Editing Acorn A5000 Maintenance Guide (section)

== The machine ==

The A5000 was Acorn's mid-range ARM3 machine, an offshoot of the [[Acorn A4]] portable project. It introduced several changes over the earlier Archimedes and A3000: a 15-pin VGA monitor connector (replacing the 9-pin RGB), a PC-standard serial port (replacing RS423), a bidirectional parallel port, a high-density floppy (the Acorn 1.6&nbsp;MB F format, plus MS-DOS 1.44&nbsp;MB), and an on-board IDE controller (replacing the ST506/MFM interface). It was the first Acorn computer to ship with RISC OS 3.<ref name="chris">Whytehead, Chris. [https://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org.uk/Computers/A5000.html "Acorn A5000"], Chris's Acorns / The Centre for Computing History. Source for the feature changes, the model list (ALB10&ndash;ALB55, ALC10/20), the RISC OS 3.00 ADFSBuffers bug, the 25/33&nbsp;MHz (Alpha) split, the board part numbers (0192,100; 0192,420), VIDC1a (VL2303A), the battery pack, and the motherboard photographs.</ref>

<templatestyles src="Template:StyledTable/styles.css" />
{| class="wikitable styled-table" style="width:90%; text-align:center;"
|+'''Acorn A5000 key facts'''
! Item !! Detail
|-
| Processor || ARM3 @ 25&nbsp;MHz (4&nbsp;KB cache); 33&nbsp;MHz on the 1993 "Alpha"
|-
| Support chips || MEMC1a, VIDC1a (VL2303A), IOC
|-
| RAM || 2&nbsp;MB or 4&nbsp;MB (one MEMC1a addresses 4&nbsp;MB; 8&nbsp;MB needs a second MEMC1a, Alpha only)
|-
| ROM || RISC OS 3 (2&nbsp;MB; four ROMs + an unused fifth socket)
|-
| Storage || HD floppy (1.6&nbsp;MB) + on-board IDE hard disc
|-
| I/O || PC-style Super I/O (IDE, floppy, serial, parallel); 15-pin VGA; bidirectional parallel
|-
| Expansion || 4-podule backplane (0192,004)
|-
| Option || FPA10 floating-point accelerator (socketed, near the battery)
|-
| PSU || internal fan-cooled mains switch-mode module
|}