Acorn Atom

The Acorn Atom was created in 1979 as a lower-cost version of Acorn's "System" range of computers. Instead of professional customers, it was aimed at hobbyists and home users, and could be bought as a self-assembly kit or preassembled. 

The case design gives a preview of the BBC Micro (1981), the Atom BASIC has some similarities with BBC BASIC. 

The museum's Atom is an Issue 4 (in practice all Atoms are either Issue 4 or Issue 5). It appears to have been factory-made rather than as a kit. It is in unmodified condition except the memory has been expanded from the bare minimum of 3.5K originally supplied, up to 5.5K. It has also been switched to run from a 5V supply. It works, but we don't have any software for it.