also experiencing "apparently random faults" with the hardware and systems software that impacted the project for 15 months. Acorn's earlier positioning of this system as a CAD workstation failed to keep up with user expectations, with the BBC Micro architecture offering an insufficiently high screen resolution and with the system not being provided with mouse or trackball, these contributing to perceptions of it being "less than ideal for Computer Aided Design". ABC 300 1024 KB RAM Twin 720 KB floppy disk drives 80286 processor (6502 acting as I/O processor) Concurrent DOS 286 with Desktop Manager (GEM GUI) available separately Monochrome monitor Announced price: £2599 plus VAT Some confusion arose when the range was first shown, with commentators given the impression that the graphical environment had been developed by Acorn. It was subsequently noted that Acorn and Digital Research had apparently conspired to leave such an impression because the Digital Research product itself was still "secret at the time Acorn decided to show it". Although impressed by the potential of the machine, offering support for running four applications concurrently, including traditional DOS applications, by using the protected mode of the 80286 and relying on the "host" 6502 at the core of the ABC architecture to handle the display needs of each application, skepticism was expressed at Acorn's likely pricing and the company's ability to deliver the product by a rumoured release date of March 1985. ABC 310 1024 KB RAM 720 KB floppy disk drive 10 Megabyte hard disk 80286 processor (6502 acting as I/O processor) Concurrent DOS 286 with Desktop Manager (GEM GUI) supplied Colour monitor Announced price: £3999 plus VAT Legacy Although most of the ABC models failed to reach the market in their original form, particularly after Olivetti's rescue of Acorn, several of the concepts were revisited in the BBC Master series of microcomputers. Like the ABC Personal Assistant, the Master 128 offers more memory than the original BBC Micro and includes the View and ViewSheet productivity software on board. The Master Econet Terminal, like the ABC Terminal, emphasises network access and a lack of on-board software and local storage. Meanwhile, the Master Scientific was intended to offer some continuity with the 32016-based second processor solution provided by the Acorn Cambridge Workstation, and the Master 512 offers a 80186-based second processor with DOS Plus and GEM support, thus resembling the ABC 300 series in particular ways. However, none