Editing Acorn Archimedes A440 (section)

== Market Position and Reception ==

The Archimedes was officially launched in the week of June 19, 1987, with Acorn claiming the four MIPS ARM RISC machines were the fastest microcomputers in the world . The Archimedes achieved the significant milestone of being the first commercially-available RISC-based machines ever .

The ARM2 processed about 3x as many instructions per clock cycle as the Intel 80386 and 40% more per clock cycle than the Motorola 68030 . However, the Macintosh had been on the market since January 1984, the Atari ST since June 1985, and the Amiga since July 1985, giving them a 2-3 year head start .