Dr Hermann Hauser, who was the co-founder of Acorn Computers Plc and helped develop the BBC Micro is to launch his planned A4-sized computer through his current Cambridge-based Active Book Company Ltd, at the end of the year (CI No 1,213). To achieve this goal Active Book has signed an agreement with Acorn giving it access to the Acorn RISC Machine design as a standard cell, and to the Acorn RISC operating system. Hauser is including ARM in his custom design chip Hercules which uses super-integration techniques to produce a multi-function chip. Claiming to be ahead of both Japanese developments and Intel in chip design, Hauser says that his Hercules array will include a video controller, memory management and direct memory access with the RISC CPU. The chip will be produced next month on target for the manufacture of the Active Book Computer by year end. The computer will not have a keyboard – users will point and write to use its features.
