BBC goes to the USA

Acorn Computers is gearing up to launch a major attack on the American educational computing market.Hong Kong company Wong Electronics has been commissioned to produce 50,000 BBC micros specially for the US market over the next 12 months.The machines are being produced in Hong Kong partly because there isn’t enough production capacity in the UK, and partly because Hong Kong is handier for export to the US.

According to Acorn, the micros Wong produces will he “beefed up”, full-specification models complete with interfaces for disk drive, voice synthesis and connection to the Econet network.
They will come with two sets of teacher training notes, and will be priced at $995.

In addition, Acorn is setting up a panel of American education experts to keep an eye on all educational software being written for the BBC micro in the US.

The panel will promote the best programs, and encourage companies to write software to fill perceived gaps in the market.

The first micro will be shipped from Hong Kong to the US this month. They will be aimed mainly at schools, but an Acorn spokesman said “We’re obviously hoping they will be bought for home use, too.”

Like Sinclair, Acorn is also looking into the possibilities of selling the BBC micro in China.
Wong Electronics is negotiating on Acorn’s behalf with the Chinese government, which currently has a number of BBC machines for evaluation.