have it, but it needs some restoration to get it in full working order again. Nothing impossible though... After that I got a BBC-B and finally the Acorn Archimedes and RISK PC with the RISC chip in it. Writing assembly for that RISC processor was dead simple. Especially compared to those CISC chips that where around on "standard" computers.

[@TheGalacticCannibal]

Love your stuff, man, from the days of file modification in games to now. You're doing super fun stuff and I hope you get a ton of success!

[@chronossage]

I still miss old style LowSpecGamer. I've been applying his tips since the GPU shortage and with the Steam Deck, in a way, they're more relavant than ever.

[@0x9D99]

Amazing video! Interviews, cool art, good music. Overall just incredible. I would love to see more!

[@DuckReconMajor]

I recognized the Special VA guest immediately and was like no way! Great video as always and all VAs did an awesome job!

[@LordmonkeyTRM]

Your presentation and respect for these topics is clear. Lifetime subscriber♥️

[@ScrapKing73]

I’m in Canada, and I heard about Acorn only because I liked systems that were popular in the UK (Commodore 64, Amiga, etc.), so I read a lot of UK microcomputer magazines back in the day.

[@NoPunchline]

Great video the change in content is a welcome one. I remember when I was in middle school helping you make the running TF2 on low end computer videos by suggesting some mods, you also helped me learn how to edit and gave me tips on the videos I was making thank you! if you don't remember I think around the time you didn't have a mattress in your apartment or something like that lol.

[@mikeshaver-miller745]

I have been watching your stuff for a very, VERY long time now. I just realized I wasn’t subscribed this entire time. Your content is good enough to keep flooding my recommended videos even when I’m not subscribed! I fixed that now, but I thought you should know how good of a job you are doing.

[@wryyyy]

Micro men from 2009 is an excellent piece if someone is interested about what was going on at Acorn computers in their early days. Its not 100% accurate, but its entertaining, and its on KZbin.

[@LowSpecGamer]

That could also describe this video

[@wryyyy]

@@LowSpecGamer Well I meant something in form of comedic drama with human actors, and with the British quirks to it.

[@julianfp1952]

It also has a cameo from Sophie in it. She is the bar maid in a scene right at the end of Micro Men (I can’t remember if it is literally the last scene but it is definitely towards the end).

[@andrewstones2921]

Micro Men is indeed a great movie and whilst not exact, it’s close enough. The story regarding the BBC coming to see the prototype is not entirely right, the biggest mod they had to make was the addition of mode 7 graphics which was teletext mode, other than that the Acorn Proton was pretty much on spec, but it’s remarkable that they got it demonstrated on time. The depiction of Clive Sinclair was good, he was a genius and did some remarkable things. After the BBC series of computers Acorn sold the Archimedes computer which was totally amazing at the time.. I know someone who bought an Archimedes just to play Elite..

[@julianfp1952]

@@andrewstones2921 Yes. Elite went solid rather than wire frame with Archimedes didn’t it? The original wire-frame Elite came out for the BBC Micro of course. Such an amazing game. Everyone looks for reasons why Acorn got into financial difficulties and needed the Olivetti bail-out in the mid 1980s. I would, almost but not entirely 100% jokingly, suggest that the productivity drain from Acorn developers all getting hooked on Elite might also be a very (very, very) small factor in Acorn’s demise. Elite addiction ripped through Cherry Hinton when it first came out.

[@ShinoSarna]

I've been subscribed to you from since before you made The Change, and I always meant to eventually watch your videos, as I like deep dive content and tech stuff. But this is the first of your new videos I did actually watch and I like it a lot! Consider me a new fan to the new version of your channel.

[@LowSpecGamer]

I like "The Change" with capital letters. I am going to start calling it that way.

[@sandman94]

What an epic story. As always very well put together and informative. Thank you.

[@hz8711]

Man, what a production! I love it! Thank you for doing it!!

[@gasun1274]

really shows how many things we take for granted are in the hands of very few people

[@trucksarenoisy]

NEW VIDEO!! These are some of the best vidd on the platform

[@dahyuniedubu6346]

Hello, LowSpecGamer! You know what, I randomly remembered your channel name while doing schoolwork. I just want to thank you for all the things you have done in the gaming community, especially to those who loved to game on their potato laptops or low-end PCs (I am one of them! I have finished the some of the arkham games and borderland games on a Toshiba Satellite C75D - during the windows 8 era). I have my own PC now (I fumbled and built it last year!) but you have helped me tons during my teenage years playing the arkham and borderland games (rummaging around .ini files and turning TRUE and 1 values to FALSE and 0. Mannnn, the nostalgia hit hard. Now, I can run the games you've helped me "low-specc'ing" back then at the best graphics settings they can offer! I was kinda shocked of the change in content, but with the others, we've got your back like you've had ours back in the days. Again, I can't thank you enough. I wish you well in all your endeavors!

[@gohachi5313]

Really informative and entertaining video. Being a new Cambridge resident, I can appreciate my new home even more. Keep up the great work!

[@Anonymous-qb4vc]

People don't recognize and appreciate people behind many of these incredible technologies enough that made our modern world possible.

[@callmetatan]

These videos make me feel like anything is possible.

[@benruniko]

Discovering that your cpu is running on signal power alone would have been mind blowing!!! Amazing :) going to go watch the nebula part next. Cheers!

[@Anonymous-qb4vc]

I like how you embed these animated story characters making your videos so special and fun to watch.

[@steffennilsen2132]

It's fascinating how interconnected these stories and persons of interest are

[@acmenipponair]

You must imagine this: The fact that we all have handheld devices nowadays in our hands is due to some nerds in Cambridge that wanted to show the former boss of their boss that they can do computers better. I wonder if we would without Acorn would be where we are now, because I don't think Intel would have been able to come up with a good processor architecture for small devices that is cost- and energyefficient and Motorola was already on their way out in the 1990s.

[@philtkaswahl2124]

It's interesting how those early computers had their chips laid out in neat little rows on the PCB and compare how that layout wildly evolved over the decades.

[@shapshooter7769]

Crosstalk and EM is a big part of why they're basically discouraged.

[@WJV9]

I remember seeing a few ads (in the USA) for Acorn computers in mid 1980's but the PC soon swamped out Apple IIe and all other home computers. The ARM chips were a great idea and finally came into their own on portable devices like the iPhone, etc. Great video, reminds me of Woz writing the Disk Operating System for the Apple II over the weekend to show at the Las Vegas trade show. He also had to design and wire the disk interface board since the Apple II only had a cassette interface at that time. That's another great story of innovative design under a time crunch.

[@baumkuchen6543]

Beautiful video and the animations are just amazing. I definitely recommend nebula for the full interview.

[@5nowChain5]

Those guys were not amateurs. The crowd those people worked in were highly educated professional engineers.

[@calamity3457]

These more educational videos have been pretty amazing so far, keep it up! Also, my university uses ARM for its computer engineering course, and it is safe to say that ARM is the future. Extremely powerful yet efficient processors should be the future in my opinion, which ARM is doing.

[@Adam-bf9zz]

RISC-V seems more promising for the future. More free instructions sets will probably allow more research + things like Intel's x86 licensing or the fear of ARM acquisition won't be possibilities.

[@alexstone691]

As some people already pointed out a single company owns ARM, so no i would not want that future

[@rufioh]

The voices you got for this are brilliant

[@kildogery]

Absolutely love these videos. Great work dude.

[@tinyfluffs]

Yet another high quality mini documentary, thank you! I love these

[@stevenclark2188]

I respect the ARM instruction set, it's got something like half the registers of MIPS, but that's one more bit for each operand that can be used for more opcodes instead. It's seems like the right balance.

[@nezbrun872]

I do MIPS and ARM (Cortex M) too, in assembler when necessary for the odd pinch point: my line of work is embedded DSP for RF systems. I agree that the relatively small number of registers on ARM can certainly become a bottleneck when you're trying to do an algorithm in-register to minimise load & store operations.

[@jgharston]

And yet when you look at the ARM64 instruction set, it's as though they saw the i86 and thought "hold my beer..."

[@MoatenGat]

This was absolutely fantastic. Great Job. Just mind blowing what they did.

[@Dash64_png]

Glad to see you back Alex! Awesome video.

[@mrmimeisfunny]

I already said it before. But I would absolutely love to see a video about the 90s Famiclone revolution in the Second and Third world. Really fits the theme of using cheap hardware and skilled devs to make a gaming icon. Though it sounds a bit research heavy considering it happened semi independently and slightly differently in every country. I mean, you grew up in Venezuela right? A bit of googling shows there was a Venezuelan Famiclone. I assume you know about it considering I know about the Israeli Famiclone (nicknamed Megason after the name of the importer) despite being born a decade late for famiclones.

[@alexandredevert4935]

The first time I saw an Archimedes, back in the late 90s, my mind was blown. It could run things much more recent, much more expensive computers could barely run. Yet it was very obscure.

[@roytofilovski9530]

Late 90s?

[@CassandraCarter]

Whoo! So glad to see another video! These always are amazing.

[@zacharywong483]

Fantastic video, as always! Your visuals are so impressive!

[@mudi2000a]

I still remember when the Acorn Archimedes was released (which is probably covered in the next episode). And then I was disappointed it never took off back then. I thought it could become like the next Amiga. Also I remembered DEC ( when they were not yet Compaq/HP) were also playing around with it (StrongARM), probably for a thin client or set top box. I think they totally deserve the success that now ARM has become the core of incredibly powerful and efficient processors like the Apple M series.

[@Underestimated37]

The archimedes was doing true 3D well before other computers were capable of it

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

@@Underestimated37 Oh, there were Silicon Graphics workstations, and other brands, doing real-time 3D from the early 1980s. With custom hardware. At great cost. The Archimedes was able to manage it just on the CPU.

[@Underestimated37]

@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 yeah I left out the words consumer computer

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

@@Underestimated37 There's true real time 3d on weaker hardware like the Amiga, ST. and even the ZX Spectrum. Granted, 8-bit 3d is usually more impressive than playable, and even ST/Amiga 3D is really compromised (No Second Prize is the limit of what you can get at a solid frame rate, though Hunter has its charms), but yeah, the Archimedes was the first western computer to make it a viable potential alternative to 2d. Still, it wouldn't be until the mid-90's that the potential was really realized, and you had the power to execute a 3d version of every 2d game. And it was still a questionable goal until the late 90's, early 2000's.

[@darkroronoa]

14:08 smol mistake, its 1985 not 1995 (subs say 1995, audio is not super clear)

[@ELSTERLING]

Every video draws me in utterly, you do great work.

[@ifdsisd_okay]

These videos are criminally under viewed, keep up the good work

[@pseudotasuki]

I hope you do a video about how the Newton played a part in bringing high-performance ARM CPUs to portable devices.

[@pseudotasuki]

Or really… how the Newton saved ARM from being forgotten before it ever really got on its feet.

[@LowSpecGamer]

That is all part 2

[@volo870]

There are several mistakes in the video: 1. I am not sure that that Acorn hired exactly _Sophie_ Wilson, hence certain inaccuracy in dubbing. Hermann Hauser still can't get his head around the transition! 2. The multiprocessor architecture of the Beeb was planned from the beginning, as several factors were in favor of that: (a) the architecture was originally built as a multi-processor system to power gambling machines (a very shady but lucrative deal with local mafia); and (b) when accepting Acorn's bid, BBC insisted that Z80 expansion is a must. 3. The Z80 expansion was actually sold, capable of running CP/M 2.2. 4. ARM expansion of the Beeb was not really available to the market. It was more of an early devkit for Archimedes software developers.

[@LowSpecGamer]

1. It is generally considered in bad taste to deadname people, so we tried being tasteful on that. 2. This actually unclear. Some interviews point at the fruit machine as creating some of the ideas for the multiprocessor design, some point at Sophie coming with the idea along with the Tube connector. The exact genesis of the dual processor design is probably one of those ideas that came from many small elements. I would be interested if you have a source on BBC requiring the Z80 module because that I never read anywhere. 3. I know! Several other processors in fact. It was just not relevant to the ARM story. 4. Correct as far as I understand, but this video finishes at first prototype. What happened when they tried to commercialize is a topic for the next.

[@BlenderHelixAlpha]

AWESOME video, Lowspec!!

[@Leymora]

I've been on KZbin since 2009 and I just want to say that your videos are easily some of the best I've ever seen on this platform 🔥🔥❤️❤️

[@kaitlyn__L]

I was unconsciously tensing about how Sophie Wilson would be handled, especially since Micro Men went the other way (she had a cameo but I don’t know if she had any influence on the rest) and I know Furber had said Sophie in the present but (redacted) about the past. I mean, I would hope that was with her blessing, but it is certainly a more old fashioned thing among trans people. So props for how you handled it, I assume you had Abigail’s input as well as her voice! I hadn’t realised the “sell first” part came from Clive but it makes total sense. ARM is indeed very cool. The last time I saw Furber talk about this was before Apple made all their computers use ARM. Can’t say I’m surprised he brought it up now though lol

[@nezbrun872]

I guess it depends whether or not historical accuracy is important to you: I worked with a handful of Acorn employees in the early- to mid-80s. Personally, I did prefer the Micro Men portrayal of Wilson bearing in mind the timeframe under analysis both in that documentary and in this video. I assumed the choice here was to avoid unnecessary confusion later on when Steve Furber is interviewed, and his comments on Wilson. Early on in the video it was a significant discontinuity for me, but then I already had some knowledge. An individual's gender is actually irrelevant to the story itself, but I am sure that someone will find a way to use it to promote an agenda. The work both Furber and Wilson achieved on ARM creation and development is testament to their brilliance. For their achievements to be still so relevant today is testament to that. It is also especially gratifying considering the diminutive size of Acorn when this originally happened. Just my thoughts.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@nezbrun872 that’s one reason I’d really like to know if the “man back then, woman since” way of speaking is personally preferred (or at least endorsed) by her or not. It’s a thing people can be very different about, I go back and forth on it for myself. I understand that there’s the element of “what did people say back then?”, and frankly the portrayal in Micro Men is clearly that of an “egg” (trans but unaware) anyway! (Plus there’s plenty of other embellishments in that production, so it’s a sliding scale really.) I also suspect they just didn’t want to take up valuable time (these videos being short) on what is as you say irrelevant to the rest. So this way is the safest option, for a few reasons, to just pick one name.

[@LowSpecGamer]

The questions I was making while writing the script were: “How do we portray her in a way that is respectful both to her and to trans viewers?” And a lot of thought went into implementing the video around those two questions. Our Artist came up with an androgynous design that I think worked well and I made sure she was referred by just last name on all in story dialog. It is a hard needle to thread, but we did our best. The original script of the video did had a bit more of a more direct cal to our decision of calling her by her name, but I removed it while editing because I did not want to derail the focus away from her absolutely incredible technical achievements which should be the center of this story. I hope it was the right call.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@LowSpecGamer this is pretty much what I thought (indeed when I first saw her design that’s what really piqued my interest in how the voiceover would handle it); and I think you threaded the needle very well (especially given the runtime considerations)!

[@thamessinclair2010]

@@LowSpecGamer Everything told in the video happened before her gender change. It would have been simply accurate to show this person the way she was and was called back then, taking the focus away from the actual topic even less. It's not disrespectful to portray history the way it was. You are not revealing any private secrets.

[@DroidTSK]

I'm watching this from an ARM device

[@stephanschamp6473]

Hey! So am I..

[@hectorae86]

I am watching this on a HAND device

[@zM-mc2tf]

I am truly enjoying your content more and more, thanks, and Zbogom.

[@UncleWalter1]

Love that you got Abigail on as Sophie. Interesting Acorn never hit the US market. Here in Australia, I remember using an Acorn a few times as a kid in the 90s.

[@flexxx222]

So you could call them ARMateurs. Missed opportunity here man. Great Video nonetheless. Your Channel took an interesting turn since you moved to this more journalistic approach. Good Stuff!

[@catriona_drummond]

No idea why he called the amateurs in the first place.

[@gerardotejada2531]

Sophie is the besto waifu, everything from the Iphone to the Nintendo Switch works on ARM, many think ARM will make everything else (aka RISC) obsolete

[@pendragonscode]

I like how you chose to cover this topic, very interesting indeed. I was kinda shocked by the info online.

[@SebastianWeinberg]

My first desktop computer was an Acorn A5000, followed later by an Acorn RiscPC. It was _so_ difficult and inconvenient to get your hands on an Acorn computer outside the U.K. The company really marketed itself out of existence with its decisions there. I fondly remember the times when Acorn's RISC OS was still miles ahead of the competition, rather than limping far behind, trying to catch up. Sometimes I still dream of a world where Acorn's computers and OS received the same (well-deserved) success as their chips, rather than languishing in obscurity.

[@Robinthefox88]

I know English is a horrible language with rules that make absolutely no sense, so I completely understand why you pronounced Cambridge as "Camm-bridge" but for future reference it's pronounced "Came-bridge" as in, I came to work driving over a bridge. :) Excellent video though about another of my favourite stories, especially with the leakage current powering the chip.

[@CCaribou]

'is a horrible language with rules that make absolutely no sense,' This is true of all languages tbh.

[@slamshift6927]

ARM was even used in the GBA!

[@LowSpecGamer]

Big plot point on part 2!

[@Mr_G977]

As I worked, at the time, for the Ministry of Defence UK, I was one of the earliest users to try out the first ARM chip pre-production as a second processor with a BBC Master. Steve and Sophie both understood that who ever produced the most Mips (Millions of instructions per second) per mA of current could win the race for mobile computing where power consumption is critical. Part of the genius and forward thinking was to use the 6502 CPU as the first processor but place it in an architecture that could leap frog the then emerging 16 bit computing with a 32 bit capable address space and networking with a second processor.

[@thebets457]

So glad i have Nebula - Interested in learning more about this part of history.

[@macosm7818]

RISC-V is the future.